Spring may have officially sprung in the northern hemisphere, but there are still some parts where winter isn't done yet, no matter what the calendar says. North of the Arctic Circle, that northerly line of latitude which marks the geographic region where polar day and night (24-hour days or nights, depending on the time of year) can be readily experienced, there are still several more weeks of winter season pursuits to enjoy.

Here in Lapland - a region which extends across parts of Finland, Sweden, Norway and Russia - among landscapes of snow-covered forests and frozen lakes that stretch out in every direction and echo scenes from the movie Dr Zhivago, cross-country skiing, ice fishing, dog-sled safaris, snowmobile tours, and ice driving are all part of the Arctic equation. And of course, there's also the natural phenomenon known as the northern lights, or aurora borealis.

Not your average pets: Take a dog-sled safari on sunny days, when the snow sparkles, the wilderness beckons and the landscapes are at their most photogenic

In this part of the world, daytime temperatures in early March this year averaged a positively toasty - 10 degrees Celsius - normal temperatures are in the 35-degree range - but that's cold comfort to someone arriving from a tropical country like Singapore. Even so, it's not uncommon to see the locals out and about, taking pets for a walk or babies for a stroll in the pram.

It's not that Scandinavians are immune to the extreme cold - it's just that they seem to enjoy it a lot more than they ought to. One local I spoke to said that she truly loved Arctic winters but once the Arctic summers rolled around - those 100 days or so when the sun doesn't set - she headed further south or visited friends in other parts of the world. "I hate the summers here," she says. Whatever the case, it's an attitude that sums up the stoic Scandinavian disposition - and possibly why the average consumption of vodka is so high.

Perhaps it has something to do with the winter diet. While modern Scandinavian cuisine is poised to become the Next Big Culinary Thing, menus up in Lapland appear to be more limited in scope. The food here is hearty rather than hip, and usually includes some variation of salmon, trout or their close relative, the arctic char.

Not surprisingly, reindeer meat - grilled, smoked and roasted - is served in most restaurants. "It's a low-cost product," says Britt-Marie, the reindeer herder from the indigenous Sami people who served me a reindeer sandwich in her kota - the teepee-like tent which is omnipresent among Laplanders in the wilderness.

Lappish hospitality is famously warm, but for a truly hot reception, there's nothing like a short stint in that ubiquitous lifestyle institution known as the sauna. In Lapland - especially so in Sweden and neighbouring Finland - the de rigueur way to prevent the cold from seeping into your bones is to head for the nearest sauna. If there isn't one attached to your room, there's likely to be one in the vicinity.

In Finland, where there are an estimated one million saunas in a country with a population of about 5.3 million, there is an ancient proverb that instructs: "First build the sauna, and then the house." After a session in 80-degree Celsius temperatures, the prescribed way in Lapland is to roll around in the snow, or if there's a non-frozen lake handy, a quick plunge to help the circulation - and impress the locals.

About 70 kilometres from the Finnish gateway city of Kittila, about a 90-minute flight from Helsinki, the resort towns of Muonio and Levi are hives of winter leisure activity. The slopes are inviting but the focus is firmly on cross-country rather than downhill skiing. Finnish Lapland offers more of what's available across in Sweden - the temperatures are similar, the snow and ice look the same, and there are blond people everywhere.

As one regular visitor puts it, Lapland is a "very empty state where there are more deer than people, more trees than deer and snow everywhere." On sunny days, when the snow sparkles, the wilderness beckons and the pristine landscapes are at their most photogenic, it's easy to see why Lapland leaves visitors in awe - winter here is simply special.

This article was first published in The Business Times, Weekend Edition, Mar 29 2008.