‘In Finland, saunas are the great leveller. In Ireland they’re for people with a few bob’

Although the September sun is shining when Wicklow carpenter John Gibbons answers his phone, Lapland has had its first morning frost.“That means winter is surely on the way. The leaves are falling off the trees ... It won’t be long before there’s snow on the ground.”When winter finally arrives it’s “full on” with sunrise at 11am and sunset at 1.30pm by Christmas, he says. The northern Finnish winters “aren’t for the faint-hearted”. “I love that not everyone can do it. It’s a challenge to be able to like living here and thrive.” READ MOREGibbons’ journey to Finland began more than 20 years ago when he went on an adventure from Delgany to Australia (“working in IT for a bank believe it or not”) and met a Finnish woman, now his ex-wife. They moved back to Rovaniemi where he built a house and they had a son. The city in the Arctic Circle is known as the official home of Santa Claus and indeed tourism is its economic backbone. Gibbons moved an hour south to a tiny village after his divorce where he was able to buy a house for €32,000 that was in move-in condition.“Houses up here can be bought for absolutely nothing. After the second World War Finland built houses called rintamamiestalo, which are were simple, cheap and easy with a wood fire stove and a well in the garden.”If there was “some kind of apololypse” Gibbons posits he would be “grand for a while” if he had potatoes and firewood, because the house is so self-sufficient.This may sound like a fantasy, but it’s not beyond the bounds of reality when sharing a border with Russia (closed since 2023). The region has become a strategic location for Nato during the Ukraine war.Despite the threat from the east, Finland has been named happiest country in the world nine times in a row in the UN-backed World Happiness Report, and Gibbons can see why. “Where I live there is no crime. There’s a real summer and a real winter ... it’s a magic place, it really is”“Anywhere in Lapland, within 10 minutes I can go to a river, a lake or a forest and there’s not a soul near you. You can pick berries, you can go on hikes.”He also loves the people. “They have a reputation for being unfriendly but you just have to get to know them. They’re very much like the Irish, there is mighty craic to be had ... you don’t meet many a**h**es up here.”His first Finnish winter was on a building site 200km north of the Arctic Circle, where they only stopped work when temperature hits -25 degrees.John Gibbons in Lapland, Finland But working for large building company focused on speed wasn’t for the Delganyman, and Gibbons embraced a slower approach to his craft. He started his own traditional woodworking company three years ago, after doing a college course in logbuilding, which added to the carpentry and joinery apprenceceship he completed after finishing school in Greystones.“You can’t really rush traditional carpentry, There’s more enjoyment to it and it takes time and a lot more skill.” “I build log cabins and it’s you’d be fairly confident that the frame is still going to be standing in 100 or 200 years ... can I say the same for modern houses I built?”Gibbons lifts all the logs by hand, makes smaller single-room traditional wilderness cabins. He describes his “handcrafted cabins” as a “niche market” when there are cheaper kit cabins at a fraction of the price. But his customers understand that it takes time to make it this traditional way. He loves the ownership: “I’m responsible for everything, every aspect and every decision. That’s me.” And Gibbons loves the chance to use his axe skills: “It’s the most simple and basic of tools, but to use it properly requires an insane amount of skill and concentration.”More recently Gibbons turned to a Finnish-style project but back in Ireland, designing and building a sauna for a client. These hot rooms are an essential part of Finnish homes and ingrained in culture but have exploded in popularity across Ireland. “The Finns have perfected the sauna. To have a one room log sauna with a Finnish stove, you can’t get better.”“It’s nice to see that it’s finally making its way back to Ireland ... but with the climate I wonder what took so long.”In Ireland, Saunas can be pricey and are aimed at people with “a few bob”, says Gibbons. But what he loves about the sauna culture in Finland is they are the “great leveller”. “You could have the president of Finland and a binman both sitting there in the sauna. There is no upper level, they’re equal.”Are you Irish and living in another country? Would you like to share your experience in writing or by interview? You can use the form below, or email abroad@irishtimes.com. Irish Times Abroad submission guidelines here. Follow us on Instagram to keep up with the latestSign up to The Irish Times Abroad newsletter for Irish-connected people around the world.