I must have taken about 500 pictures of reindeer on our trip. On our second day in Lapland, we went to a Reindeer Corral and there were a lot of reindeer we could pet and feed. I don’t think I have ever seen these animals before and it was so cool to see them up close. There were some cute little babies, some ‘holy’ white ones and one that was a tad aggressive and tried to steal my scarf…

The people that live in Lapland are called the Sami and they are the official owners of the reindeer. They are wild animals, but they do have trackers so the Sami can always know where they are. The reindeer corral we went to, is a place the reindeer can go if they want a bit more food in the winter. They can come and go as they please. And I figured they must want some extra food, because there were a lot of them.

The reindeer are actually a lot smaller then I thought, and though they are wild animals, they’re not afraid of humans. Most of them came really close to get some food. Some of them even ate out of our hands!

Most of the reindeer are brown, but some are white. They are considered to be somewhat holy. It is said that they accompany the souls of the departed Sami in their way to the afterlife.

Baby reindeer! This one was really cute, and as you can see, it doesn’t have antlers yet. This is how you can see that it’s very young.

It was such an amazing experience to feed the reindeer. One of them was hungry, or just rude, and he kept coming back for more food, shoving his whole head inside the bucket where the food was. His antlers even got caught in my scarf, which was really funny. I’ll put a video (we actually got in on tape!) on my instagram feed. Check it out if you like (@wanderlust.wonderland).