Ośrodki narciarskie w kraju: Finland

Finnish skiing is fell skiing at modest vertical, and judging it on drop misses the point entirely. Levi, Ylläs, Ruka and Pyhä are built on rounded Lapland fells with wide, immaculately prepared pistes, very cold dry snow and a season that runs from November well into May. Ylläs has the longest runs in the country, Levi has the most infrastructure and hosts World Cup slaloms, and Ruka in Kuusamo opens earliest.

Darkness shapes everything. In December and January the Lapland sun barely clears the horizon, so almost every piste is floodlit and skiing under lights in blue polar twilight is the normal experience rather than an evening extra. By March and April the light is long and the snow still cold, which is when most experienced visitors go. Temperatures of minus twenty are routine, and resorts are set up for it with heated lift queues, indoor rest points and rental clothing.

The winter activity programme is the main reason many families choose Finland over the Alps. Husky and reindeer sledding are run by working kennels and Sámi herders rather than as staged attractions, snowmobile safaris cover the frozen lakes and forests, and northern lights viewing is a realistic proposition on clear nights from September through March. Cross country skiing is fundamental, with hundreds of kilometres of prepared and often floodlit track at every resort. Add ice fishing, snowshoeing, ice karting and the sauna culture, which is not optional and generally involves rolling in the snow afterwards.

Lapland cooking is game, fish and forest. Sautéed reindeer, poronkäristys, served with mashed potato and lingonberry jam, is the national mountain dish and appears on every menu from the hut to the hotel. Arctic char and salmon are grilled on a board by the fire, loimulohi style, and salmon soup, lohikeitto, with cream, potato and dill is the standard lunch on a cold day.

Sweet things lean on the forest too: cloudberries, the amber Arctic berry, served with leipäjuusto, the squeaky baked cheese also called bread cheese, is the dessert to try. Bilberries and lingonberries turn up in pies, and korvapuusti, the cardamom cinnamon bun, is the standard accompaniment to coffee, which Finns drink more of per head than any other nation. Rye bread appears with everything.

Drinking is dominated by the kota, the Sámi style teepee hut with an open fire, where the drink is hot berry juice, glögi mulled wine or a Lapin Kulta beer after a day out. Salmiakki, salty liquorice, is used to flavour vodka and is an acquired taste that most visitors do not acquire. Après ski in Levi is livelier than the rest of Lapland, and the karaoke bar is a more accurate picture of Finnish evening culture than an umbrella bar.

Finland's ski heritage is nordic rather than alpine. Cross country skiing has been transport in the Finnish forests for centuries, and the country's competitive tradition in nordic disciplines is out of all proportion to its population. The Lahti Ski Games, running since 1923, and the Finlandia Hiihto marathon are the domestic fixtures, and Lahti has hosted the Nordic World Ski Championships seven times, more than anywhere else.

Alpine facilities came much later, with the Lapland resorts developing from the 1960s onwards as road and air access to the north improved. Levi now hosts the opening slalom races of the Alpine World Cup season most Novembers, when snow reliability in the Alps cannot be guaranteed, and awards a live reindeer to each winner as a prize, which the champions name and leave in Finland.

Sámi culture is the older layer beneath all of this. Reindeer herding across Lapland is a Sámi livelihood with legal protections, and the traditional skis and herding practices predate any recreational skiing by a very long way. Visitors will encounter the culture through the kota huts, the duodji handicraft and the herding cooperatives that run many of the reindeer experiences, and the better operators are Sámi owned.