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Relax in your own self contained ‘home from home’ in winter wonderland surroundings.
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The crackle of logs burning in the stove
It has taken me an absolute age to write this blog because I can’t quite find the right words to describe the feeling of returning to a warm winter cabin after an active day spent engaged in winter’s Nordic activities. The deep snow serves to deaden noise so very often the only sound you’ll hear from outside is the wind and, on calm nights, it is almost eerily quiet beyond the doors of your wooden enclave. Inside, you get a sort of “Homestead on the Range” sensation which is enhanced by the crackle of logs burning in the stove and the creaking of the broad timbers from which the cabin is constructed.
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Log cabins nestled amidst the snowy forests of Finnish Lapland
Your ‘home from home’ in a winter wonderland
Staying in a log cabin offers an escape from the everyday and the chance to relax in your own self-contained ‘home from home’ in winter wonderland surroundings. You can relax in front of a log fire, unwind in a private sauna, prepare some cocoa before bed and gaze out at your delightful snowy surroundings as you think about the experiences you have had during the day.
We offer a comprehensive range of holidays and tailor-made options that allow you to experience different styles of log cabin in a plethora of different destinations, whether you want a log cabin holiday in Europe of further afield. We feature cosy traditional cabins, more modern winter cottages with all mod cons and some spectacular locations across Lapland and into Canada.
A real joy of staying in one of our cabins or cottages is that you do not have to worry about self-catering, as all meals are included in a restaurant nearby; effectively you get your own space with all of the convenience of being in a hotel.
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Log cabins of Lapland
In Finland, our most popular destinations include the likes of the small ski resort of Luosto, where our cosy silver pine log cabins are situated within easy reach of the spa hotel where all meals are served. Each cabin has its own sauna and log burning stove. Guests have easy access to the ski resort and its downhill slopes. There’s a small range of shops along with a supermarket for any drinks or snacks you may like in your cabin.
Another favourite with our guests are the wooden winter cottages at Jeris, in the heart of Finnish Lapland they are dotted in a forest close to a large frozen lake.
Here guests can enjoy their own sauna, cosy fireplace and a range of cottages which sleep between 2 and 7 people, all within 15 minutes of the hotel facilities and restaurant.
Torassieppi completes our trio of Finnish locations and features hotel rooms within winter cottages alongside detached wooden cottage options that offer fireplaces and, in some cases, saunas. Situated on the edge of a frozen lake they are a short walk from some wonderful attractions including a reindeer farm, Torassieppi Winter Village and magnificent Aurora Domes.
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Go back to basics
In Norway, our guests can take part in dog sledding expeditions which are led by one of the most renowned mushers in Europe. Prior to departure and overnight stays in wilderness cabins guests stay in the cabins which have been built by this mushing legend. These shared cabins feature charming furniture crafted from wood and trees that he has collected on his dog sledding travels and every piece is entirely unique and hand-crafted. They are simple but very special.
Some of the remotest cabin accommodation we feature can be found in Canada’s Yukon Province and it is only accessible by ski plane during the winter!
This is a real back to basics experience as the cabins have no running water or toilet facilities but their location can only be described as five star.
The cabins at Tagish Wilderness Lodge sleep two people and are in the deepest wilderness. They offer a true retreat from the everyday world.
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Continued from TIME TO MAN-UP (PART 1)
Option 1: Go directly from the sauna into an icy plunge pool
It feels like being overcome by a panic attack
Believe it or not, this is the easy option!
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From the comfort of a warm sauna........
(Image: Visit Finland)
Rush from the warmth of the sauna and submerse your body in the icy waters of a purpose built plunge pool – essentially, a big hole in the ice! The secret is to just go for it, hesitation can often result in failure and a dash back to the sauna's toasty sanctuary.
Time for my Fellow Northumbrian to "Man-Up"
I thoroughly enjoyed watching the recent program on ITV called The Land of the Midnight Sun featuring Alexander Armstrong but felt little empathy for his winter swim in the Norwegian Sea near Tromsø.
