Winter is coming. But despite the involuntary shiver this annual truth sends down our collective spines, I also see it as an opportunity. Namely, an opportunity to indulge my inner child (OK, drunk teenager) with a boys’ trip to Lapland in search of adventure, food and vodka in quite frankly obscene quantities.
My companions on this icy escapade are an eclectic, excitable bunch of professional drinkers – bar and restaurant owners, mixologists, Scots. Hell, the trip is even being sponsored by Finlandia vodka. I’m not expecting things to end well.
Finland’s northernmost region, Lapland, is a 40,000sq m wilderness of forests and lakes bordered by the equally snowy tundras of Norway, Sweden and Russia. Sparsely populated, spectacularly situated, it’s a giant playground where visitors can ski, snowmobile, reindeer ride, ice fish and hike to their heart’s content.
After a quick stopover in Helsinki our connecting flight takes us north into the Arctic Circle. Far below, the ground slowly transitions from myriad greens to a blanket of white – forests, fields and lakes all buried beneath a never-ending sea of untouched powder. Our destination is Kittilä, a remote resort town famed for hosting an annual slalom event on the Alpine World Cup and for recording the lowest temperature in Finland’s history – a brisk minus 51.5°C. I packed extra thermals just in case.
Our stay begins with a Lappish shaman ritual. Hunkered down around a crackling fire in a musty, smoky tent deep in the forest, we meet our shaman (who, he tells us, also doubles as Father Christmas for the kids, slightly ruining his credibility) grumbling rhythmically to the beat of his Sami drum. Soon, under the influence of the smoky atmosphere and our shaman’s oddly hypnotic mantra, we join in and get carried away in his stories of the region’s history and culture.
We emerge dazed, and wide-eyed. But the freezing air instantly snaps us back to reality and we pile into the van in search of our lodgings. Standing in slippers outside a gargantuan log cabin awaits our host Pecca, a bear of a man – huge, bearded, smiling. He’s Finland personified. We’re ushered into a wood-themed palace awash with animal skins, antler chandeliers and, at its centre, a colossal dining table. Everything here feels oversized, larger than life, built not just to withstand the elements but to thrive in them.
Over dinner Pecca talks about Lapland. He describes Kittilä and the surrounding areas, how people survive in the extreme dark winters and the endless daylight of summer. He tells us about the Sámi, the only indigenous people of Scandinavia and the northernmost in Europe, known worldwide as nomadic reindeer herders. A vodka tasting session follows where he tells us about the love affair between Finland and Finlandia thanks to the unique way it’s made – a process that could only happen here thanks to the midnight sun ripening the barley with 72 days of continuous sunlight, the six-row barley and unique untreated glacial spring water that combine to make the purest of spirits. The drinks continue to flow as Pecca also warns us not to overdo it – tomorrow we ride snowmobiles into the wilderness and will be subject to breathalyser tests before we can leave. As he talks someone hands me another shot.
Amazingly, it’s mostly green lights across the board for the morning booze test and soon we find ourselves climbing into survival suits (like Lappish onesies) and mounting our motorised red steeds for a day in the proverbial saddle. There are more than 750km of snowbombing trails at our disposal, and within minutes of cruising town streets we’re shooting down wild, winding trails through narrow forest-bound corridors and out onto the endless wide open plains.
It takes a while to get over how surreal an experience snowmobiling is. Our Lynx Adventure machines are light and agile enough to throw into turns with confidence, but there’s a terrifying wealth of power that’s only ever a flick of the thumb away. The snowmobile school has valiantly tried to install speed restrictors in the shape of rubber stoppers that hinder the movement of the thumb accelerator switch, but it doesn’t really take long to work out how to bypass this and open things up a little.
True to form the group’s obligatory Australian (owner of the London Cocktail Club bars) James whips past me with a cheeky overtake that flies in the face of our safety talk, and I curse his Aussie guile as I take a fan of snow spray to the face. His cackle of laughter only fuels my fire for revenge. I sneak past him not soon after to a snort of swearing, and so it continues for the morning as each of us battles for national pride. I make sure never to mention the rugby in our exchanges.
We're shooting down wild, winding trails and forest and out onto endless open plains
I’m brought to earth with a bump soon after when in front of me a snowmobile takes a corner too fast and wide, and launches into the air, landing upside down next to its dazed riders, Ross and Jonathan. They jump up, dust off, laugh at how close that was to something serious, and fire up the Lynx once more.
With any adventure it helps to have a destination. Ours was a makeshift clearing in the woods where we swapped Lynx for huskies and sled rode ever farther into the forest. The contrast between motorised mayhem and the whispering crunch of sled on snow was bewitching, and in no time we’re pulling up to wooden huts and the promise of a much-needed hot lunch. That is until we’re told we need to catch it as Pecca passes me a child-sized fishing rod and points down – I hadn’t even realised we were standing on a frozen lake.
An hour passes and we catch nothing. Stomachs rumbling we retire to nearby wood cabins where our lack of skills has been predicted and a hearty stew is bubbling away. Fuelled and warmed we head back to the snowmobiles and the rest of the day passes in a blur of snowy landscapes and near misses.
Dinner that night is a Lappish speciality – reindeer cooked every which way. Saamen Kammi is a local hotspot where diners balance on reindeer-skin stools and gorge buffet-style from a smorgasbord of many different reindeer recipes – stew, flame grilled, carpaccio and much more. Moodily lit and with several well-timed interludes from local Sámi musicians, it feels like our shaman’s tent, but updated for the 21st century. Now they play to an audience of hungry tourists rather than the weary herders of the very thing we’re eating. But this is modern-day Lapland and humans have survived here for hundreds of years by adapting to what makes them thrive. Here, now, they’re the guardians of the perfect winter wonderland.
You can find out more about Finlandia, the unique and extreme way it’s made at finlandia.com.
