Warm your heart in icy Lapland

After embracing Lapland's scenery and culture, retreat to your log cabin to scan the skies for the northern lights, writes Anthony Ham.

Lulea 

Best for activities

In Lulea, the gateway to the Swedish portion of Lapland, people do anything but wait out the winter indoors. Here, skiing and skating are less leisure pursuits than ways of life adapted to the ice-bound landscape. From December to April, the rivers and sea inlets that surround Lulea are turned into about 3km of cleared ice.

Sleds replace prams, dog owners ski instead of walk and young people skate across town to visit friends.

Joining them couldn't be easier  - rental outlets for ice skates and skis abound, and gliding across the frozen sea is an exhilarating first step towards embracing the Lapland winter.

But it is dog-sledding that gives the greatest thrill, sitting on reindeer skins draped over long wooden sleds, while expert mushers drive their teams of purebred siberian huskies along trails is an invigorating experience.

"Hanwi! Donder! Vixen!" Richard Karlsson calls to his dogs as he steers the team on snowy forest tracks around Sorbyn, a quiet village north of Lulea. "Mush! Yipyip!"

He urges them onwards, slowing to describe each dog's personality above the scrape of sled runners on the ice.

"The lead dogs are the real extensions of my will," he says, pointing at blue-eyed Denahi with unrestrained affection. "There's a mythology surrounding the huskies with blue eyes. They say that they can see the spirit world and the wind."

The sled slides through snow, crossing lakes, cresting gentle rises and turning sharp bends that the dogs take in their stride. "This is the only way to travel," Karlsson says, easing to a halt.

"You can get close to everything. You can hear the wind and see the wildlife. You become a part of nature."Further information Ice skates can be rented through most hotels and from Hagglunds Adventure ($40 a day; aventyrsbutiken.se).

Isdimma Husky Adventures arranges husky trips (from $300 for 1 1/2 hours; isdimma.com).

Lapland Sweden can arrange snowmobiling, snowshoeing or ice driving in the Lulea region (snowshoe tour from $150; lapland-sweden.com). 

Where to eat

Dog-musher Karlsson is also a gourmet chef at Sorbyn Turism & Konferens. His three-course meals are among the best you'll find in Lapland (three-course dinner $65; sorbyn.se). 

Where to stay:

Hotell Amber

On a quiet street close to downtown Lulea, this family-run hotel has large, welcoming rooms and extremely comfortable beds. The buffet breakfast is better than most in this price range (from $140; www.amber-hotell.se). 

Gammelstad and Harads

Best for architecture

The cottages that surround the 15th-century stone church in Gammelstad tell one of Lapland's more curious tales: this is a village where no one slept for more than a single night in any given week. 

At the time it was built, every person, even those who lived in isolated farms and homesteads many kilometres from the nearest place of worship, was required by law to attend church. The solution in this vast and thinly populated land was to build "church villages" like Gammelstad.

Parishioners could travel to these makeshift villages from far and wide, sleep overnight and go to church the next morning before beginning the long journey home. There were once more than 70 such villages across northern Sweden.

Gammelstad is the largest and best-preserved of the 16 that remain, and today it's a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

No one lives in the old heart of the town now, but it's as if the inhabitants are expected back at any moment. "The cottages have survived centuries," says Camilla Vikstrom, a local historian who was baptised in the church and whose family owns one of the cottages.

"But the houses were built without nails so that the owners could dismantle them in an hour in case of fire. All of the houses are privately owned, and people still come here to stay at weekends."

Where Gammelstad served as a magnet for those drawn to civilisation, the Treehotel, an hour's drive (and six centuries on) to the northwest, calls to those who would escape it. In this northern Swedish forest, in treehouses designed by leading Swedish architects, guests go to their rest safe in the knowledge that theirs is a room unlike any other in the world. 

"We wondered what people would most expect to see in a forest," says Britta Jonsson Lindvall, who owns the hotel with her husband Kent. "A bird's nest. So we built one. This is the one I like when I want to hide from the world. What would people least expect? A UFO. So we built that, too. It makes me think of my grandchildren. And if I'm feeling romantic, I love the Cabin." 

The Cabin, reached via a gently sloping ramp that resembles a ski jump, bears all the hallmarks of clean-lined Scandinavian design, with light-pine furnishings and curved surfaces. 

Then there's the Mirrorcube. From a distance, it resembles a three-dimensional hole cut into the forest. Once inside, it's like sleeping inside a two-way mirror, albeit with a tree trunk running through the heart of the room.

Suspended above the ground, accessible along easily negotiated wood-and-rope bridges, and surrounded by little more than leaves and branches, the Mirrorcube is less about drawing near to nature than inhabiting it. 

Further information

See visitlulea.se 

Where to eat

A 1950s interior design and traditional Swedish cooking rule at Brittas Pensionat, the Treehotel's sister establishment (lunch buffet $14, dinner mains from $26; brittaspensionat.se). 

Where to stay:

Treehotel

The Treehotel has five unique rooms: the Cabin, the Mirrorcube, the Bird's Nest, the saucer-shaped UFO and Lego-like Blue Cone. Check into your room via the Treehotel reception at Brittas Pensionat in Harads (from $600; treehotel.se). 

Junosuando 

Best for nature

On the long journey north, the road crosses the Arctic Circle. The distances lengthen between isolated farm buildings. When the small village of Junosuando appears on the horizon, it feels like the end of the road. And then Mikael Kangas suggests that we go a little further.

