[Early excavations suggest that this part of Lapland was inhabited as long as 11,300 years ago by the native ancestors of the Sami indigenous people, who still herd reindeer and eke out a living in the northernmost parts of Finland. Today, Yllas (pronounced OO-lahs) is a winter paradise for cross-country skiers and other outdoor enthusiasts, with over 200 miles of ski tracks, dozens of wilderness huts (some with saunas) and uninterrupted stretches of fells, frozen wetlands and dense spruce and birch forests. From herding reindeer to raising and racing huskies, many of the few people who live here work in tourist-related industries.]
By Russ Juskalian
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Russ Juskalian for The New York Times
The northern lights above Finnish Lapland.
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“LADIES and gentlemen, the northern lights are on,” announced a member of our group,
breaking the predinner weariness. It had been another long day of cross-country
skiing, but his message spurred us to action. In a flash, the cabin was filled
with the sound of crinkling jackets and snow pants; a few minutes later, Arctic
air was blasting across our faces.
As I made my way across
the snow, I craned my head skyward. Streaks of green plasma arced beyond
silhouettes of slender pines. The effect was something like the swirls of
phosphorescent plankton magnified a billion times. When I wandered back to our
cabin hours later — after bumping into a pair of aurora borealis-hunting Finns
in the woods who offered swigs of coffee liquor — I nearly stumbled into a reindeer.
Such is the magic of
Finnish Lapland, a 38,000-square-mile region of dense pine forests, lakes and
bald mountains.
There were seven of us
on this weeklong trip last February in the small town of Akaslompolo, about 95
miles north of the Arctic Circle. My friend Iina, a Finn, and our de facto
guide, had sold us on the idea of renting a log cabin, with tales of dancing
skies, burning saunas and the likelihood that “you’ll become infected with
Lapland madness, which makes you return again and again.”
The madness began on our
way there, with a 13-hour, 600-mile overnight train ride on the Aurora Borealis
Express — starting in Helsinki and skirting the Swedish border past the Gulf of
Bothnia — to Kolari, the northernmost passenger train station in Finland. And
it was aided by cases of cheap Estonian booze, courtesy of Iina’s father.
Though we had three train compartments among us, we all squeezed into one for a
few hours, drinking, joking about what we’d just gotten ourselves into and
watching a blur of pure-white landscape slip by outside the windows.
From the Kolari station
— tepee-shaped like a traditional Lapland hut and surrounded only by trees and
snow — it would take less than an hour by bus to get to the twin villages of
Akaslompolo and Yllasjarvi (combined population around 600), on Yllas, a
smooth, treeless mountain known as an Arctic fell.
Early excavations
suggest that this part of Lapland was inhabited as long as 11,300 years ago by
the native ancestors of the Sami indigenous people, who still herd reindeer and
eke out a living in the northernmost parts of Finland. Today, Yllas (pronounced
OO-lahs) is a winter paradise for cross-country skiers and other outdoor
enthusiasts, with over 200 miles of ski tracks, dozens of wilderness huts (some
with saunas) and uninterrupted stretches of fells, frozen wetlands and dense
spruce and birch forests. From herding reindeer to raising and racing huskies,
many of the few people who live here work in tourist-related industries.
The first thing I
noticed about Lapland was the light, in pastels of greens, blues, pinks and
purples. The sun, which never ventures far above the skyline in the spring or
fall and doesn’t even breach the horizon for a brief period in the dead of
winter, casts long morning and afternoon light all day.
Our wood-framed
two-level cabin was one of about two dozen on a small dead-end street leading
into the forest. Like many, it was part of a time share whose owners made it
available for rent. On our first afternoon in Akaslompolo, we strapped on narrow
skis and took the short path from our cabin, through the trees, to the closest
ski track. It wasn’t yet 4 p.m., but the blue and yellow of midday had given
way to purples. Iina provided basic lessons in cross-country technique —
something every Finn, it seems, is born an expert at — while the rest of us
marveled more at the surroundings than the instructions.
The distracting beauty
of the place was a recreational hazard. I kept expecting Santa, or a yeti, to
emerge from the snow-blanketed forest. Perhaps it was my lack of focus during
our short training session, or my continually drifting gaze to the blue-black
sky overhead as it transitioned through layers of green to a blood-red horizon,
but after a two-mile climb up a lighted ski track, I aimed back down the hill
and bit it. Hard. The cartwheeling fall became my first, painful, souvenir from
Lapland.
The consolation was our
cabin’s sauna: after stripping off our ski gear — and then our clothes, in line
with custom — the women, then the men, took their turn in the small,
wood-paneled sauna. With two benches, a small window onto the woods and a stove
on which to pour water for steam — the sauna was a tonic for sore muscles.
Lapland isn’t only about
skiing and sky watching. On one particularly cold morning — the mercury outside
the window registered 15 degrees — four of us visited a husky racing center on
the outskirts of town.
“If you step off the
sled for a second,” said Mikka, our Swedish guide-cum-mountain man — his
scraggly blond beard, wide cheekbones and squint placing him somewhere on the
Scandinavian Viking-gnome continuum — “the dogs will take off and leave you.
They want to run.”
Otherwise, the
instructions were simple: stand on the sled’s rear runners, and mind the brake.
