Well, what do you mean by a 3d map?  Is it going to be in the shape of a globe or is it going to be a flat surface with raised pieces to show places?

perhaps chicken wire would be a bit clumsy for a relatively small area.  You might try scrunched up pieces of paper to create the elevations, or layers of corrugated card, each one smaller than the one below.  Once you lay your paper laminate over it, it will be quite strong and look realistic.
DavidO

I believe Lapland is the northern part of Norway and Sweden, esp the part that is above the Arctic Circle.

Crumpled paper, as David suggested, or bent cardboard, or crumpled aluminum foil might also give more dimension without being as difficult to handle as chicken wire.  Within a frame of that large size, the 5,000-6,000-ft mountains shouldn't require too much actual height.

Sue

Some members of a class I teach made a 3d map last year. We used sheet polystyrene and papier mache. We worked out that the depth of the polystyrene sheets could represent 10m of height, then worked out the width and length of the model from that. We traced contour lines onto polystyrene and cut it out (you can do this with a new, very sharp craft knife with the blade out long enough to go through the polystyrene.) We carved away the top sharp edge then stacked the sheets and glued them together. We then added egg-box papiermache to fill in the approximate shape and did finer adjustments with tissue paper papier mache. It was then painted with ordinary classroom readymix paints.
If you are doing a big area (ie lapland) you may find that the mountains etc are so subtle that they don't look as mountainous as they should, and you might find that you need to cheat by using a different height scale than area scale