It's Sunday morning (barely) and we are making final checks before we drive out of Kuru at 4am and head to Inari nearly 900km north.  In 2 months we will make the trip again when we leave on Bear Ski, a 9 day solo ski in the arctic since I arrived in Finland in August 2003, I have traveled thousands of kilometers back and forward from Lapland, yet I never dread the 15 hours or so of driving that lays ahead of me; the Finnish north offers rewards that have to be seen to be believed...

Imagine an entirely white landscape, where reindeer are still herded with the culmination of the 'round-up' twice each year, temperature drop to minus 50 and where cars drive on frozen lakes.  Now think about heading out on skis into that landscape and staying in tents.  Hmmm sound cold??  Well, it wasn't so bad - read on to find out why...

On Monday February 9^th the IWG students began their 4-day snowmobile training course at the Sämi Vocational College - 4 days of driving those noisy, smelly, oily, smoky and incredibly fun machines across the lakes, through the white wonderland forest and over the fells of northern Finland's Inari region.  Taught by extreme snowmobiling men, Paavo and Timmo, we learned how to start (pull a string), go (press the gas), steer (umm..?) and stop (hit something).  These seemed to be the most important aspects, anyway.

Our first experience of getting 'stuck' with the snowmobile was swift and vicious in its arrival.  One of the problems of putting heavy vehicles and snow together is that, sooner or later, one of them is bound to get stuck in the other.  Usually it is most painful when the first clashes with the latter.

Our first evening we headed out across Inarijärvi, a minus 30 degrees wind whipping wildly in our hair, rosy cheeks and high spirits.  Lakes give the experienced snowmobile driver the freedom to fly without a care in the world.  Not being experienced snowmobile drivers was really the point that let us down; for instead of smooth flying, we found turbulence, and he came in the form of wet snow.  It wasn't long before 3 snowmobiles with sleds were, to put it bluntly, stuck. Getting these 300 kilo machines out of the situation usually requires a lot of pushing and pulling; preferably before the water, which has already caused enough trouble, decides to freeze.  We learned out lesson quite well that night, and for the rest of the expedition, perhaps for the first time in the long and arduous IWG history, we received no more of these experiences.

After staying at the college for 2 nights, we had our first taste of 'outside living' in Lapland; an overnight trip into the forest.  The first thing I discovered about camping in winter is how long it takes to set up camp.  Summer is now a great phenomenon to me, with its pleasantly running water, wood that lays on top of the ground and accessible toilet spots...

Life is good in Finnish army tents (when used for this purpose anyway) - small stoves keep the tents toasty, and a few oil lamps create the mood -we spent the night in these khaki tents (wonderfully not at all camouflaged in the snow), and when we weren't in them we were being treated to a spectacular display from Aurora Borealis herself.  The sky was lit with shades of green, yellow, red and occasionally purple, set against the backdrop of a sparking clear night.  There is nothing like the Lappish sky in winter.

Once we were considered to be sufficiently trained (ie. Starting, go etc as explained above) we left our base in Inari and drove 80km further north to the sleepy village of Sevetijärvi, where we were to begin our 5 day snowmobile assisted skiing expedition.  With us we had an incredible amount of gear all of which was pulled behind two snowmobiles one driven the whole time by our Master Martti, and the other driven by various young apprentices.

The five days moved through smoothly skiing all day through some of the most spectacular landscape.   Every night it took around 4 hours to put up a mammoth camp; two army tents, a group fireplace, fire wood collection and paths through the snow.  Then every morning we took it down again.

Our 3 day in the forest was snow cave day.  Pile up a hill of snow, let it freeze (couple of hours), then dig out the middle.  Voila, snow cave.  Always keen to try something new, I made was promising to be a cozy hidey hole 4 hours work later and it was ready.

Later that evening, Elena, who had decided to join me, and I wriggled one by one through the 30 centimeter opening.  When we finally got inside we were as sardines.

'I think I could've made it bigger,' I muttered.