Northern exposure | 8 December 2016

In this season of watching and waiting as we approach Christmas and year’s end, radio has a precious role. At the switch of a button you can be taken straightaway into another kind of life, a different world, where present realities are not relevant or can at least be made to feel less imperative. While the screen can transport you to places you’ve never been, its visual escapism never quite overwhelms the imagination in the way that words, sound effects, music will do if subtly shaped into audio magic. Who needs images when in an instant you can be taken in your imagination to the wilds of northern Finland, crunching through the snow, wind whistling in the background, breath sharp on the lungs in the
freezing air?

In Burn Slush! on the World Service (catch it on iPlayer under The Documentary series), Cathy FitzGerald takes us on a sleigh ride through the night-time forest, beneath a sky studded with stars, the Northern Lights flickering in the distance.