Stays · Pine Sky Forest Camp
Tipis, tree tents and hammocks at Rahajärvi.
Ten minutes from Ivalo by road, in a working pine forest on the lake. We put up as many tents as your group needs, and the tent sauna stands on the shore.
Rahajärvi · Inari · 68°N
Why here
A camp the size of your group
We put the camp up for your group, as one plan, and the group sets its size. Tentipis on the ground, Tentsiles hung between three trunks, Haven Tents between two — as many of each as you need, on the shore of Lake Rahajärvi.
The tent sauna is on the shore, with the lake for the plunge — through the ice in winter. The sauna building has running water, a shower and a warm toilet, and there is electricity at the camp. In summer we bring out the SUP boards.
Ivalo is ten minutes away by road. That is close enough to make the camp one or two nights of a week. The rest goes to the Pine Sky Suites apartments above our own gear store in Ivalo, or to Hotel Kuura, and we drive you between them.
The lake
Rahajärvi
Rahajärvi is a lake in Inari, and the camp stands on its shore. The name of the camp is the plainest thing about it: pine at eye level, water at the end of the path.
Rahajärvi is cold. That is the point of it — you heat the tent sauna, sit until you have had enough, and then get in the lake.
The shore does other work through the year. Xwander runs a three-hour tent-sauna evening here, and in winter our ice-floating hole is cut on this same lake.
- 10 minto Ivalo by road
- 68°NLake Rahajärvi, Inari
- 3kinds of tent — Tentipi, Tentsile, Haven
- 4transfer points — Ivalo, the airport, Inari, Saariselkä
- 1–2nights here, the rest of the week in Ivalo or at Kuura
A tree tent hung between pines, lit from inside.
The bed
The night, tent by tent
In a Tentipi you sleep on the ground, under canvas, with a stove inside if you want one. It stands up in wind and snow. Choose it if you want the ground under you.
In a Tentsile you sleep on a platform tensioned between three trunks, with the tent on top of it. You lie flat, a step above the forest floor, and the ground stays below you all night.
A Haven Tent is a hammock with a flat, rigid floor and a rainfly, hung between two trees. One person, lying flat, off the ground.
Whichever you sleep in, the shower and the warm toilet are in the sauna building. The tent sauna is on the shore, and the lake is for after it.
- Bed
- a Tentipi on the ground, a Tentsile hung between three trunks, or a Haven Tent for one
- Power
- electricity at the camp
- Toilet
- warm toilet, in the sauna building
- Washing
- shower and running water in the sauna building; the lake and the ice plunge if you want them
- Sauna
- tent sauna on the shore
- Group size
- as many tents as the group needs
- Bedding
- agreed with your group before you come
The camp
The parts you share
There is a fire ring and a grill in the middle of the camp, and the evening gathers there.
The sauna is a tent on the shore. You heat it, sit until you have had enough, and then get in the lake.
We leave boards, packrafts and fishing rods at the camp, and they are yours while you are here. Mountain bikes are rented, not included — the counter is our shop in Ivalo.
Fire ring and grill
the evening gathers here
Tent sauna
on the shore
The lake
boards, packrafts, rods
What you get
Included, and not included
Included
- As many Tentipis, Tentsiles and Haven Tents as your group needs, put up by our own people.
- Electricity at the camp; running water, a shower and a warm toilet in the sauna building.
- The tent sauna on the shore, and the ice plunge in the lake.
- The fire ring and the grill.
- Boards, packrafts and fishing rods for the length of your stay, and SUP boards in summer.
Not included
- Mountain bikes, which are rented from our shop in Ivalo.
- Transfers from Ivalo, Ivalo Airport, Inari or Saariselkä, which are arranged with the plan.
- Guided days — bushcraft, fishing and foraging — which are added to the plan separately.
Settled with your group
- The sauna evenings: heated every night of the stay, or as the three-hour evening we run on this shore.
- Bedding: what is in the tent when you arrive, and what comes in your own bag.
We plan the camp with you by email: how many tents, which nights, and what the days around them hold.
Around
The light, and what it does to a night outside
Ivalo is north of the Arctic Circle, so the year is not built out of even days and nights. Around midsummer the sun does not set at all. At Ivalo the midnight sun runs from 22 May to 21 July, and a tent with mesh walls is a strange place to be at two in the morning.
From about 1 to 20 September the forest turns. Finns call it ruska — the week or two when the birch and the ground cover go yellow and red before the leaves drop.
The Sámi year has eight seasons, not four, and three of them carry winter in the name — čakčadálvi, dálvi, giđđadálvi: autumn-winter, winter, spring-winter. It is a more useful way to read this place than a calendar, and your guide will tell you which one you have arrived in.
Getting here
Ten minutes, and how you spend them
We run transfers between the camp, Ivalo, Ivalo Airport, Inari and Saariselkä. You can also ride in: the camp takes arrivals by bike and by motorcycle.
- From Ivalo
- 10 minutes by road
- Transfers
- camp · Ivalo · Ivalo Airport · Inari · Saariselkä — arranged on enquiry
- Own wheels
- bikes and motorcycles are welcome
- Address
- We drive the group out from Ivalo. The meeting point goes out with your dates, written so a satnav, a taxi or your own bike can all find it.
- Parking
- We bring the group out from Ivalo. If you are driving yourselves, say so when you write, and we answer with where the car goes.
- Arrival
- There is no reception here and no desk to check in at. The tents are hung before the group arrives, and the hour you come out is fixed with the rest of the days.
Who runs it
Ours, not an agent's
The camp belongs to Xwander. We own the tents, the sauna and the boards, and we drive the transfer. The person who answers your enquiry works for the same company that hangs the tent.
The week
One or two nights here, the rest in the village
A week split between the two works better than a week at either. One or two nights at the camp, then four or five in an apartment above our gear shop in Ivalo. That one has a kitchen, a drying rack and a shower that runs.
The lake works in the daytime as well. The Family week spends its second day at Rahajärvi, at the winter camp on this same water.
Pine Sky Suites — six apartments in Ivalo villageThe other three
Enquire
Ask about the camp for your group
Tell us your dates and how many of you there are. We answer with what the camp can take that week, what it costs, and what to bring.
The camp is arranged for a group, not booked by the night.
Ask about the camp