The call of the wild, when it came, was from Tewkesbury. I'd been planning a husky adventure in the Arctic but, to be honest, getting in a bit of training beside the River Avon beforehand seemed like a good idea. So I meet up with Vickie and Chantelle, and their five huskies, and they take me to their tipi by the river.

There are logs to sit on, a kettle on the fire, even little sheepskin bootees for wearing inside the tipi. The only thing missing, really, is snow, but this way we can sit outside, admire the stars and talk extreme survival without our toes falling off.

After a good night's sleep in the tipi (reindeer-skin throws and a woodburning stove hold back the chill of a 7C night), it was time to meet the dogs properly and ride the two "rigs". The first of these is like a beefed–up children's scooter, the second an adapted tricycle. Vickie explains how to control the scooter and the dogs.

"Keep talking to them all the time," says Vickie. "Then they won't get distracted."

Distractions can include rabbits, which Dash, the lead dog, has been known to haul from the grass and dispatch while in harness.

"Ready?" And suddenly we are off and running. The speed is wonderful but not excessive. In their excitement the dogs sprint like crazy for about 50m before settling into a lope. Huskies were bred for endurance rather than speed. The Chukchi tribe from Siberia, who started using dogs 3,000 years ago, kept up a strong wolf input, but also required some tractability. The dogs might have to share the tipi on very cold nights – hence the Chukchi phrase "a three dog night".

To be honest I haven't checked that latter fact out with a Chukchi, and probably never will: Chukchi dogs were taken over to Alaska in the early 20th century, and then Stalinist policies wiped out the Chukchi way of life. Since then, you can make up what you like about huskies. My previous experience of them, in Svalbard, suggested that they ought to be one of the great non-Kennel Club mongrel races, like lurchers and fell terriers: breeds that carry more intelligence, strength and stamina than supposedly pure types – bred for facial malformation or top-quality asthma. Huskies tend to still be sled dogs, used to working in a pack and happiest when running. They don't lie around on sofas – unless they're eating them.

My second run is on the three-wheeler, with three dogs and a left-hand corner: "Lean into the bend – and keep talking."

Now I really get the thrill. The pack take a smooth fast bend. It's like being a charioteer – Ben Cur? I survive a third run with four dogs. Okay, I'm ready for the Arctic now. A company called Adventures Abroad is offering a five-day husky safari in a national park in northern Finland, moving with dogs between wilderness log cabins. Sounds harder than most tourist husky stuff. Sounds perfect.

It is only on arriving in Lapland, in Kittilä airport, that I realise some basic certainties about travelling to this part of the Arctic Circle shortly before Christmas. The first is that it is dark all the time: except for a few hours of twilight at midday, I've seen the last of the sun for a week. And the second is that most tourists here are on extreme Santa adventures – the Santanistas – on a mission to push kitsch to breaking point. Before I'm out of the arrivals hall I've been sung at by elves and seen several English children running amok in a toy shop screaming "We want Santa!" Their father is on his hands and knees, pretending to be a reindeer. I've been warned that Finland has a crazy edge to it. I hadn't realised it's the visitors that are insane.

On the hour's drive north to Muonio I have a sense of foreboding. I'm supposed to be on an adventure in the remote Arctic wilderness. Have I wrongly been assigned a role in some dreadful Scandinavian pantomime?

At Muonio's Harriniva Hotel I'm hardly reassured: dozens of French tots scampering about shouting "Père Noël! Père Noël!" and having their photo taken with wooden cut-outs of a husky and Father Christmas. I walk down to the river that marks the border with Sweden then follow the bank using my headtorch; ice covers all but the centre of the river. I can hear the howls of huskies. My breathing slows. The cold creeps around my hair, caressing each follicle with icy fingertips. I tell myself it will be okay. I will leave the cutesy horror behind and enter the primeval world of man, dogs and frozen wilderness.

Later I learn that it will be man, dogs, frozen wilderness and five women. I'm joining Andrea, Eva, Rozemie and Susie, as well as Meku, our guide. Four nationalities. No one knows each other. In the morning, in darkness of course, we head for the dog yard, following the hurricane of howling. Meku assigns us our huskies. "Everyone will have four dogs," she says, then glances at me. "Except Kevin. He will need five."

My five are Gaudi, Coco, Shakira, Dior and Armani. Oh dear – I feel the kitsch creeping up. The first three are already hitched to a sled. I find the others and put on their harnesses. Any anxiety about dogs with designer names disappears when Armani pounces on Dior with a snarl. Dior goes for the ear, but Armani responds with a neck grip. It's Milan 2010 all over again. A bellow from Meku separates them.

"If they fight," she tells me, "don't try to separate them. Don't put your foot or hand in. Just shout – loud."

Now the dogs are springing up and down in the harnesses, desperate to be moving. I'm grateful for the rope tied to a stake and the snow hooks embedded in ice at our feet. Meku gives some quick advice on signals. The idea is that you stand on the runners at the back of the sledge, holding on to a wooden bar. Equipment and food are stashed under a snowproof cover in front. Meku jams her brake, a toothed metal bar at her feet, into the ice. Then she releases the rope and lifts the snow hooks. She gives a signal, then goes.

