Arctic sunrise, reindeer, Santa and saunas

18 December – 24 December 2019

Our flight from Helsinki north to the Arctic Circle took off without drama and we chased the approaching dawn north through the middle of the morning, catching glimpses of the Arctic sunrise over the clouds during our approach to Rovaniemi.

We were beyond excited. The kids because they were going to see Santa. Us because we had been planning a trip to the Arctic for the last 20 years (this holiday was in fact the first thing we had booked when we had decided to make this year a reality).

We touched down at around 1030am in the pre-dawn light. Snow everywhere. Pine forests, lakes and flat flat flat. This was the first time we had seen snow like this outside of ski resorts. The light was grey and the temperature cold (around -10 degrees).

We piled out of the plane, through the airport (dodging 2 Thompson International flights disgorging half of the Midlands UK into Lapland around our flight) and did what any self respecting Australian family would do at an airport whilst waiting for their hire car. Started a snowball fight.

We took possession of our car as another TUI flight landed around us (in the back of minds we were starting to question what we were getting ourselves into), and if in fact there was anyone left in the Midlands.

Are there any snow chains? No. They are not legal in Finland.

Is the car 4WD? No. But there is a button to warm up the car before you get in.

This was going to be interesting.

Our place, the Arctic Dreams House, is a rural property by a river about 70kms from Rovaniemi and 15kms from Ranua. It is absolutely stunning, but a solid hour’s drive from the airport.

The roads are more reminiscent of ski runs than Australian roads. The major ones are salted and you can generally drive in the tracks of vehicles that have come before you. The minor ones are more like mogul runs after fresh snow. Outside the towns there are no lights, and the edges of roads are marked by mounds of snow kicked up by the (incredibly efficient) snow ploughs that prowl relentlessly.

Our first trip to our new home was a voyage of discovery, as we worked through how our 2WD VW Passat would handle itself in the snow (as it turns out, remarkably well… but it’s probably wise to avoid sudden movements if at all possible). The snow-covered pine trees and the snow covered roads were stunning in the weak winter light. Driving here was captivating and hypnotic all at the same time, punctuated only by the very occasional oncoming car or truck.

This was not an environment that was familiar to us and we loved it.

By the time we pulled into our new home it was around 3pm and already dark. We would have to be very efficient around how we used our daylight hours here. The place looked beautiful in the early evening light. A newly built wooden house on its own grounds by a river with various outbuildings including its own outdoor sauna by the river, most all of which was lit up with fairy lights. Inside it had an open fire, indoor sauna and all the practicalities needed to tame the snowy environment. Everything was covered in layers of fluffy powder. The temperature had dipped to -12 degrees with the promise of a clear, cold night ahead. It was wonderful.

That evening our friends Dave, Lara and Tahlia arrived to share the week with us. We hadn’t seen them since we were in Italy together in July but within minutes the girls had disappeared upstairs and we were enjoying a bottle of wine. Normal service resumed.

We woke the following morning to a dark and starry morning sky, with no sign of the sunrise that would be with us around 1115am. By 9am the early signs of dawn (and Izzy) were lighting up the sky and chasing away the stars. We got rugged up and started to explore our place for the first time in sunlight, tobogganing down the snow mounds, throwing our first snowballs and trying (unsuccessfully) to build our first snowman (it turns out the snow was too cold, dry and fluffy to hold together and so our snowman attempts kept collapsing. First World Problems).

As the daylight took hold, we were greeted with one of the most spectacular sunrises we have ever seen (and this is coming from a self confessed sunrise-seeking-tragic). The sky lit up with shades of pink and light blue, reflecting over the virgin white of the fields around us. It was jaw droppingly beautiful. We even stopped throwing snowballs at each other long enough to enjoy it.

But then started again very quickly thereafter.

From there, it was off to visit Santa. The real Santa. Who everyone (especially around these parts) agrees is Finnish and lives just outside Rovaniemi in Santa Park. For a small (OK, moderate) fee you can go visit his home, his elves and even get a photo with the big man himself.

After the stunning tranquility of our cottage in Ranua, and the 70 kms drive along the largely empty, snow-covered and fir tree lined roads back to Rovianemi, Santa Park was a bit of an unsurprising but slightly unwelcome shock. It was here that all the TUI tourists from the previous day had been deposited.

On arrival, one descends from the serene beauty of the outside world into the highly commercialised and somewhat tacky world of consumerism. The gift shop takes up pride of place and even outside the official gift shop there were price tags on many objects. One somewhat gets the impression that you could purchase a real elf (either for a short term or something more permanent) if you so desired.

Despite our somewhat jaded observations, the kids loved the place. As we made our way through ice carvings, elf school, the elf show, subterranean Arctic Circle crossings and the North Pole Train Ride the kids were enthralled.

Sena developed an obsession for ‘the big elfs’ and needed to have continual ‘private conversations’ with them to assure the arrival of her desired dolls house.

Izzy the Elf made a number of surprise appearances around the facility (including a starring role in the Elf Show) which ensured any pre-Helsinki lingered doubts were doused.

