I never dreamed that one day I would live in Lapland, the traditional home of Santa Claus; but in 1999 I accepted a three-year contract as Professor in International Contemporary Art to teach at Umeå University in northern Sweden. Lapland (or Sàpmi) extends across northern Sweden, Finland, Norway, and the Kola Peninsula in Russia. It is the homeland of the Lapps, more correctly called the Saami. In Lapland, I regularly wore a fur-trimmed coat while travelling through the snow in the Arctic wilderness by way of a reindeer sleigh. I frequently dined on huge reindeer steaks and, like Santa, I became rounder and jollier while my beard turned hoarier with each passing day.

When I first arrived in the Land of Hoarfrost, I was puzzled by the enigmatic heraldic symbol of Lapland, the Wildman, a hairy, reddish, bestial character dressed in leaves, wielding a gnarled club.