Midnight Train to Lapland

A little peak into an all too brief trip to Rovaniemi.

A man ice fishing on a frozen lake in Rovaniemi

When my wife enthusiastically suggested Finnish Lapland for our first holiday in 2 years, you could best describe my feelings as conflicted.

Should I let on I hated the idea, or do the loving thing and say it sounded lovely.

I mean, Lapland for God’s sake? Cold, dark Lapland? We were only 3 months into the 6-month Finnish winter at this point. I wanted some sun, some heat. A little less snow not more of it. What next, cooling down after the sauna with a bowl of chilli?

But then she added a detail that changed everything.

We wouldn’t travel by plane, and we wouldn’t be driving.

To get there, we’d go an 11-hour night train from our home in Turku to the capital of Finnish Lapland, Rovaniemi.

And with that, I became more excited for a holiday than I’ve been my entire life.

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My obsession with night trains began when I was a boy on a school trip to France. It was then my classmates and I rode a couchette from Calais to somewhere in the south I’ve forgotten the name of. We were probably no older than 10 at the time and, stocked up with warm, glass bottles of Cacolac and foil-wrapped Mikado cookies, we’d never known such liberation from our parents.

Looking back now, even the freedom to switch on the florescent orange nightlight each of our bunks boasted registers as a profound exercise in the agency of life away from the grip of parental oversight.

And since then, I’ve always dreamt of riding a “couchette” again.

The memory of that French sleeper train is one of brown carpet, wooden doors and filament lightbulbs. What the 21st Century Finnish equivalent has lost in nineties homeliness has made up for in its easy-wipeable cleanliness. A trade I felt happy with having become a neurotic clean freak in my approach to 40.

Our cabin generously included the night train equivalent of the hotel-standard cuck chair.

I hate plane travel. As an immigrant with family abroad, flying is something I only begrudgingly accept as a part of my life now. I’d take boat or train travel over flying any day of the week. My experience on the night train to Lapland has only reinforced this. There is something deeply reassuring, deeply luxurious even about waking up at 2 am, the gentle rumble of train wheels under you, in the knowledge you needn’t spare a thought to transfers or which stop to get off at or having a passport ready.

I didn’t have the best night’s sleep on that journey. But as I watched the stations and little Finnish towns full of quaint wooden houses pass my cabin window one after another, I didn’t mind it at all.

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Our 4 full days in Rovaniemi were an all too brief adventure in the sublime and entirely forgettable.

Having our two little ones with us, we felt it impossible not to visit the Official Home of Santa Claus™ to see some reindeer and sit on a random Finnish bloke’s lap. I am probably naive of course, but it really was far more of an amusement park than I’d been anticipating. I was grateful to be able to have an elegant picture of myself taken at the Arctic Circle showing off how rugged and outdoorsy I am, but otherwise, I won’t be rushing back.

Rugged, outdoorsy picture of me at the Arctic Circle as promised.

That night, the first of 3 we’d get the chance to hopefully see the Northern Lights, the sky was entirely cloudy.

2 more to go.

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Far more interesting than Santa’s village was the town of Rovaniemi itself.

The city was largely destroyed by German troops during their retreat in 1944 following the end of The Continuation War Finland fought against Soviet Russia. Few buildings remain from before this time as a consequence, and part of the job of rebuilding the city was put to the great Finnish architect Alvar Aalto. As well as some typically beautiful buildings, he also famously helped redesign the city layout itself. And, because good things really can emerge from the darkest of events, he redesigned it in the shape of a reindeer’s head.

Can you see it?

We didn’t get the chance to venture into the true natural beauty of Finnish Lapland, I hope when the kids are older we get the chance to do that with them. But in its place we did get to enjoy Rovaniemi’s Arktikum museum.

Drawing the Northern Lights on an interactive screen with my little one at Arktikum.

This museum of Lappish nature, culture and history is as close to a cathedral of the natural world as I’ve ever experienced. The externally visible part of the building is defined by a 170 metre glass “tunnel” corridor that extends out to a stunning view of Rovaniemi’s Ounasjoki river. The exhibitions meanwhile are hidden in subterranean buildings and span everything from the science of the Northern Lights, the typical wild foods of the region, and the history of conflict with Soviet Russia that has had such a profound impact here. It is an incredible place, and if I hadn’t been visiting with 2 very hard to please children I could have spent all day.

