Russ Juskalian for The New York Times
The northern lights above Finnish Lapland.
By RUSS JUSKALIAN
Published: January 4, 2013
“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.
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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.
