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Before we leave this primitive hearth, where blackened kettles stand on squared rocks placed about the fire, much as they would have been 200 years before, a cell phone trills. We all look at each other for the culprit, but it is Hannun himself who grins sheepishly, fishing the mobile from the depths of his reindeer skins. It was reindeers that we came here for, in the first place. Before our tepee experience, we had been treated to a sleigh ride, a quick circuit through the snowy fir wood, two at a time in a fur-lined leather-bottomed sleigh, thumping through the drifts, drawn by a furiously galloping reindeer. I was the first in there, and the reindeer was in frisky mood, possibly having spent long hours tethered. He tore through the trees in an unstoppable gallop until, finally tiring, he still had to be wrestled to a halt by the waiting Hannun. Up here in the Arctic Circle you tend to gravitate to groups. The tepee group began in the village, at the Yllas-Pailakat rental store, where we all climbed in to our padded snow suits, boots and crash helmets before setting off on a snowmobile safari, looking like spacemen on gleaming shuttlecraft. Over the Fells of Yllas we sped, among the snow-laden boughs of the fir wood and across frozen lakes before stopping for lunch - Cream of Reindeer soup and dark Finnish bread - at a stove-heated lodge. Then our jovial guide, Ari, showed us how to bore holes in the ice of the lake using a steel auger. Then how to lower a hook and line into the icy water, and to wait patiently for a perch or pike to bite, while reclining on a reindeer skin. Swaddled against the minus-ten temperature in a world of brilliant white and blue, a steely sun hovering above the horizon, it was a sublime way to spend and hour after lunch, before snowmobiling back to our hotel in Akaslompolo. Akaslompolo
– it’s a funny-sounding name, even in Finnish, or so they told me in Helsinki.
City dwellers are cracked up by it. “Akaslompolo – its so funny!”, they
would chortle. Akaslompolo is one of several scattered settlements geared
up for a whole range of winter sports, and for summer walking, cycling
and canoeing. In addition, they specialize in seasonal Santa specials (this
is where the Father Christmas comes from, after all) and, somewhat inexplicably,
jazz festivals. Akaslompolo and its neighbouring villages lie in the Fells
of Finnish Lapland, in the area known as Yllas where, in winter, the snow
is absolutely guaranteed.
Not just any old snow but dry, crystalline stuff that squeaks underfoot and does not turn to slush in your boots. Like the speedy reindeer (who scooped it into his gaping maw while still galloping) I sampled some Lapland snow. It was like a mouthful of frozen fur, and barely damp when melted. When the Arctic night falls, the people of Akaslompolo congregate in the wood panelled bar of Pub Humina, drink Koff beer and sing karaoke. Seven nights of the winter week, it’s the only show in town, so far as I can see. Aspiring singers (there is an endless procession of crooners) fill out a slip and wait for their number to come up. Crowded, noisy, a little smokey, it has something of the feel of a frontier saloon. I hope to meet Father Christmas off duty – after all, what does he do all year? Perhaps he is one of those bearded figures, a bit dishevelled, slumped at the bar, complaining about work. There are several who would fit the bill. In Akaslompolo there is always something to do. Today I joined a group to go snow shoeing among the hills and trees, to the steep and wooded places that skiers could not reach. Without our racket-like footwear we would have sunk to our waists in the soft snow, something which several of our group managed anyway. Our guide on this occasion was Mika, who revealed, while barbecuing sausages for us on an open fire, that his hobby was surfing. “My crazy friend”, he explained, “took out a subscription with Surfing World. I think we are the only subscribers this far north. You don’t get many big waves on the Baltic sea” I nodded saying yes, it’s a long way from Waikiki, then I mentioned to him that I had very much enjoyed the visit to Hannun’s reindeer ranch. “Did you get the fast reindeer?” he asked. “The brown one? That reindeer, he’s crazy. Knows only one thing, how to run. They can’t trust him on the long circuit, he doesn’t stop running.” Slicing through
the snow behind a team of panting, straining, yelping huskies - that’s
great fun, also. So is cross-country skiing, once you have grasped the
knack of it. (a winter sports first timer, I personally found the snow
shoes easier). There are 20 Kilometres of downhill ski runs available nearby;
there is swimming in frozen lakes and there are moonlight safaris. Then
there are the Northern Lights.
If traveling from Britain, an excellent company with which to arrange all your Finland needs is Inntravel, +1653 629010, www.inntravel.co.uk The following articles are Richard's previous articles for the magazine:
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Dodecanese
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