Deep in the Arctic pine forest we hear the huskies long before we see them. A chorus of barking greets our arrival at Teuro Mikkonen’s dog camp in Finnish Lapland: 80 huskies leaping, yelping and bounding, eager to be hitched to the sledges they pull across the snow.

Mikkonen, their “musher”, or sledge- driver, lives in a log cabin at the camp. Beyond, a lonely track stretches farther into the forest, which covers 70 per cent of Finland. “Open that gate and follow the trail, and you can drive 100km and see only reindeer,” he says. “No people, no houses, just reindeer.”

My wife, Clare, and I are sampling the Arctic Circle during three nights in Finland. In a country whose people have a close relationship with Nature, conversations often turn to the seasons and the light, or lack of it.

We are on the outskirts of Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland, in mid-autumn, when the Land of the Midnight Sun gradually turns into the Land of the Midday Moon. In deep midwinter, the Sun emerges for less than two hours.

Mikkonen takes the season in his stride. “Darkness in Lapland is something special,” he says. “Even on the shortest day in December I can drive my dogs by moonlight, with the snow reflecting the light.”

The Finns call the sunless weeks Kaamos, a time to stay at home by the fire, and eat and drink by candlelight. “People from south Finland sometimes come here at that time and find it difficult because it’s so dark and quiet,” Mikkonen says.

We had flown into “south Finland”, 800km away, the previous evening. Our guide, Sofia Gustafsson, led us through Helsinki’s elegant streets and reflected on the special quality of the twilight, “the blue hour”, as Finns call it. “It’s a promise of what’s to come,” she says. “Soon the city will look like a dream. At home in childhood, it was always the time for stories.”

In the busy Art Nouveau railway station, businessmen downed vodka and families tackled hearty meals before catching the night train to St Petersburg. Along the road, couples whispered to each other in private corners of the Kappeli café, a favourite of the Finnish composer Sibelius.

From here we flew north to Rovaniemi, popular with British visitors as a centre for northern lights tours. It feels like a functional frontier town, but is a useful base for exploring Lapland’s landscape.

With Maria Sundman, from the Wild North travel company, we trek through one of the forests that stretch out to the horizon. “We need space and peace,” she says. “When a person from Lapland is in Milan or London, you go to your hotel room and say: ‘Oh, I need my peace!’ ” So is there any truth in Brecht’s quip that the Finns are “silent in two languages”? “You are quiet until you say something,” she replies cryptically.

After two hours we reach a clearing with wooden huts at the edge of one of the smallest of Lapland’s 200,000 lakes. One hut has been converted into a bracing sauna, while a barbecue is prepared in another.

At 6pm, the sun sets in an orange glow, silhouetting the pines and birches. In the stillness the only sounds are the lapping of water, the whirr of birds’ wings and the roar of wind in distant branches.

It would be the perfect moment for the northern lights to explode in psychedelic colour. Sadly, they don’t tonight, but we have great hopes for our third night, at the Aurora Chalet hotel in the village of Luosto. Our journey there includes an hour on one of Finland’s most northerly trains, to within 70km of the Russian border. Reindeer and white mountain hares leap away from the track, while the forests pass hypnotically.

We take another forest trek and, at dusk, look hopefully at the sky for hints of the northern lights. No luck again.

The following day, back in Rovaniemi, we see how stunning the lights can be, thanks to a sound-and-light show at Arktikum, a museum of Arctic and Lapp culture.

One display quotes a young Laplander’s frustration when away from home: “You long for the nature and silence of Lapland, the polar night, a real winter and, the greatest reward, the early spring.”

We raise a glass of vodka to that.

NEED TO KNOW

Getting there Finnair (www.finnair.com) flies daily from Heathrow and Manchester to Rovaniemi via Helsinki from £190.60 return.

Stay Aurora Chalets (www.luosto.fi) in Luosto has room-only doubles from £135 a night. The central Clarion Hotel Santa Claus (00 358 1632 1321, www.hotelsantaclaus.fi) has weekend B&B doubles from £290.

Sledding with dogs for 2½ hours costs€about £110pp (www.erasettiwildnorth.fi)

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