Darkness is falling and we are stranded on snowmobiles in the middle of a frozen Arctic lake. A lake so big that you can see it from the moon, yet so remote that rescue is hours away.
The fog feels apocalyptic. Thick like a soup, visibility close to zero. A total white-out.
All I can hear is Sami Hyypia’s words ringing in my ears on repeat. ‘If you see water, full throttle, otherwise you die.’
What started out as a soul-cleansing 270km ride through pine forests and hidden tracks suddenly feels more sinister.
One snowmobile has run out of fuel and another has a broken axle from a high-speed collision with a pine tree. Full throttle? We are not even moving. Perhaps this is what the end of the world looks like.
I am locked in a state of fear but Sami offers a reassuring presence. The same reassuring presence he offered when I watched him playing centre-back for Liverpool in the Champions League in the early 2000s. A legend of the Kop, making 464 appearances, captaining the club to the treble.
Mail Sport went on a 270km adventure across the Arctic with Liverpool icon Sami Hyypia
It was a scary ordeal at times but Kevin Quigley (left) and Nik Simon (right) returned safely and saw plenty of sights along the way
Nik had a lucky escape when he swerved off track and crashed into a tree at 50kmph
He is calm and softly spoken but suddenly his tone changes as he tries to work out our GPS location on his phone. ‘Turn off your engines,’ he orders, conscious of maximising the fuel we have left.
They say never meet your heroes. They can leave you disappointed. Yet here I am with one of mine and my life is in his hands. It brings back those vivid schoolboy memories, sat in front of a small terrestrial TV in a village in Leicestershire, knee-sliding across the carpet in support of a team that never seemed to lose. A strange love for a football club in a city that I had never even visited.
The bleached blonde hair from those earlier days in partnership with Stephen Henchoz is no more but he seems no less invincible. Every inch the giant captain. Tall and slender, cut like he could run a marathon at the drop of a hat.
We set off six hours earlier from Rovaniemi, a working town in the middle of Finnish Lapland. Why? Why not. This is Sami’s life now. He stepped away from football management – freeing himself from the conniving club politics – and now he gets his kicks elsewhere.
He lives back home in Finland these days, spending the summer months down south and the winter months up north. Not the kind of person to back away from a challenge, he did not think twice when we suggested a wild plan to snowmobile to the world’s most northern Michelin star restaurant.
‘Are you sure?’ he asked. ‘It’s not going to be easy.’
We arrive to meet Sami at the Lynx snowmobile depot in blissful ignorance.
‘What have you come as… Tinky Winky?’ he asks Kevin Quigley, my colleague, who pulls on his purple balaclava, ready set off on the adventure of a lifetime. ‘It’s going to be rough and it’s going to be tough,’ adds Sami, offering us one final chance to back out.
Hyypia (left) was part of the Liverpool team that came back in 2005 Champions League final
Hyypia warned the journey would be tough but we didn’t quite know how difficult it would be
Hyypia lives in the middle of Finnish Lapland and gets his kicks out of snowmobiling
Our journey begins on one of Finland’s longest rivers, the Kemijoki, home to fishing boats and pleasure crafts in the summer. In the winter, it freezes thick enough to hold the weight of our machines as we make tracks into the wilderness.
It is picture perfect. Landscapes that could have come straight out of Norse mythology. Snowcapped trees, wrapped in snow at -2C. Streams too lively to freeze over – yes, we did have to snowmobile through them – offering borderless beauty at every angle.
‘I love it out here,’ says Sami. ‘It’s so peaceful. You can go for days, hundreds of kilometres at a time. There’s no place quite like it. There is not as much snow in the winter this year, though. With global warming, you never know what you are going to get. It means the tracks can be rocky.’
By lunchtime, we have barely made a dent into our journey, already hours behind schedule. Yet his patience is iron-cast, slowing down to our speed, which is nowhere near what it needs to be. Less resilient characters would have folded and turned back. Not Sami, not our captain.
We barely talk football; about those early days in the 2000s. There is something about this trip that pulls you into the present. The focus is on the next bend; on what’s around the corner.
One wrong turn and you are in trouble, which I learn as I swerve off track and crash into a tree at 50kmph. ‘If it was a bigger tree you would have been in trouble,’ he says, barely fazed, laughing as he pulls my sledge out of the deep powder. ‘Well, at least you’ve got yourself a Christmas tree!’ The collision damages the snowmobile but there is no option but to keep going.
Over the course of half a day, we see no cars and no people. It is like a journey through a children’s storybook. Trails barely touched for weeks, whizzing past locked-up summer houses that are a hive of boating activity in the warmer months. Weaving between trees, hitting dead ends, maneuvering out of spots where the snow is up to your thighs. Silence, beauty, emptiness.
Our stomachs rumbling, he stops and pulls out reindeer salami and a carving knife. No restaurants around here. ‘I don’t need water,’ he says, offering out a drink. His body is conditioned to going without liquid, having adapted to 45-minute halves of football during his playing career. He is happy drinking water in mornings and evenings.
Hyypia pulled Nik back on track and said he could’ve been in serious trouble
Hyypia was a reassuring presence throughout our trip and took responsibility for our safety
Hyypia was wearing special ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ gloves, gifted to him by a Liverpool fan
He talks about his kids, who were born when he was still a professional footballer and are now studying for exams at university. He talks about his dog, named after the Brazilian footballer Cafu, and we form bonds that feel deeper than a usual journalistic assignment.
We are Sami’s responsibility here. He is the one shepherding us through the Arctic, with the invaluable help of his local mate, Pauli. We call Pauli the Fig – the Finnish Stig – because he’s a full-throttle kind of guy, a daredevil who is not scared of broken bones.
