SWEDE DREAMS ARE MADE OF THIS...

Mix a hearty dollop of Sami heritage with a glug of Scandi perfectionism and what do you have? Wilderness adventure with extra bite, says

Cabin chic at Buustamons Fjallgard foraged herbs, spices and berries provide the flavours.

Sweden’s booze laws are pretty strict, though. Getting a distillery licence is tricky – and selling rights even trickier. Buustamons’ drinks can be enjoyed on-site, but you can’t buy a bottle to take home.

“The plus side,” our host Mikalai notes, “is you know if you go to a wine shop or wherever, everything is artisan, probably local and great quality.”

‘Great quality’, to be fair, is an understatement. Hospitality here feels like an art, and perfectionism isn’t a rare and remarkable trait – it’s a given.

Take the 50-odd restaurants and bars that have set up in Are – quite a concentration for a relatively small resort – almost all are impressively artisan and draw the crowds.

There’s Are Chokladfabrik (arechokladfabrik.se), a small but thriving chocolate factory started by three friends – Marie, Marina and Eva-Lena – in 1991. Everything’s produced on site (they make around 10 million pieces a year), using only fresh, local ingredients (try the soft goats’ cheese chocolate, or their best-selling cloudberry truffles).

One of the most exciting hangouts right now is Krus, a pop-up a stone’s throw from the base of the chairlift, run by the team behind Faviken – Sweden’s most famous fine-dining restaurant.

There’s usually a year-long wait for a seat at Faviken, but rocking up at Krus is a far more chilled affair.

Head there for ‘fika’, the Swedish equivalent of elevenses, which generally means pastries, cake and a jolly nice chat (everything’s brought in from the Faviken bakery, so it wouldn’t technically be wrong to say you ate Faviken food).

It’d be easy to assume a nation Abi Jackson trying ice fishing in Sweden

that favours daily pastries might have a weight problem, but Swedes are a fit bunch.

The wilderness isn’t just their larder, it’s their playground. And what a playground it is...

Getting to the frozen lake for my ice-fishing mission involves half an hour on a snowmobile, whizzing through forest trails and bouncing along snow-covered meadows in the foothills of the Oviken mountains that eventually open up into a dazzling moonscape, the lake stretching vast and stark beneath a brilliant blue sky.

Once I’ve planted my face in that icy hole, it feels like there isn’t another living soul for miles. Unless you count the fish supposedly swimming around a metre below – not that any are interested in the maggot on the end of my line.

Ice-fishing might be more about leisure than survival for most of us today, but for Sami people, it’s formed an essential part of putting dinner on the table for centuries.

Sami are the indigenous folk of Sapmi-land, a cultural region that spans northern Sweden, Norway, Finland and a small sliver of northern Russia. Many are nomadic reindeer herders, guided by nature and her seasons for generations.

But keeping traditions alive hasn’t always been easy. For Sami people, this has included maintaining hunting and fishing rights, and