The wild terrain of the Arctic used to be the playground of explorers. But a new crop of high-end heli-ski lodges is turning it into the next frontier for skiers in search of virgin powder and unlimited runs, shared only with resident polar bears and reindeer.
If skiing under the midnight sun feels like a new level in bragging rights, the ambitious Niehku Mountain Villa — with 14 rooms on the border of Norway and Sweden — is a whole different game. Located on the 68th parallel, just north of the Arctic Circle, the lodge is reachable by a 90-minute flight from Stockholm to Kiruna followed by a 90-minute drive along a beautiful, desolate road.
Few adventure bases like it exist: The only comparable options are Deplar Farm in Iceland and Weber Arctic’s heli-ski operation on Canada’s Baffin Island. But when it opens in March for its first official season — Arctic skiing is best in the spring — Niehku will aim to raise the bar with a 500-bottle wine cellar, top-of-the-line ski gear including Salomon freeride skis, and multicourse locavore meals.
The tiny hamlet of Riksgränsen — a simple cluster of barnlike buildings straddling the Swedish and Norwegian border, a full 125 miles north of the Arctic Circle — feels like a village pulled from Scandinavian mythology. It was established over a century ago as a customs stop, after the two countries’ navies established a railway line hauling iron ore from the Swedish mines to the Norwegian coast.
Whispers spread of the surrounding mountains, and the first ski lift was installed in 1954; even though it would take three decades to connect the area to Stockholm by road, an unlikely ski scene emerged. Plenty of enthusiasts, it turned out, were willing to make the long train journey from the Lapland town of Kiruna to ski here; the terrain rivals Kamchatka and the Himalayas in terms of remoteness and variety, with a mix of high-altitude, wide-open powder runs and adrenaline-pumping steeps that can’t be found anywhere else.
Today, Riksgränsen features prominently in extreme ski and snowboard films; it’s a stomping ground for freeride ski and snowboard pioneers. And it’s also the preferred place of Johan “Jossi” Lindblom and Patrik “Strumpan” Strumsten, Swedish friends and skiing die-hards — who now own and manage Niehku. Of all the places Lindblom had skied in his years as a mountain guide, from Alaska to the Caucasus Mountains and a decade-plus in Chamonix Valley, he maintains that the best terrain in the world is right in his own backyard.
Niehku is the word the indigenous Northern Sami people of Europe’s Arctic use for “dream”– fitting, since Lindblom and Strumsten considered its existence a pipe dream. For years over drinks they’d joke about what their dream ski lodge would look like; then suddenly, in 2012, it became viable when one of Lindblom’s clients, a Gothenburg-based real estate mogul, proposed the friends build and run a heli-ski lodge that he would finance.
When it opens in March, Niehku will embody the friends’ passions: skiing, great food and wine, cool design, and music. (Strumsten is a former ski racer who has twice been named Sweden’s top sommelier, and the pair once did a stint in a rock band called the National Borderliners.)
The 14 rooms — built into a train line roundhouse from the early 1900s — merge local materials with highbrow comforts. There are oak floors and slate walls sourced from Alta, Norway; custom stone ceramics in the showers; and blueprints of the original building hung above the Hostens beds.
Days will begin and end with meals by Strumsten’s wife, who is also a sommelier and runs her own successful restaurant, Krakas Korg, on the island of Gotland. The owners say it’ll be “skiers’ food,” but this is definitely not the lunch-tray chili or fancy fondue most skiers are used to. Homemade pastries, muesli and yogurt, and eggs made to order provide fuel through the morning. Lunch — packed picnic-style into the back of a helicopter — might be a thermos of reindeer stew and freshly baked breads paired with organic beers from small Swedish breweries. And in the evenings, guests sit down to a multicourse meal.
