THERE'S no such thing as bad weather, someone said, only inadequate clothing and every stitch of clothing I had, Rune decided, was totally inadequate. Adequate for winter climbing in Wicklow, perhaps, or skiing in Austria but for the Finnish tundra? Forget it.
So, out go my padded ski gloves, on go the super-mitts. Over the wimpish ski-pants go first a thicker pair and then an orange one-piece, heavy enough to be proof against arctic wind and snow. Over my ears a thick woollen cap, on my feet thicker socks and heavy, waterproof boots. And for my eyes, snow goggles.
Rune packs some kerosene, a saw, a lighter. Oh, and his cross-country skis. His are broad strips of wood, with leather straps to hold them on. (My own, poor thin things purchased in a Helsinki department store, he dismisses as matchsticks.) The shiny, red snow-mobile is ticking over. Attached to it is my sledge, padded with skins, fur side up, dense and voluptuous; behind my sledge, another sledge for Karra, the dog.
And then, accelerating fast, we're off; Rune riding the snow-mobile standing up, the gallant, ageing Karra galloping along in the snow for the first few kilometres, me hanging on behind.
We are 200 kilometres up into the Arctic Circle and still climbing north wards - into Finnish Lapland, the country of the Saami whose great reindeer domain stretches across the northern reaches of Europe from Norway, through Sweden and Finland and into Russia: reindeer, like birds, know no barriers.
The Saami were once nomads, herding with sledges and living in their canvas koaati - their tepee-shaped tents. Now they live in houses and round up their reindeer with snow-mobiles and light aircraft.
There are about 100,000 Saami worldwide, of which 6,000 live in Finland and 700 live in the village of Hetta, which Rune and I have just left and where, every March, there is a gathering of Saami from all walks of life including musicians, reindeer herders, academics and elected representatives.
The track takes leads out into the great wilderness of the tundra - a bone-chilling place of silence and solitude. In the distance, a few reindeer pass, insubstantial shapes against the blinding white landscape. If they forage around, they may find life-conserving lichen which they can smell through three feet of snow. The snow itself is like desert sand, sculpted by the wind and sometimes, when we take a sharp bend, it floods over the sledge, cold as sea spray. The snow-mobile changes direction for no apparent reason. To the stranger, the tundra, its landscape as unchanging as the desert, holds no clues but to Rune, it is home. He is scornful of the word wilderness for this is the territory of the Saami and each hill, each plateau, each sloping cliff of snow - the townlands of the tundra - has a name. Here, reindeer roam and the Saami trap the grouse that scurry through the snow like fat, white partridge. You can sometimes spot a trap, its curved sticks bent into the snow. A bird caught in one will be dead by morning.
Our route takes us deeper into the tundra and the cold enters my bones like a pain. Then we stop, close to a stand of birch - an oasis in an otherwise treeless landscape. Further into the tundra, there won't be even these so the saw goes into action and, later, the logs burn fast and bright; the furs are spread out and soon the smell of coffee wafts across our small patch of snow. Rune lights up a huge Honduran cigar and lies back among his furs.
"We are the richest people in the whole world," he says. "We have all the time we want." He once spent 11 days out here, on his own, trapping grouse.
The stillness is thick around us. The light from the March sun is veiled and fractured but it's there. Karra sniffs the sharp air, the logs glow - and when it's time to pack up, I don't want to leave.
BACK in Hetta, the spring festival is in full swing. Traditionally, this was the time when people could meet up again after being cut off by the winter snows. Marriages took place, winter-born babies were named, deals were struck and, way back, the taxman from Novgorod might drop in, for nomads are difficult people to pin down. In fact, the Saami at one time, were liable to be taxed by three different powers. The trick was to pay taxes - i.e. protection money - to one of them who would then fend off the other two.
Latterly, however, the spring festival was tied in with March 25th, the feast of the Annunciation, and is now called the Marian weekend. The church in Hetta, dating back to 1865, has always been the focus for the gatherings. Not that there was much praying going on - more a time for convivial drinking, a bit of arguing and lots of competitions. Reindeer races take place round a one-kilometre track, the contestants lying on their sledges to start with but standing up triumphantly to pass the winning post. Lasso-throwing goes on all day, the women serve food and drink in their koaati and in the evening begins the yoiking - that strange, powerful singing peculiar to the Saami, impossible to describe, unbearable to listen to half chant, half keening, plaintive and eternal. Yoiking is an evocation of the sun, the land, the reindeer. Of life itself - with all its customs. Don't whistle when you see the Northern Lights, they say, or you may be whisked up into the sky forever.
The Saami are a people close to the spirit of the Earth. In Finland, they are its mouthpiece, calling out for its conservation even if at times, it seems that theirs is a drowning voice. Reindeer-grazing land has been lost to hydroelectric schemes. Border controls and passports have interfered with migration. Deforestation has destroyed vegetation.
NOT that some Saami haven't prospered. The bigger reindeer herders - an average herd number 16 - are doing well and outside the hotel, it's not Lad as you see parked but Mercedes and Toyotas: everyone eats reindeer meat up here. (A bowl of porridge and a fry of reindeer blood sausage will set you up for the day.) Many, of course, kill and store their own but if you have to buy, it comes at about £4 a kilo.
The winter days in Hetta are short, though never completely black-dark midnight blue might be a better description, for the snow reflects a lot of light. And then comes late winter (now) to be followed by spring and the great thaw. Out alone on the middle of the lake, on my cross-country skis, I suddenly thought of this thaw - and headed briskly for the bank. My panic caused a laugh. Even in March, they said, the ice on the lake is one metre thick. By summer, it will have gone and the fells will be covered with flowers and bracken. The reindeer will settle down to summer pastures and another cycle of Saami life will have begun.