Each pair was given a sled,
a six-pack of Alaskan huskies (leaner but faster than their Siberian relatives)
and a stoic nod of encouragement. In the United States, I surely would have
signed liability waivers, taken a premushing written test and filled out
medical emergency forms. But here a worker simply untied the rope anchoring my
sled, and the dogs rocketed forward. The lead dogs, Igor and Ben —
predominately white, pale-blue eyed, and thinner than I had imagined — dropped
their heads, and pointed straight. “Those are two of our smartest lead dogs,”
Mikka told me afterward. “We use them for racing.”
We passed through frozen
marshland, pristine with untracked snow, then a dense spruce forest, followed
by a hardscrabble landscape, a cross between Arctic taiga and alpine tundra.
All the while, a bright blue sky, yellow light and wispy clouds hung overhead.
The dogs were silent and
stopped for nothing. When thirsty, they funneled snow into their mouths
midstride. They seemed irritated only when we stopped for too long. A few seconds
of rest transformed the air into dense steam billowing from the mouths of the
dogs. Stopping longer resulted in an eruption of howls and barks and full-bore
attempts to pull the sled.
After a couple of hours
out we returned to the racing center to pet, cuddle and get to know the dogs.
One of the women in our group made a canine friend, the two of them huddled up
on the snow together like old companions.
Night life in Yllas was
countrified and slow — one might even say Arctic. There isn’t much of a town, really,
just a supermarket, cabins and a few shops on a couple of otherwise empty
streets. The bars, small, dark, and very neighborhood sports-pub-style, were,
like everything else, accessible on skis. The clientele was a mix of locals and
confused-looking tourists, particularly at one of the karaoke bars, where we
caught a Finnish chanteuse belting out the classic Finnish ballad “Aikuinen
Nainen” (“Adult Woman”).
One night, we had dinner
at Humina, a rustic place where we could sample a true Lapland specialty:
reindeer. Chipped, and sautéed in butter, the rich, gamy meat was served in a
crater of mashed potatoes, with lingonberry preserve. The general, post-meal
consensus was that while Rudolph may have done fine guiding Santa’s sleigh, he
shined brightest on the plate.
ON what may have been
the coldest night of our visit, all seven of us trekked through the dark to the
edge of Akas Lake, a flat white expanse — the ice was covered by snow. There, a
bundled-up man greeted us at the steps of a small shack that puffed smoke into
the moonlit air.
The whole point of the
exercise that came next was to laze in a 212-degree sauna until nearly
overheated, then scuttle outside down a slippery gangway, descend a set of icy
steps and plunge through a hole cut in the yard-thick into nearly freezing
water.
We entered the hut,
which had one changing room with a wood fireplace, and a larger sauna room.
Then we set about roasting ourselves, ice-hole bathing, roasting and
snow-angel-making in a cycle of extreme temperature change that Finns, and some
controlled studies, say is good for the health.
Sitting in a bar that
night, one of the men in our group remarked, “This whole country is about being
either too hot or too cold.”
The next night, whole
swaths of the sky danced with brilliant greens, purples and reds. Inside the
curving, billowing, twisting streaks, the action was psychedelic. Tiny ripples,
hundreds in parallel, danced like the light of a plasma lamp but with more variations
of color and movement. What was green one second flashed to red, translucent
and miles long. A streak that ran from horizon to horizon might phase out, then
reappear at another location, or bend into the shape of an oxbow and spring
back.
Finnish legend says that
the lights are formed by a giant arctic fox running so quickly its tail sends
plumes of snow from the fells, glittering across the night sky. It’s an
unbelievable explanation for an unbelievable phenomenon that somehow smacks of
truth.
By the end of the trip,
the group showed symptoms of a successful adventure: sniffles, minor injuries,
exhaustion. Ahead, we knew, was a long journey home.
But just as the front
door of the cabin was locked, a reindeer came sauntering over. It watched us,
and we watched it. Its googly eyes were insectlike, and its furry feet had
sharp hooves for breaking through the snowpack.
When I held out my hand,
the reindeer nuzzled it.
A final dose of Lapland
magic.
ALL ABOARD THE AURORA
BOREALIS EXPRESS
There are two main ways
to get to Akaslompolo. Fly into Kittila Airport, and then catch a 50-minute
connecting bus. Or take an overnight train from Helsinki, which can be booked
online (vr.fi),
and catch a 30-minute connecting bus from the train station in Kolari.
WHAT TO DO
Everybody in town seems
to get around on cross-country skis, which can be rented from one of a couple
of shops near the town center for less than 100 euros, or $129 at $1.29 to the
euro, a week. Also nearby are a number of tour agencies, like Scandinavian
Adventures (Sivulantie 16, Akaslompolo; scandinavianadventures.fi),
that can arrange visits with reindeer farms, husky or reindeer sledding or
other activities.
WHERE TO STAY
There are plenty of
cabins, many with built-in saunas, to rent by the week. The best way to find
one for yourself is to book through Destination Lapland (358
-16-510 3300;destinationlapland.com),
which manages scores of cabins of various sizes that can sleep 4 to 16 people.
A week in a typical two-bedroom log cabin, with sauna, and beds for six adults,
runs around 900 to 1,200 euros.