Sami cultural capital, Lake Inari (Finland’s third-largest lake), our northernmost long-stay base. Long-stay sense: the lake itself is the activity. Ice fishing
Lake Inari runs about a hundred kilometres end to end and holds over 3,300 islands. It averages 14 metres deep and reaches nearly 100 at its deepest. The municipality counts more than 10,000 lakes in all.
North Sámi, Inari Sámi and Skolt Sámi are all in official use here alongside Finnish, and almost a third of the municipality’s residents are Sámi. Siida, the national museum of Sámi culture, sets its main exhibition and open-air museum against the nature of the far north.
Inari covers five per cent of Finland’s surface area, and two thirds of its people live in Ivalo rather than in Inari village itself. What that leaves around the village is space: forest, water and open fell, with very little in between.
The village sits on the lake and holds Siida, the national museum of Sámi culture. It is small, and that is the reason to stay: the water, the quiet and the short winter light, rather than a choice of addresses.
The airport is at Ivalo, and so are most of the municipality’s residents; Inari village is the smaller of the two. A room in Ivalo shortens the first and last day of the trip, and a room in Inari puts you beside the lake for all the days in between.
Cabins stand along the shore and back in the forest, with a great deal of space and very little between them. Buy food before you drive out, the shops are in the villages, not on the road.