The glass tunnel of Arktikum Museum

That night passed with more clouds overhead.

1 more night to go.

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Our final day was all about food.

One of the first things I did when planning the trip was to find out where I really needed to eat. I love the food of this region. I love its simplicity and the balance of acidity and old fashioned techniques of fermenting and smoking that are still so important here. (And it’s why I’ll be celebrating it in The Prep List starting next week) Being such a brief trip, I wanted to find somewhere that really showed off what Lapland looks like on the plate.

I found precisely that at Taiga, the Lappish restaurant we visited on our final evening that my research told me was one of Rovaniemi’s best.

I had a good feeling about the place as soon as we walked in.

The dark, industrial walls of the interior, broken up by the lightness of local wood, gave a sense of nature itself reaching in to the dining room. It’s a feeling that extended to the furniture as well. I loved the gentle waves carved into the tables that speak to both the forests and the lakes of Finland as well.

I could go on about how lovely the service was, how deeply informed the waiter and restaurant manager were about their ingredients and passion for refined Lappish food, but I think a few words on that food itself does the job best.

I’ve eaten in a few highly rated, Michelin-listed restaurants, over the years. Some of these have been so painfully boring and tweezered-up I was forced to get pizza an hour after getting home.

This small, young restaurant (they only opened in November) is probably too tucked away, not showy enough to get much attention from Mr Michelin. But it’s their loss. The food at Taiga was not just delicious and technically spot on, but it was a clear demonstration of Finland on a plate. The simplicity of ingredients, the traditional techniques, the sourcing of the meat and vegetables. It all spoke so directly of this very beautiful corner of the world.

If I were to pick out one element that demonstrated this it would be the reindeer. Yes it was perfectly cooked, tender with a gentle hum of gaminess about it. But what I really loved is that it wasn’t just local reindeer. It was reindeer herded by the restaurant owner’s own father.

I’ve largely stopped eating red meat these days. I haven’t had beef for months save half my son’s hamburger a few weeks ago. Tasting this genuinely special meat reaffirmed this decision for me. Yes it was expensive. But I’d rather eat this twice a year and be blown away than mass-farmed beef every week for a fraction of the price. It was that good.

L to R: Cured whitefish, reindeer with celeriac, cloudberry bavarois.

Along with the bill we were given a “gummy” candy (called marmeladi in Finnish) flavoured with a local wild plant called maarianheinä (sweet grass in English among many other names), which tasted delicately of tonka beans (due to a compound they share called coumarin). They were made by a local candy shop and boy do I hate how expensive it is to ship anything outside Finland these days because I’d love to have been able to send a bag to one of you lucky lot.

Which brings us to the final night. The final chance to see those elusive Northern Lights.

Northern Lights are called Revontulet in Finnish. Directly translated back that means fox fires. This is in reference to the tails of mythical foxes (tulikettu) that were said to spark when brushed against the tree tops.

I learnt at the Arktikum museum there are three forms the lights are normally seen in. There is the arc form that hovers over the horizon, which was once thought to be the bridge by which the gods moved from cloud to cloud. Most common is the snake-like band of lights that twists across the sky. Most rare is the "crown” or “corona” form that is seen only when the lights are directly above you, the rays appearing to shoot in every direction.

On our last night in Lapland we saw all three.

I have only a few pictures for you. I treated myself by simply enjoying them while they lasted without worrying too much about picture-taking with my ancient smartphone.

Revontulet

I should probably wait until the Finnish Tourism Board start paying me that sweet influencer dollar before I start saying these things, but 3 days as a tourist is clearly nothing for what this part of Finland can offer. I’m already dreaming of coming back when the kids are older, maybe in the summer months one day, so we can hike and camp and swap out Santa’s Village for more nature, more fox fires, more of that incredible food.

Back in the south after another night’s train ride and the trees themselves seemed a little greener already.

Spring was here.

For a moment I think I found myself missing the cold.

Well, for a moment.

Thanks for joining me this week. Next week I have the introduction to The Prep List coming your way. If you’d like to receive it be sure to upgrade your subscription (just a few dollars a month) by clicking below!