Tromsø’s position on Norway’s west coast means that thanks to the Gulf Stream it is generally warmer than other towns and cities located at similar latitudes. As Armstrong stripped down to just his swimming trunks, the temperature was -4°C and as he strode purposefully into the icy, grey waters the sea temperature was an admittedly chilly -1°C (the salt content means that sea water has a lower freezing point than fresh). That’s pretty cold by anybody’s standards but compared to what goes on elsewhere in Northern Scandinavia, this was a walk in the park on a balmy late summer evening.
Travel to the Land of The Midnight Sun – Episode 3
The third and final part of Alexander Armstrong’s Arctic adventure sees the affable presenter travel to North America’s furthest extremes. In Canada, he visits the gold rush town of Dawson City and flies across the mighty Yukon River. From Canada, Armstrong’s journey ends in Alaska where he joins an Ice Road Trucker on the Dalton Highway and witnesses a spectacular display of the Northern Lights.
Many of the places he visits are very much “off-the-beaten-track” but here at Artisan Travel, we have worked closely with local suppliers in both Alaska and the Yukon to create holidays which allow you to make the absolute most of your stay in these remarkable places.
If you have been inspired by what you have seen then read on and discover a wealth of unforgettable opportunities which are delivered to you by a group of true experts and guides dedicated to sharing The Land of the Midnight Sun with their guests.
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The Yukon and The Last Great Gold Rush
In this episode, Armstrong travels to Dawson City which sits on what was originally a mosquito infested swamp on the confluence of the Yukon and Klondike Rivers. It was near here in 1896 that George Carmacks noticed gold deposits while salmon fishing that would be the cause of what is now known as “The Last Great Gold Rush”.
Armstrong learns that Dawson City has lost none of its Gold Rush charm and describes it rather affectionately as being
“....exactly what I was expecting a gold rush town to look like. If you listen hard, you can almost hear the ghostly piano playing downstairs and maybe a few chairs being broken over people’s heads.”
Broken chairs and barroom brawls notwithstanding, Armstrong succinctly captures the enduring mood of this one time boom town and learns that the current high price of gold is once again attracting latter day prospectors to the Yukon. Indeed, he joins one such fortune hunter at his claim site and digs for gold himself before returning to Dawson City and trying a rather unpleasant local drink, the “Sourtoe Cocktail”. We wouldn’t recommend it ourselves.
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Alaska – Auroras, Ice Roads and Bush Pilots
Armstrong’s journey finishes in Alaska where, after spending a night in the wilderness and witnessing a stunning auroral display, he joins an Ice Road Trucker on the Dalton Highway between Fairbanks and Coldfoot. The Dalton is one of the roads featured in “Ice Road Truckers” and is known as one of the most dangerous in the world.
Armstrong witnesses a couple of incidents along the route and learns how the trucking community works very much as a team to ensure survival in what can be an extremely inhospitable environment. With winter temperatures dropping as low as -60C in winter and snowy blizzards reducing visibility to practically zero, this can be a dangerous place to live and work and anybody whose vehicle breaks down can face serious peril.
Armstrong sees how the truckers and other road users always stop to lend a hand in such circumstances.
From Coldfoot, Armstrong flies further north to the tiny settlement at Anaktuvuk and in the process learns just how important small aircraft and bush pilots are to Alaska’s more remote communities which very often are not accessible by road.
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Travel to the Land of The Midnight Sun – Episode 2
Alexander Armstrong’s ‘In the Land of the Midnight Sun’ travels through the heart of Artisan Travel country, visiting areas which may appear as being beyond reach, but that are in fact easily within your grasp. Here at Artisan our expert team have worked alongside our local partners and guides to handcraft a range of holidays which allow you to experience this unique region in a variety of ways, all year round.
