Sometimes the town feels out of step with the rest of the world, and this is one of those times. It’s ‘Rautas Premiere’, a weekend when a kind of fish madness descends on the locals and they all drive off on their snow scooter to a distant river valley to camp out with friends in minus 10 degrees and talk fish. And because everyone’s fishing, everyone needs maggots.
This is a time it doesn’t matter if you earn lots of money, have a super-duper snow scooter, can afford to take lots of holidays and buy a new plasma TV. What matters is, do you have maggots?
Commodity stocks, iron ore and copper, fell to an all-time low this weekend while shares in maggots surged, sending shock waves through the market. Could maggots be the key to economic recovery?
They’re probably out there now, highwaymen, Kiruna-style, holding up vehicles with snow scooter trailers on the E10, the road out to Rautas, waving their fishing rods in their victims’ faces.
‘Your money or your maggots!’ they cry.
‘Nah – on second thoughts, you’re alright, just hand over the maggots…’
I must say it isn’t an issue that affects us particularly, but you can’t miss that there’s a local crisis.
‘Don’t worry!’ screams a local store’s advertisement, ‘we’ve got maggots!’
Well that’s a relief – we can all relax then. The restaurants, usually buzzing on a Friday night, are empty. Attractions for tourists are closed for the weekend. The road nearby is quiet, no-one roaring up the hill on a Saturday night. Generally it’s a good weekend to be in town. Unless you’re a maggot.
