The story
Kolari · Lapland
A combination of wild optimism, stubbornness, and sisu.
- It started with snowmobiles
At the end of summer 2022 we sold the motorbikes and went onto an auction site to look for snowmobiles. What caught our eye instead was a plot on the bank of the Äkäsjoki with a log cabin on it that was fit only for demolition. Three years later the stubbornness paid off: the cabin was reborn as the Viking Hut. Before that, in 2023, we built the main building — the Lapland Riverside Hideaway.
- The numbers were too good
A hundred metres to state hunting grounds. Four kilometres to the Muonio river and its salmon. Forty metres to our own shore, the grayling and the trout. Thirty minutes to Ylläs, an hour to Pallas. Sixteen kilometres to the car-train station, seventy to the airport. Plots like that do not come up every day — and it was at the end of the road.
- Two days later we owned it
After a couple of days of thinking it over the bidding started, and shortly afterwards we were the owners of a 'cabin'. We stood there for a while wondering how this had happened.
- The dream instead of the ruin
If nothing could be made of the old cabin, then we would build the one we had always wanted, and the old one could become the woodshed. The healthy logs were saved. Permits took a while, and in May 2023 we went to mark out the position and direction. A few spruces had already come down, and the slope opened towards the Äkäsjoki better than we remembered. The place was even better than the first shock had suggested.
- Carved through the winter
Over that winter the trees were felled and the logs were carved by hand. Out of them rose Äkäsjoen Piilo. Out of the old ones, later, rose the Viking Hut — new feet under it and a complete rebuild, keeping the old spirit of Lapland.