Svappavaara is a small Swedish mining town located above the Arctic Circle. Here, in the 1960s, Ralph Erskine had the opportunity to apply a scheme for a model Arctic town that he presented at CIAM'59. The concept for adapting modern housing, and commercial and community uses, to the harsh subarctic climate, envisaged a south facing town, to maximise exposure to the sun. A sequence of wall buildings on the northern outskirts of the town shielded northern winds. The only parts of Erskine's ambitious plan that he designed and that materialised were the 197 metres long wall building known as Ormen Långe (the Long Snake) and some smaller single-family houses. Focusing on the history of the apartment block, Ormen Långe, this paper will show the tensions and struggles between a modern architectural utopia and a local peripheral context. The shrinking population, together with a low appreciation and problematic maintenance, led to premature obsolescence of the building and half of it being demolished in 2010. Since then, new users have appeared on the scene. Following the refugee crisis, a number of immigrants from all over the world moved to and are now living in Svappavaara, including Ormen Långe. Even in its current mutilated condition, Ormen Långe is still a precious surviving element of Erskine's legacy in the northernmost part of Sweden. © of the edition, docomomo International © of the images, their authors and © of the texts, their authors.