In my middle school in Grafton, North Dakota I was in my Social Studies class and we were learning about this interesting place called Lapland. I was immediately interested since my last name is Lapp. When my teacher, Mr. Johnson, started talking about Lapland everyone immediately looked directly at me suspecting that I instinctively knew about this place. Unfortunately I had no idea it had even existed until then. However, I was curious if my heritage had anything to do with this frozen wasteland in Northern Sweden.
I went home that night and asked my father what exactly my heritage is. He told me German, Norwegian, SWEDISH, and maybe some Czech. Upon hearing that I was part Swedish I immediately wanted to know more about this Lapland. I have not found a great deal of information about this place. Even the great "Wikipedia" does not have it's usual wealth of information on any subject. It does say that Lapland (Lappland in Swedish) makes up almost a fourth of Sweden's landmass, it was originally populated by the Sami people, but they are no longer the majority and that they have an amazing flag(above) which should quite possibly be the recognized flag of all men. Another fact that I haven't seen anywhere else but my middle school class is that their most important celebration occurs around December. They have a large festival and the focal point of this festival is a great reindeer race. It is apparently similar to the Iditarod in the US. This interesting, but unknown place may have something to do with my heritage, but I may never know for certain.
