I'm standing on what feels like two fixed skis, holding on to what looks like the back of a wooden chair, yelling with what I hope sounds like authority. I am bowling along a snowy path at about 30mph. Fortunately, I am not going downhill under the terrifying force of gravity, but trundling along the flat via the impetus of live husky dogs. Four furiously panting huskies, harnessed in a line to my chair (actually a wooden sledge), are in the process of enthusiastically hauling themselves, the sledge and I along. The more I yell, the faster they go. 'Yip! Yip!' is their favoured command, so 'Yip! Yip!' it is.
Actually, we are going at such a lick I'm a bit worried my glasses and hat might blow off, but I'm just too nervous to let go of the chair in order to fasten them more securely to my head. 'Whatever you do, don't let go of the sledge!' were my guide's last words before we tore off. We hurtle towards a corner at speed, at which point I stamp down on a large metal plate between my skis. This has the effect of instantly slowing the huskies down to a brisk trot. Yes, there is a brake on a husky sledge. That's the first thing to factor in.
For anyone who suffers from extreme ski anxiety, husky sledging is a masterstroke. It ticks all the nice boxes on the ski list: blue skies, snowy terrains, peerless views, partial tan and mulled wine. Crucially, however, it leaves all the vile things about skiing well alone: steep mountains, scary crevasses, couloirs, piste markers, black runs, button lifts and, best of all, those boring conversations the enthusiasts have about how many moguls they conquered that day. And there's a brake. In half a dozen tearful ski holidays, I never found the brake.
Paradoxically, it was Alpine skiing, and certainly its value, which caused Scandinavia to dream up the notion of husky sledging for tourists. Blessed with plentiful snow, but cursed with a largely flat terrain, the Scandinavian countries started to market their own winter sports about 25 years ago. Their unique selling point was that they could thrive in isolation from downhill skiing. The notion took off on a scale covering everything from the fantastic (Father Christmas) to the esoteric (the Northern Lights).
The masterstroke to the invention of the Nordic winter holiday was the creation of the Ice Hotel. Now a world-famous attraction, the Ice Hotel is freshly built every year on the banks of the Torne River in Jukkasjärvi, a spot near the tiny town of Kiruna, deep in Swedish Lapland, and firmly within the Arctic Circle. Initially built in 1991, it was the first, and is still, the largest frozen institution, although the Alta Igloo (in Norwegian Lapland) and the Snow Village (in Finnish Lapland) have since elbowed their way into the highly niche but wildly popular field of accommodation on blocks of frozen water.
At the Ice Hotel, guests stamp about in boots, Shackleton-style mittens and snow suits, all provided. Your ice bed comes with reindeer skins plus a cosy sleeping bag. Even so, most guests only have one night on the rocks, before heading for 'warm' accommodation.
In the daytime, you can take your pick from the now well-established list of Nordic snow sports, chief of which is husky sledging. 'I credit the guys who created a demand in the first place,' says my husky guide, Kenth Fjellborg. A rather charismatic man somewhat reminiscent of Kiefer Sutherland in a fleece, Fjellborg keeps more than 150 dogs in a giant kennel opposite the Ice Hotel. He estimates his dogs pull upward of 10,000 Ice Hotel guests during the winter season.
Over a delicious bowl of moose meat stew, he explains how he guided Prince Albert of Monaco to the North Pole. Via husky, of course. 'Prince Albert is the first head of state to visit the North Pole,' he says cheerfully. When he's not taking Monegasque royalty to the extremes, Kenth is forever thinking of ways to improve husky appeal.
'I know I have helped develop the dog sledge industry here,' he says. 'Sledging has credibility, and this area, being flat and snowy, is perfect for it. You don't need to be hugely fit. Indeed, most people are quite happy not to drive, but to sit in the sledge.'
It's easy to see how a raft of activities grew alongside the Ice Hotel. After sleeping on ice, and drinking icy vodka from an ice glass, and photographing the icy bedrooms, and posing beneath the ice chandelier in the ice hall, you need to get out and do something, be it a high-end event such as bespoke husky rides, or something low-key such as lassoing a reindeer and feeding it with a bucketful of pellets.
