As Sini harnessed up the huskies they were all yelping with excitement, but once we set off and the forest closed in around us they fell silent. Now the only sound was the soft patter of their paws as they raced ahead, dragging our wooden sledge through the snow. It felt good to be back in Lapland, the last wilderness in Europe, where temperatures can drop to –40C, where the population density is barely one person per square kilometre and where the natural world still reigns supreme.
I’d been to Lapland once before, husky sledging, but that was across the border in Sweden, 300 miles away. This time I’d come to Finland for the centenary of its independence — and what better place to spend it than at Jávri Lodge, in the heart of Finnish Lapland, where the country’s longest serving president, Urho Kekkonen, used to hole up and hide away?
A Finnish couple called Juha and Katja have done it up, turning it into a chic boutique hotel with floor-to-ceiling windows and a glass lobby that doubles as the dining room. I came here before Christmas for a sneak preview, and I was sulking when I was told there wasn’t room for me upstairs. I soon cheered up when I discovered my downstairs room was Kekkonen’s bedroom. The walls were bare wood. Shuttered windows looked out onto forest. I can’t recall the last time I spent such a peaceful night.
For somewhere so far away — 660 miles north of Helsinki, 150 miles inside the Arctic Circle — Jávri is remarkably easy to get to. Finnair has just started direct flights from Gatwick to Finland’s northernmost airport, Ivalo (we flew out on the maiden flight, surrounded by frenetic kids and their weary parents, off to visit Santa).
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