The howling stops. We shoot in a line out of the yard gate, take a sharp right and fly along the snowy track. Trees ghosted with snow whip past. I'm gripping hard and leaning into bends. There are a few small hills, but the team barely slows. I can see that Gaudi and Armani are the powerhouse; Shakira and Coco are smaller but seem to pull their weight. Dior is taking a crap. This involves her in a frozen doggy-poo position, being wildly swept along, her rear end bouncing along on the snow.

Day One is to prove our coldest, at -24C. When we stop for lunch, there is frost on our eyelashes.

"Are you fatiguation?" asks Rozemie. English will be the common language – approximately. Hers happens to have a playful experimental dimension to it.

Meku builds a fire with swift professionalism and soon has a kettle on, followed by a large frying pan. Meanwhile the dogs get a "snackie" – a fist-sized lump of half-frozen meat. The dogs always eat first in this world. I wouldn't say our survival depends on them – there appears to be a decent mobile phone signal – but it might in other situations. Meku tells me a little about them. "Gaudi is half-Alaskan, half-Siberian and he's a clever dog. Dior and Armani are Alaskan, and brother and sister. Dior has a scar on her lip, a bad one, and she can be shy."

It surprises me that I feel no fear of these animals – even Gaudi, who has the eyes of a serial killer. They are boisterous but never threatening.

"Do you ever get people on these trips who are afraid of dogs?"

Meku laughs: "We do. It seems crazy, but they do come and, I think, learn some confidence."

Lunch is soon done and the soft bluish light is already fading as we swing around a frozen lake and through dark silent forest to our destination, a log cabin in the woods.

Now the work begins, a routine that will be repeated every day. The dogs have to be unharnessed and chained.

"I have some conflict about this," says Eva, one of two Germans. She can't accept that the dogs must always be secured. No one else seems to mind. There is firewood to fetch and light in cabin and sauna – yes, in Finland there is always a sauna. Then water from a hole in the ice is carried in dustbins on sledges. Then the dogs have a litre of meat soup with dry food. Snacks are cut for them for the next day: a slab of frozen meat axed into chunks in the snow. I can see already that I have been lucky with all my companions. They work hard. No one complains. The thermometer is hovering around -25C. You could cut the air with a knife.

Finally Meku calls us in for a hot drink. "Next," she says, "you go to sauna. And we do it Finland-style."

Susie, the Englishwoman, and I exchange glances. Some deep cultural radar has been triggered. "What is Finland-style?"

Meku smiles. "No clotheses."

"Of course!" say the Germans.

"No way," say the English.

"I'm not sure," says Belgian Rozemie.

Meku is clear: "Everyone does it. No one looks at another person and thinks they have a good body, or bad. There is nothing dirty. It is natural."

I can't help feeling that as the only man I am under extra pressure, but the sauna hut had seemed pretty dark when I was stocking it with water.

"If everyone agrees ..." mutters Rozemie.

Is that a decision? I don't know. We fetch our towels and head for a tiny hut by the lake. Inside it is steaming hot and dark. I take my shorts inside my towel. Prude or nude?

In the circumstances, it is the latter. I throw off the towel and go inside. Eva and Andrea are already on the top shelf – perhaps I should say bench – in the thick of the heat. I climb up too. The others join us. By throwing water on the burner we get the temperature up to 75C. Then it is time for a snow roll – a drop of over 100 degrees, although only for the few milliseconds I manage to spend lying down.

Dressed and back in the main cabin, Meku conjures up a great dinner: salmon cooked Lappish style, two huge fillets slowly roasted in front of the fire.

Next day begins with what will become a familiar round of jobs, and as each is finished the noise of the dogs increases. They know that take-off time is approaching. At 10am, as the twilight broadens, we set off, again with a wild stampede of canine energy.

The day is milder, only -10C, and snowing. In the excitement we take a wrong turn and have to do a U-turn, not simple with 27 half-wild dogs. By midday we are rolling up through beautiful country laden with snow. Far away the forest diminishes in ridges of icy blue. A pair of winter-white ptarmigan flit away silently. Darkness falls and with it a sense of timeless bliss, the only sounds the hissing sleds and the scrabble of husky paws.

Later, in our second cabin, we spot lights in the trees and go out to find reindeer herders bringing their animals to a gathering place. These are men of few words – actually, no words. They stare at our attempts at "hello" and then shuffle away, eyes down. The animals are only slightly more communicative. Terrified after a journey in a van, they are bundled out into the enclosure, where they make small grunting noises.

The days slip away all too quickly. Our preparation times get shorter. The dogs begin to know us. Gaudi stops glancing around to remind me to jump off on steep hills. Dior becomes friendly. I stop holding on with grim tenacity and find I can balance on the runners and "surf" the ride. We spot squirrels with long tufty ears, Siberian jays and reindeer tracks. But best of all the group has melded well: no frictions or arguments, just friendship and laughter. The focus of working with the dogs has given us a shared purpose. The good humour and enthusiasm of the animals has rubbed off.

When we get back, reluctantly, to Harriniva, the world has become a better place. Even the Santanistas seem benign. We put our faces into the wooden cut-outs and take each other's pictures. Have we, I wonder, somewhere in those Arctic forests, without even trying, caught a little Christmas spirit?