48 hours in: Äkäslompolo

For those of you who have once, twice or still today dream of living inside a Dip-Dab, or wondered how cold your eyelashes need to be to freeze (mine froze at -28 degrees!) – this piece is for you. Let me introduce you, dear reader, whether curious human or nosy goblin, to Äkäslompolo, a town in northern Finland.

Earlier this year, I had the pleasure of experiencing the treasure that is the Arctic Circle; not for the first time, or even the second, but for a third year running (or skiing, if you’re a local). Nominating it for our locational piece was a given, a gift actually, and one that I have been desperate to share with the temperate inhabitants of back home.

But not as your average travel guide. No, this is a poster for people who want to shuck off the layers of being people, instead wrapping up in their thickest winter-wear until they themselves become a cosy beast of the Lappish wilderness, a human pillow fort in walking boots, dropped like a red-faced pin in the middle of a world where cloudberries are real – berries made from clouds! – where solar particles paint the atmosphere and magic coats everything in a fine, fantastical frost. Say hello to your new Cloudberry Kingdom.

“If there are lots of stars in the sky on New Year’s Eve night,” says Hanna Kurkkio, front desk manager at Destination Lapland Oy (adventure house and booking office), “there will be lots of cloudberries growing next summer.” It seems the universe itself is conspiring with the cloudberries of the Arctic; from the folklore threaded into the snow to the star-studded tapestry of the skies. The place is a postcard fantasy accessible by three-hour flight.

A fantasy that is a reality for Hanna, an Äkäslompolo local, having made her home there in 2009 after migrating for the winter, to the winter, from her southern Finland hometown, Iitti, and building her nest up north.

“I used to visit Äkäslompolo during the winter holidays regularly as a child. And it’s here where I met my husband. His home is here, so it was a natural decision to move, to live here together, as his roots are very deep within Äkäslompolo. Mine too, now. Living here is quite peaceful. People from here are also very connected to nature and the way of life resonates from that aspect. It’s a very good place to raise children.”

Uprooting your life and rerooting your life into these here Lappish lands to raise a family betwixt the fells – that’s one, wondrous, glorious feat. But before we dive into 16-plus years of inhabiting Santa’s streets like an icehole plunge into Äkäs’ frozen lake, we’ll start with a quick 48-hour trip.

A room with a view

“I recommend booking a nice cabin with a beautiful view. These 48 hours should include outdoor activities such as snowshoeing to the top of one of our fells, such as Kesänki fell, to see the popcorn trees, or some other really beautiful spot like going through the snowy forest towards Hangaskuru.”

For those of you who don’t know much about snowshoeing, picture this: you have a skateboard attached to either foot, but the middles are popped out and the wheels have been replaced with a series of metal teeth. A personal favourite of mine, they’re essentially a means of being able to walk along unmarked paths, ones that haven’t been compacted or laid, allowing you to venture off into uncharted territory in snow that’s deeper than a 4am conversation between drunk friends. They’re as peculiar as they are practical.

“There’s also Pakasaivo, a canyon lake that’s an ancient sacrificial place for the Sami people. Some of my favourite things to do, personally, are to go walking in nature, or cycling in both winter and summer. And I definitely recommend going icehole swimming at the sauna on Äkäslompolo lake in the evening – the view over the lake is amazing. There’s that blue moment when the day turns to evening in midwinter.”

I can confirm that “the blue moment” is a phenomenon I’ve experienced, and it leaves you feeling every colour, but blue.

Food for thought

“Also, something that’s a must is the local cuisine. For a person who has never been here before, I highly recommend trying the sauteed reindeer and so-called ‘squeaky cheese’ with cloudberry jam as a dessert. My top five places to eat are: Restaurant Rouhe, Selvä Pyy Pub, Los Lompolos, Eväskori and Jolie Lounge and Cafe.”

I then asked Hanna if there were any things that she, as a local, knows about Äkäs that most others don’t.

“It’s hard to say, but maybe if there is any, it’s best these would stay hidden just for the locals,” she replied with a wink. And somehow I think that’s the right answer – the only answer. Everything about Äkäs is shrouded in respect for nature herself, for the land around them, for the creatures that rule them. A magician never reveals his secrets, and Äkäs never reveals her magic.

And that is the very ethos for adventuring in Äkäs. To expect magic, and respect it. But beyond finding out the best way to spend 48 hours in a world that’s a snow drift and a reality shift away from normal life, it felt only natural to ask Hanna about the abnormal, the supernatural, the mythologies of her hometown, and any otherworldly neighbours she might have – because not all inhabitants of a place are necessarily human. Neither are future tourists. And we all know being a Brit abroad, to onlookers, must seem as though a boisterously awkward creature just bumbled out from the rainclouds and started queuing on foreign land.

Enchanted landscape

“They say there are goblins living in the holes in the earth. And there is a saying that one should never build a house on top of a goblins path because, if so, the house will be cursed, and the goblins will walk around your house so you can’t sleep.” Clearly it’s best not to book an Äkäslompolo apartment that’s built on a goblin’s commute.

But still, I’ve seen it in my peripheral, sensed it; what lies beneath the snow, behind the pines, in the shadows beyond the moonlight, that leaves you believing there are unseen folk lurking nearby, keeping watch over their hometown, willing to do things against great odds to protect it (which Hanna says is called ‘Sisu’).

Then again, maybe that’s just Äkäslompolo itself. A living creature. A breathing entity. The embodiment of ethereal and enchanting; more than just a safe place, free from the troubles of the outside world (Hanna tells me the Finnish term for this is one that doesn’t translate directly into English; lintukoto), but a world outside the outside world, something alive, with snow-white skin and pine tree fur, aurora coloured eyes and bones that bend into the shape of fells. I don’t think anybody who’s visited Äkäs would doubt that. Anything is possible within the arcane Arctic. Even the Wife-Carrying World Championships…

Emily spent a week getting to grips with sisu at destinationlapland.com.