Christmas inspiration: Snowshoe walking in Finnish Lapland
Written by Amanda Kendle
With all the Christmas decorations going up I’ve been reminded of my favourite Christmas holiday ever – a couple of years ago I spent the Christmas season based in Rovaniemi in Finnish Lapland. There are so many outdoor activities to do up there – and yes, especially in winter, despite the very short daylight hours – although unfortunately a lot of them are pretty expensive.
One of the best days out I had was also the cheapest, probably because for once it didn’t involve firing up a snowmobile and powering across the snow. Just before Christmas I booked onto a day of snowshoe walking out in the forest about a half hour drive from Rovaniemi, with a great Finnish guide and a small group of Brits and Aussies.
Snowshoe walking is no adventure sport, but perhaps that’s why I loved the day so much – it was quiet and peaceful and I felt like I finally got to experience the Finnish outdoors properly. The snow was very deep and soft, so it was actually quite strenuous (and I tripped over my snowshoes a couple of times too, when they got stuck too deep!), and the guide was smart enough to have a few breaks and provide hot chocolate and chocolate chip cookies.
In fact you could do this more cheaply by just renting the equipment and heading out yourself, but all the tour operators in Rovaniemi also provide reasonably-priced tours – well, reasonable in the Finnish sense, in a country that’s definitely not cheap. You can choose from half a dozen Rovaniemi tour operators – I used a couple and found them pretty similar. If you do get up to Rovaniemi then please drop by Santa’s Village and tell the old guy I said hi!
Thanks for mentioning my hometown! Snowshoe walking is great! See some more snowshoe pictures in Lapland http://picasaweb.google.com/tuijahoo/Lapland#
“In fact you could do this more cheaply by just renting the equipment and heading out yourself,” -
ABSOLUTELY do NOT do it yourself if you don’t know the area and the terrain. This can be suicidal. Even when you set out in nice weather with a GPS, you may find yourself stranded with no help if the conditions suddenly change. I live in the Arctic and can tell you first-hand that for an inexperienced snow-shoe walker that is a very risky suggestion.
That pictures looks beautiful and COLD! I used snowshoes once in a while when walking home, but I have to say, I don’t like them very much, I prefer cross-country skis. When the snow was too powdery I sank in; when it was too mushy the wet snow piled up underneath.
Come on, going to forest is not dangerous.
@ Illka, nice to meet another friendly Rovaniemian (?), your pictures were beautiful. Love that snow!
@ Anna, yes, definitely a good point. That’s why I need the experts! But for people who know more about snow than me, there are surely some situations where it’s OK. I’ve only ever done guided walks though.
@ Fida, I can imagine that cross-country skis are usually more efficient – but especially for people like me with no snow experience then snowshoe walking is a fun and different experience.
[...] now it’s far from winter and I was wondering what I could recommend for her to do, since snowshoe walking won’t quite work out this time of year. And then I remembered that I’d spent an [...]