Speaking in broken English, Pauli shows us photos of his father, a religious man who forged his love for speed. He tells us stories about making a paraglider when he was 11 years old. Now he leans and manoeuvres around the bends like a human gyroscope.
At around 3pm, the light begins to fade. The clock is no longer our friend. We ride in convoy but I fall further behind in the fog. My visor mists up and the flickering red light of the snowmobile in front of me becomes smaller and smaller. We are at nature’s mercy now, gripping the handlebars so tightly that my hands start to blister. The heart starts to race. The forearms become heavy, the build-up of lactic acid feeling like cement.
We stop in the middle of the lake so that one of the snowmobiles can be towed. Every patch of slushy ice strikes the fear of God into me, a potential sinking hazard. But there is no option to keep going until we reach the land. By this point, two of the snowmobiles can go no further. We arrange an emergency pick-up and, after eight hours on the snowmobile, they offer me a lift in the darkness to our overnight stop-off.
We debrief in the sauna (naked) and Sami tells us that it was one of his toughest days out on the sled. ‘I have never done that many hours before,’ he says. ‘It was not easy. I wanted to go a little faster but I’m not in charge of everyone’s machine.’ We talk about rugby and football and his favourite player; Virgil van Dijk. ‘He is the best in the world,’ he says of his fellow centre-back.
Getting into bed, it feels like I have sea legs. I close my eyes and feel myself jolting over bumps, adrenaline still pumping through my veins. It is 2am by the time the lights go out – but Sami knocks on the door at 7.30am the next morning to get us up. ‘Wakey wakey!’ he shouts. ‘It was a tough day yesterday so I have a treat for you.’
We see little wildlife on the tracks, except for one Arctic hare. A lot of animals are in hibernation, although there is a husky farm around the corner from our overnight base. But first: a punishment. ‘You didn’t finish the first leg of the journey so you have to jump in the lake,’ he says. A small hole has been cut out of the pond for ice plunges and, before I know it, I am submerged in water so cold that I can no longer feel my feet. ‘Just don’t dunk your head,’ he adds, which feels like the first regard for health and safety since we left Rovaniemi.
After a brutal day, we were rescued before we relaxed in a naked sauna at our stop-off
After being woken up by Hyypia, he punished Nik for not finishing the first leg of the journey
Nik was submerged in water that was so cold that he was no longer able to feel his feet
Hyypia told a funny story about his former Liverpool team-mate Emile Heskey (right) on trip
The huskies are waiting, barking, ready to run. ‘I’ll tell you a funny story,’ says Sami. It is about his former Liverpool team-mate, Emile Heskey. ‘We played against England and he dived for a free-kick. They scored from the free-kick. Next time we went to Melwood to train, I bought him diving goggles a snorkel and flippers. I left them in his place at training and then found them in the trash. He didn’t like it!’
We board our sleds and whizz through a winter wonderland, scenery fitting of a Beatrix Potter novel. Sami is on the sled behind me, gripping onto the handlebars, wearing You’ll Never Walk Alone mittens that were sent to him by a supporter. ‘Come on Nik, you are as slow as you are on the snowmobile!’ he shouts, right on my tail.
The dogs pull us through the woodland and back to our machines. Our overalls are still damp from the night before but we make do, setting off onto the wide-open plains, not far from the Russian border. This time we plan more thoroughly, with Sami wrapping frankfurters in tinfoil and leaving them to cook on the heat of the exhaust pipe. ‘A Finnish barbeque,’ he says, pulling them out an hour or so later. The Fig holds some out in his hand, waiting for Kookai birds to fly in and eat from his open palm. Our very own bird whisperer.
The final leg is more straightforward, but no less beautiful. A short ascent into the ski town of Ruka, a place that hits temperatures of minus 20 degrees, not always lending itself to natural ingredients. Residents get snowed in and shipments of produce can take weeks to arrive. Yet it is home to the Tapio restaurant, our final destination, and our arrival feels like a cathartic release. The finish line for the journey of a lifetime.
The menu is exquisite. Quail and fresh truffles. Reindeer and wood sorrel. Caviar and hand-dived scallops. A taste of Finland’s finest flavours, a beauty that reflects the memories of our 270km journey through one of earth’s lesser trodden paths.
We laugh, we reminisce. The failures, the accomplishments, bringing a tear to the eye. ‘I must say that you are very lucky with that crash,’ he tells me. ‘If it was a thicker tree, you wouldn’t be sitting here.’
The Fig orders a round of Jaloviina – a punchy Scandinavian brandy – and before long we are in a karaoke bar, bouncing between Paul Simon and Finnish folk songs.
Things got better when we went on a husky ride, but I was given stick for being too slow
We were also treated to a ‘Finnish barbeque’ by our legendary travel companion
Hyypia made over 400 appearances for Liverpool in a decade-long stay that yielded six major trophies including the Champions League
The songs continue on the journey home, You can call me Al, losing track of the time.
Sami is up early the next day, the same tap on the door before breakfast. ‘Wakey wakey!’ His snowmobile is ready and waiting, primed for the 500km journey back home. We bid farewell to our two Finnish friends, whose adventure continues indefinitely.
My phone rings the next day. Sami is on the line. ‘We saw the Northern lights on the way home,’ he says. ‘They were doing a victory dance for us in the sky.’
He asks me to send over the videos from the karaoke bar and wishes us a safe journey home. ‘I’m proud of the group… I’m proud that I got us there in one piece because it was not easy,’ he says, offering that familiar feeling of reassurance, that forever calming presence at the back.
