Husky handler Tinja lives deep in the Arctic Circle, in an isolated log cabin surrounded by her crew of Arctic sledge dogs. Tinja’s lifestyle is all about staying in touch with nature and the outdoors: cooking coffee and traditional Finnish Karelian pies on an open-fire, tending to her animals and spending her days whipping through the unspoiled  beauty of the Arctic fells on a sledge. She tells, “that she feels like she’s on holiday everyday.”  Just a handful of lucky guests a year have the immense privilege of joining her,  being welcomed onto the farm to help care for the dogs and explore the Arctic wilderness the way it was meant to be discovered.

Tinja, her wolves, and her wood burner –

Again and again men and women knock down preconceptions concerning gender specific activities, from the stay at home dad, to the hyper successful CEO woman, from the knitting marathon runner David Babcock, to Tatiana Kashirina the three time weightlifting world champion.

Few stories illustrate this better than that of Tinja Myllykangas. Tinja, a Finnish biology graduate, decided to move from the city of Jyväskylä to the wilderness of Lapland, taking off the grid living to the Artic circle.

Far from the comforts of modern civilization, and enduring temperatures that can drop as low as -45°C, Tinja relies on candles for light and a wood burning stove for heat. She runs a husky farm as well as dogsledding tours, and lives a life immersed in nature.  Apart from her boyfriend Alex,  Tinja’s only company  are her dogs (some of whom are part wolf) and horses – the nearest town  being  180 miles away.  She  also  told  Portolano,  the  French photographer that shadowed her for two weeks, that she likes being alone: “I think being alone is the most peaceful way of life there is.”

Poetic as it may sound, this type of solitude and detachment requires mental, emotional, and physical strength. Portlano told MailOnline that Tinja has to “break the ice of the river every morning to get her water,” something that many would consider a task better suited for a burly man than a slender blue eyed female.

The lack of electricity and running water makes Tinja’s dependence on wood burning and water collecting critical to her survival, and although an extreme example, it goes to show that a division of activities based on gender is an outdated social concept.

The stereotypical image of a person chopping wood is an axe wielding bearded man, wearing a checkered shirt. But as Tinja and so many women before her have proven, cutting wood and running a wood burner, be it for your survival or enjoyment,  is in         no way an exclusively male activity.

Man or woman, if you own a wood burning stove in an urban area such as London, you   do not go around chopping down trees in the park and carrying them home – It might     be slightly frowned upon.  You generally source wood  and have it delivered.  Although   this might be considered by purists to remove some of the pleasure associated with   having a wood burning stove, it is what I believe the majority of us do.

But where there’s a will there’s a way, and there is no reason why anybody that wants        to split their own logs cannot.  Like most things in life, wood splitting is much more a matter of practice and technique than that of brute physical strength. In this instance, brute force without technique will generally end up doing you more harm than good.

 The novelist that splits wood –

Claire Cameron, the Canadian writer and author of the best seller, The Bear, posted on  her website an article titled “How to split wood like a woman.” In her article Cameron starts off by stating that, “While there are many women …. who are accomplished wood splitters, I bet that there are many more who would enjoy it,” and then goes on to describe several techniques and good wood splitting practices. She emphasises the importance of wearing safety gear: sturdy shoes, protective eye gear and work gloves, as well as choosing the right axe for your build.

All her tips are just as useful for a man as for a woman: use a chopping block, select a manageable sized log, tap your axe into the log.The important thing here is, that she is   not only showing and telling people how to go about it,  but  that  she  is actually axing preconceptions.  She is a writer and a woman,  and here she is wielding an axe instead      of a pen and splitting wood with it.

The truth is, log burners only really need small bits of kindling and a small number of   split logs at a time to burn properly. There is a wide spread misconception that the more wood you put into the firebox the hotter it will burn, but the opposite is actually true.  A smaller fire with more oxygen will generally burn hotter. So no matter your gender, there is no need to use big heavy logs in your stove.  Not that heavy would be a problem for the female weight lifting world champion who could probably carry a reasonably sized tree under her arm.

Polar Night Magic – winter’s many faces

Winter in Finland is a magical season. Completely still but mighty, pitch black yet dazzlingly bright. It is enigmatic and merciless, commanding great respect.