As the pilot makes his announcement I gaze out of the window. White. A monstrous ocean of white. No landmarks, no trees, just an infinite slab of snow motionless in the gloom.
Saunas are a Swedish obsession, and this one comes with 15 people and 200 bottles of beer
I catch some of the pilot’s words: “…Welcome to Lapland… we’ve just crossed into the Arctic Circle and the temperature on the ground is 35 below zero.” Madness!
Holidays should be about walking barefoot and wearing sunglasses. Throughout my entire holiday the sun will never fully rise above the horizon. Who would go to such a place?
The pilot continues: “…you must all be so excited to visit Father Christmas, hopefully he will be at the airport to greet you.” Disaster!
I look around the plane. Children are everywhere. That’s who wants to holiday in Lapland. Screaming six-year-olds who open cupboard doors expecting to find Narnia, and dream about seeing a fat man being pulled through the sky by reindeer.
Yes, Lapland is home to the iconic bearded man who forces parents to lie to their children every year. The only consolation is that every ear-splitting shriek is easily silenced – be quiet, Father Christmas won’t want to meet noisy children, will he?
My whole life I’d dreamt of the wilderness of the Arctic Circle, of finding solitude in one of the world’s few remaining untouched landscapes. Now I’m surrounded by animated kids, and as the plane touches the runway I spot Father Christmas opening his arms to greet us.
The cold hits me the minute I walk out of the airport. It hits me every second I spend outside.
Every venture requires a 15-minute preparation: thermal leggings and vest, two jumpers, hat, scarf, gloves, thick rubber boots, and an obscenely comfortable all-in-one arctic jumpsuit.
I look like a blue and black Michelin Man, surrounded by seven inches of padding.
Walking through the Finnish town of Rovaniemi I’ve already found silence, the temperature and gentle wind freezing noises and taking them into oblivion.
With every step I hear the snow crunch delicately beneath my feet, but this faint sound is the only proof that time is moving forward. It’s dark, pitch black away from the street-lights. It’s 3pm.
The following day I spot the sun, hovering on the horizon, refusing to fully rise. For two hours it skirts laterally, the sky in a state of perpetual sunrise. Or should that be sunset?
The children are surprisingly easy to avoid. Preparing them for outdoor excursions is a long process, especially when they suddenly need the toilet as soon as they leave the hotel.
Each building is fitted with phenomenal heating systems. Within seconds of returning inside I begin to sweat in my 16 layers. Remove the boots, the jumpsuit, the wool, the hat, and I’ve still got four items of clothing to get rid of before a trip to the toilet. Imagine doing that with a seven-year-old.
Thankfully, Father Christmas is also a snow evader. I can see him through every hotel window, inside every restaurant, 101 varieties of the world’s most famous fat man.
Over three days I see so many different versions that it feels like I’ve walked into a Lappish version of Where’s Wally? But in Finland, only Father Christmas sticks to reindeer. Everyone else has upgraded.
A skidoo resembles a jet ski with two thick skis that cut through the snow. Mine has a 750cc engine and weighs only 250kg. If I floor the accelerator the front end lifts up.
Cutting through a forest, pine trees illuminated by the full moon, I once again hear the silence. Sound doesn’t travel in this environment, and when the engines are cutnothing perforates my ears.
Then the path opens up and we hit the vast expanse of a frozen lake, vehicles reaching 100kph, and I realise I would also believe in Father Christmas if he roared in on a skidoo.
For the second part of my trip I cross the border to Swedish Lapland. There are no children on the flight.
Kiruna has an altogether different attraction: an ice hotel. Each room has been individually sculpted by a different artist, and the melting ice of spring will trigger new designs for the following year.
The inventions are staggering; a twisted tree-house containing a bed suspended above the floor; giant spiders and serpentines; a maze with an ice dolphin at its centre; a frozen butterfly bed. Each bed is covered in luxurious reindeer furs, the contrast of the animal skin bringing depth to the artists’ creations.
My favourite is an industrial-themed factory with cogs, levers, conveyer belt, and a bed sculpted into a (non-functional) ice lift.
During the day the hotel is an art exhibition, each room open for inspection. It’s surprisingly warm. The inside temperature is -5˚Celsius and there is no wind chill, that’s a full 30 to 40 degrees warmer than being outside.
But how do you sleep in an ice hotel? Night-time is an interesting mission. I change in the dry section, step barefoot into a mammoth sleeping bag, and waddle through the corridors to my room like a penguin in a jumpsuit.
For some unknown reason I wake up covered in sweat, reaffirming my amazement at the design of one of the world’s most ambitious hotels.
But one night of sack racing to get to bed is enough. On a sleigh pulled by rampaging huskies I go deep into the wilderness. It feels natural, man and dog in the open snow, the sun still refusing to reveal itself.
They pull in silence, eager to work, taking me far from any roads, further from Father Christmases, and onto a frozen lake hidden behind the forest.
Built onto the lake is a sauna, a piece of ice chopped away for the regular dips into a plunge pool.
Saunas are a Swedish obsession, and this one comes with 15 people and 200 bottles of beer. There is a precise repetition to proceedings: drink and sweat; finish the bottle as overheating becomes a possibility; jump into the icy water; and repeat.
Buoyed by the alcohol, the evening descends into competitions of how long a person can spend outside in the snow, semi-naked.
Stumbling away in the darkness the sky grabs me. Is it? Or am I imagining? It’s moving, slowly transforming, a green and purple carpet of luminescence. I’m spellbound, admiring the Northern Lights, the ethereal aurora making its mystic journey across the sky.
Falling backwards (shock and alcohol) I sit in the snow and I’ve found what I had always dreamt of: the solitude, the beauty and the inimitability of the Arctic Circle.
And after the disastrous flight of screaming children I’ve found that when you go to Lapland for Christmas there is something far more beautiful than Father Christmas.