The delights that we have uncovered mean that our guests get to enjoy experiences which have even eluded the most famous of travellers to this region.
If you have been inspired by what you have seen then read on and discover a wealth of unforgettable opportunities which are delivered to you by a group of true experts and guides dedicated to sharing ‘The Land of the Midnight Sun’ with guests.
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The Natural Wonders of Iceland
Having glimpsed the power of the Icelandic glaciers last week, Alexander Armstrong continues his journey through the land of fire and ice in order to explore some more of its natural wonders.
He visits Thingvellir National Park and the famous Silfra Fissure, where the tectonic plates of Eurasia and America drift apart to create a rift in the Earth’s crust, filled with water.
Visitors come here to enjoy snorkelling and diving in this seemingly peaceful location, some never knowing that it exists simply because of some of nature’s most destructive forces.
The water that fills the rift starts life as part of a glacier which is forging its way down a mountainside some 50km away. The melted water then descends through a valley, whose floor is made of volcanic lava; taking up to 100 years to filter through the rock. The water eventually reached Thingvellir where the Earth’s crust has cracked under such extreme forces. The waters are therefore some of the clearest in the world and snorkelling here is unlike anywhere else in the world. The water colour is almost peacock blue when you stare through the waters with visibility reaching around 80 metres.
Guests can enjoy the same spectacle during almost all of our holidays in Iceland as we can arrange for the snorkelling to be added into our itineraries; we thoroughly recommend the experience.
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Live the dog sledding dream
Some of the main highlights of episode two come from the joys of dog sledding. Luckily, 90% of our winter holidays feature this exceptional and unforgettable activity. Whether you want to head out for an hour or take to the trails for a week we have husky encounters to suit everyone. For those who want to dedicate their time to this incredible form of transport then we have a huge selection to choose from.
In Finland we can highly recommend the stunning Saija Lodge, where guests can enjoy building up the duration of their daily dog sled exploits with the week culminating in a spectacular overnight safari.
In Norway, the legendary musher Sven Engholm plays host to guests at his cosy camp, complete with handcrafted cabins, before leading guests on epic multi-day adventures in the wilderness of Norway.
For those who want longer adventures then the 5 and 7 day husky expeditions run by our friends at Harriniva Wilderness Hotel are exceptional experiences.
Across the pond and in the heart of Alaska, we offer guests the unique opportunity to get behind the scenes of the world famous Iditarod dog sled race, meeting the mushers and getting the chance to go mushing with an Iditarod legend.
All of our Travel Experts can use their own firsthand experience of dog sled safaris to point you in exactly the right direction.
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My swim between the landmasses of Europe and America was far less of a challenge than I initially anticipated, it required neither years of training and preparation nor support teams and record-breaking feats of endurance. On the chilly February morning which had been chosen for my swim, I woke in my cosy double bed in Reykjavik (which was to be the starting point of my adventure), enjoyed a delicious continental breakfast and waited for my crew to collect me in reception, without any real sense of trepidation at all. 
Credit: Dive. is
That was the cry in the late 1890’s which sparked one of the greatest human stampedes in history. The rumour mill was rife and, motivated by tales of nuggets as big as a fist just waiting to be picked up off the ground, a wave of humanity headed towards the vast northern wilderness. In those days there was no TV, no internet and no mobile phones so the news slowly filtered down to Seattle and San Francisco from where it spread like a gathering wildfire across North America and further afield.
From all corners of the world, it is estimated that at least 100,000 wildly optimistic would-be miners set out for the north with absolutely no knowledge of what lay ahead. They had no inkling of the long bitter winters that awaited them nor did they know of the huge distances to be negotiated across the vast, untamed and largely uncharted wilderness that lay ahead. From the UK, Europe, Australasia and elsewhere they came; lawyers, dentists, factory workers, teachers, newspapermen, conmen, farmers simply gave up their work and headed north in search of the Promised Land.
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