Dashing through THE SNOW

Lotti Papastavrou Brooks lives and breathes all things reindeer

- KARA O'NEILL

Set within the stunning backdrop of the Cairngorm mountain range in Aviemore, Scotland, is a little sanctuary for the most stunning and impressive of animals.

Well, little is probably not the right word, since the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre spans more than 1,200 acres of hilly terrain and paddocks.

It’s where Lotti Papastavrou Brooks, 23, both lives and works, after falling in love with reindeer when she was just a teenager.

‘I was 14 when I volunteered at the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre for the first time,’ she explains. ‘My dad was a friend of the woman who runs the place, and I spent my summers during high school lending my services to them.

‘I had such an amazing time that, when I got home to Bristol after a month, I told my parents it was where I wanted to work one day.’

And that’s exactly what she went on to do.

When Lotti graduated from university, she got a full-time position at the Cairngorm Reindeer Centre as a herder, and has never looked back.

The centre itself has an amazing history.

Once upon a time, reindeer were native to Scotland, but they died out about 1,000 years ago.

There has been much climate change since then, but the unique subarctic qualities of the Cairngorms still provides a perfect home for reindeer – in fact, this is the only place left in the UK able to support such an animal.