Craft projects were pursued, gingerbread cookies decorated (for a modest additional fee) and we even got a private viewing with the big man, happily confirming that the girls were, in fact (and despite our threats to the contrary) safely ensconced on the ‘nice list’.

A successful trip, even if we left (somewhat disappointingly) without a rent-an-elf in tow.

From there, we made our way to the controversial competition of Santa Park, the nearby Santa Village, which also promised a visit with the real Santa, leaving us to explain (poorly) how the poor guy managed to be in both places (magic, of course).

Santa Village is a prettily lit up outdoor version of Santa Park where, rather than paying for park entry, you pay for each individual activity. In any case, the decorations including 12 foot high snowmen (somewhat reminiscent of Marshmallow Man from Ghostbusters) and thousands of Christmas lights made for a pretty place to walk around in the pitch dark that was 4pm.

The purpose of our trip, however, was to go on our much anticipated reindeer ride. This had been a hot topic of conversation, particularly since the whole ‘you’re eating Rudolph’ incident in Helsinki. Now 4pm in December is not the ideal time to go for a reindeer ride (because it’s completely dark) but beggars can’t be choosers, and TUI had booked out all the daylight sessions months and years in advance.

We were excited about our reindeer ride, dark or not. It was hard not to be excited by the idea of slipping silently through the snow laden moonlit Arctic forest pulled silently by these majestic creatures with nothing but the sound of their breathing breaking the absolute solitude. Perhaps the Northern Lights would also light our way. Who couldn’t get behind that?

What actually happened was slightly different. It appeared that the ancestors of our imagined majestic reindeers had pursued an ill advised dalliance with a capybara (think overgrown guinea pig native to South America) with the resultant issue pulling our sleighs tonight. Our steeds were the size of large dogs or very small ponies, most with horns and all very cute. But not majestic.

Slightly perturbed, we packed in 2 by 2 into the sleighs, nestled in under our super warm reindeer skins (is there no part of this animal that is not awesome?) and headed off.

We each shared our solitude with the dozen or so other tourists who were also attached to our ‘sled train’. Each 2 sleigh carriage supervised by a handler in high vis jackets to ensure our ‘reinbara’ mutants did not go AWOL. We wound our way through a 3 km track around the semi-lit perimeter of Santa Village, marvelling at the tourists taking outdoor spas outside their high end chalets, the way the light from fellow sleighers camera flashes echoed off the high vis jackets of our handlers and the rear end of the animal directly in front of us.

At the end of our expedition we were able to meet and pat our trusty steeds (highly recommended) and were rewarded with sausages of dubious quality which we proceeded to burn over an open fire.

And all that being said, it was more than a little bit awesome. The feeling of gliding through a snowy forest whilst being pulled by a reindeer is not something we get to experience every day; neither is the joy of snuggling up to a daughter under reindeer skins in the sub freezing temperatures. There were more than a few moments of impeccable beauty as we wound our way through the shadowy pine trees away from the lights of the Santa Village, and even going through the less natural but still pretty Christmas lights of the village was worth the price of admission.

And the sausages were amazing, even if we did burn them. As were the reindeer pats at the end – that’s certainly something we don’t normally get to do, even if (or perhaps especially as) they were like real reindeer only one third the size.

That night we made our way home and set up a vigil for the Northern Lights. The night was to be clear until at least until 4am before the clouds set up shop and stayed for the rest of our time in Finland. This was our big chance and we were desperate not to miss it. Over dinner we compared weather forecasts, radar patterns, Northern Lights KPI probabilities and patterns in tea leaves. We had numerous apps at play (hoping that at least one of them would give us the news that we wanted) and were analysing enough data to keep Google DeepMind busy for days. Liz was at mission control at the kitchen table, with a bottle of wine. Dave and Anthony, preferring the old school approach, went outside and looked up.

Unfortunately neither approach yielded fruit. No matter how hard we started at the KP percentages on our apps or at the night sky, the KP likelihood stayed below 20% and the night sky stayed ominously dark (with the exception of an incredible shooting star, romantically enjoyed by Dave and Anthony).

Despite maintaining our vigil long past midnight we were to be disappointed. The promised low clouds rolled in and we saw the last of the Arctic stars for the trip. The northern lights were not meant to be for us. This time at least.

The following day dawned dark and snowy, which was to become a template for the remainder of our time here.

The cars and trees were buried under a foot of fresh powdery snow, the roads and toboggan runs were virgin once again. Somewhat excitingly, after a busy few weeks, there were no ‘planned’ activities for the day, and no reason to leave our beautiful house.

The conditions were perfect for carving fresh lines in the toboggan tracks around our house and soon there were fresh tracks criss crossing the fields.

From there, it was time to head out for a lovely hike through the woods around our house, studying animal tracks, throwing snowballs and making snow angels, before the men spent the afternoon Finnish style – saunas, champagne (OK, not so Finnish) and rolling in the snow.

Finished with a fire and beautifully cooked salmon from down the road.