Kangas, who specialises in taking the uninitiated to the far reaches of northern Lapland, transports us by car, snowmobile and sled to a cluster of log cabins in the forest. We unload, build fires, then step outside to contemplate our home for the next 24 hours.

"Just last week there was an elk family over there," says Kangas as we explore a frozen lake on wooden skis. "You might also see foxes and reindeer. This land belongs to these animals. We just pass through it."

We retreat indoors to seek warmth by the fire, emerging from time to time to search the sky for the northern lights while reclining on reindeer skins in the snow. Close to midnight, vivid greens fringed with violet dance across the sky like genies released from bottles, great curtains of pure light.

Cocooned in the cabin's warmth, we pass a night that yields to the magic of morning sun on virgin snow, to the sense of a world made new.

"What I want people to experience out here is the silence, the beauty and simplicity of the natural world," Kangas says. "Deep down, this is life as I would like to live it. Every time I come out here, I feel as if I return to the world a better person for having spent a night in the wilderness."

Further information

Retreats in Junosuando are possible from November to April (auroraretreat.se).

Where to stay and eat:

Aurora Retreat Kangas oversees four forest cabins. All have a sauna, pit toilets in a separate hut, pine tables, simple beds and sleeping bags. Guides can stay overnight or return for you in the morning. There is no electricity but some cabins have a kitchen with a gas oven, and food is included in the price (from $400 a person, including transport; auroraretreat.se). 

Inari

Best for Sami culture

No one knows Lapland like its original inhabitants, the Sami people. They have probably lived as far north as you can go in Finland for the past 11,000 years, roaming with their reindeer across the icy plains.

The quiet town of Inari serves as the capital for Finland's Sami, home to Sajos, the Sami Parliament building, a wood-clad building that was designed to look like a reindeer skin hung out to dry from above, and Siida, the Sami museum.

The story of the Sami is not best reflected in towns, however, but instead on the wild plains of their ancestors, where many still hold on fiercely to their traditions.

Few have retained their link to the past like the Paltto family. Reindeer herders for longer than they can remember, they live in the tiny hamlet of Lemmenjoki, west of Inari.

Reindeer surround the family home, ranging through the forest and burrowing into the snow for lichen under the watchful eye of Nils-Heikki Paltto, a 24-year-old master of the yoik, the sung story or oral history that is a pillar of traditional Sami culture.

Inside the house, his mother, Kaija, conjures up handicrafts bearing motifs gleaned from the ceremonial drums once used by Sami shaman to communicate with the spirit world.

But it is his father, Heikki, the patriarch of the family  - as well as the vice-president of the Sami Parliament  - who anchors them in their Sami past.

"I've been herding reindeer since I was 14," he says. "And I have taught these skills to my sons."

He eases his snowmobile out on to the trail. In its wake, our simple plywood sled strewn with reindeer skins bounces agreeably through the forest.

"What makes us strong is the reindeer," he says. "Our clothes, our food, our tradition of being on the land, everything in our culture comes from the reindeer. If there were no reindeer, there would be no Sami. That's why we have survived, because we never stopped herding."

Further information

Excursions and stays with the Paltto family can be organised through lemmenjoki.org (excursions from $45 a person; cabins from $60).

Sami Museum (admission $11; siida.fi).

Where to stay and eat:

Hotel Kultahovi

Easily Inari's best hotel and restaurant, Hotel Kultahovi is within walking distance of Inari's Sami Parliament and museum. The restaurant has a menu that draws on regional ingredients such as berries, reindeer and Arctic fish (rooms from $120, mains from $15; hotelkultahovi.fi). 

 Lemmenjoki National Park 

Best for wilderness

Lemmenjoki National Park (pronounced "lemmen-yokki") is the traditional homeland for northern Finland's Sami people.

At 2850sq km, the park is one of the largest uninhabited territories in Europe: an immense wilderness of forest and fell. In winter, the park is woven with trails that meander along ice-bound rivers and narrow byways carved by summer hiking tracks, through deep snow and between tall pines dwarfed by the hulking, 534m Joenkielinen Fell nearby.

"This is one of the last and largest refuges for the old pine forests of Western Europe," says Pirjo Seurujarvi, the park's director. "Most of the pines are around 500 years old, but some have been here for 800 years. Yes, there are Sami here with their reindeer, but this landscape hasn't changed in centuries."

Seurujarvi makes her way down from the high country, winding through forests where pawprints signal the reindeer, elk, wolverines, brown bears, lynx and wolves that inhabit the park. She at last arrives in the river valley that gives the park its name. Lemmenjoki means "warm river" in Sami, or "river of love" in Finnish.

Further information

Visit outdoors.fi and search for Lemmenjoki National Park.

Where to eat

Picnics for excursions within the park can be arranged through the Paltto family (see previous entry on Inari). Hotel Korpikartano can also arrange meals for non-guests, but bookings are required at least three days in advance. 

Where to stay:

Hotel Korpikartano In the tiny village of Menesjarvi, close to the Lemmenjoki turn-off, Hotel Korpikartano occupies a former Sami school house. There's a lakeside sauna for those less energetic (rooms with lake view from $140; menesjarvi.fi).

Go2

- LAPLAND

- Getting there

JAL and Qantas fly to Rovaniemi through codeshare partners. 

- Getting around

Take a minibus or taxi from the airport to Rovaniemi city centre (about $10 in a minibus). SNOWY WAYS: Heikki Paltto on his snowmobile. His family has been herding reindeer for generations.