The following day we had arranged to go skiing at the small-ish Ousnasvaara ski resort close to Rovaniemi. There are no mountains in the area, but there were large enough hills and plenty of snow to make this a popular resort with a 7 months season (there’s also some of the scariest looking ski jumps we’ve ever seen there). Conditions were perfect for skiing – more snow overnight had covered the world around us in more powdery goodness. The temperature was rising too – which meant that the snow was sticky enough for Jessie and Anthony to make our first real snowman whilst the others were enjoying more toboggan runs.

The goal of our Nordic skiing adventure was to get Sena back on skis for the first time since the whole broken leg incident in Japan last year. Whilst we were going to spend the afternoon on baby slopes anyway, Ellie and Jessie decided to give snowboarding a whirl at the same time, all under the careful eye of our local ski instructors.

By the time we got to the ski station at 2.30 it was already getting dark and we were skiing under lights. Sena, initially nervous (but far less so than Liz and Anthony were), was quickly excited by the prospect of skiing and took to it like a bit of a duck to water, most importantly with a massive smile on her face the whole time. We even managed to extract ourselves from the nerve-induced fetal position long enough to crack a smile. (Side note: putting Sena back on skis after her accident in Japan is one of the more stressful things we’ve had to do in a while. If it wasn’t for the amount of pure joy that we see Jessie and Ellie experience whilst skiing, it is unlikely we would have done it). Meanwhile, Tahlia was tearing up the area on her skis and Ellie and Jessie were rapidly progressing through the basics of snowboarding, with Ellie in particular becoming quickly smitten. We finished off the afternoon with tobogganing down the custom made toboggan run at the resort – was there nothing this country wasn’t good at?

For our second last day in Ranua we planned to go dog sledding. The idea of being pulled along a snowy forest trail by a pack of huskies was beyond exciting for our dog mad family. There was much discussion leading up to the event as whether we would in fact be getting Huskies, or whether it would be the local fox-like ‘dhole ‘(pronounced, as far as the increasingly dog-mad Ellie was concerned at least, d-hole) instead.

After a quick run in the morning we headed off for the hour long drive through beautiful, snow covered back roads to get to our new four legged friends.

When we pulled up to the rural property the noise from their pack of 43 huskies was deafening. Slightly surprising was the fact that the commands coming from the crew rigging the dogs to the sleighs were in French – it turns out that our authentic lapland husky experience was in fact offered by a French family who had decamped from Marseille 9 years earlier with 2 dogs and a camping car to set up home in Finland. Our 43 huskies spoke French, not Finnish.

Now this experience was very different from our reinvaras of a few days earlier. This time our team comprised 3 sleighs – our 2 and one other (another couple from Australia) – and we were each captain of our own sleighs. Even the dogs looked normal sized.

Each sleigh held 4, so Jessie changed family for the afternoon and rode with Dave, Lars and Tahlia. We got settled in our sleigh, Anthony in the drivers position and with a cry of ‘les chiens, on y va!’ we were off on our Nordic husky adventure.

We followed our guide on his silent e-skidoo around a 7 kms track through the forest, the excited barking of 24 huskies drowned out only by Liz’s squealing each time we took a turn too sharply. The sleighs cut through the powdery trails smoothly and the scenery (this time in daylight) was beautiful. The dogs seemed as excited as we were to be out and about, enjoying their chance to have a run through the forest, even with a complete amatuer at the helm behind them providing questionable commands in bad french. Ignoring the pre match briefing regarding the safe and polite distant to keep between sleighs, the lead dog of the Lipsham sleigh spent the majority of the trip getting up and close and personal with Anthony’s rear.

Following our safe return to the homestead, we had the chance to play with a number of the dogs before heading for a hot juice by the fire.

The perfect end to our husky adventure before we made our way across the backroads (which now firmly resembled a series of ski slopes rather than roads as we have come to know them) to our cottage.

Liz and Lars promptly spent the afternoon in the sauna by the river, solving the world’s problems and intermittently creating Liz and Lara shaped holes and snow angels in the deep powder by the river. Hard core. No photos please.

Meanwhile the men prepared burgers – this time not made of anything we had recently used as transport (that we were aware). And the kids made gingerbread houses.

For our final day in the Arctic, we decided to double down on some skiing and snowboarding (much to Ellie’s delight), whilst Dave, Lars and Tahlia hit a skidooing adventure. By the end of our second session, Ellie was linking turns on her snowboard and Sena happily making her way down and around the baby slope. As we made our way back to our house for the final time there were large smiles all around.

As we worked through the surprisingly epic task of packing up the house (even though we had only been here for a little less than a week we had more or less nested here) we reflected on what had been a really different and special week. Whilst we had not seen the Northern Lights, we had had the chance to see a totally different environment and enjoy the sense of isolation, calmness and beauty that came with it. We had had a number of new experiences – from husky and reindeer sledding, snowboarding, running or driving on snow and ice to having a sauna and rolling in the snow. We had met ‘the real Santa’ and confirmed the kids were on the nice list. We had met a very different type of people and see how they live in this slightly strange world. And we were able to share our adventures with close friends. What more could we ask for?

The following morning (if you can call 2.15am that) we were up and out the door for what would end up being an 18 hour, strike busting journey back to Aix for Christmas, made notable only by Izzy the Elf’s final appearance to the girls on the drinks trolley on the flight back to Paris from Helsinki.