About us
The people behind the Aino Private Island experience are the entrepreneurial couple Ilkka Länkinen and Katja Ikäheimo-Länkinen, who have long-established experience at producing unforgettable, extraordinary experiences. When they decided to acquire this arctic island in autumn 2024, it was clear from the outset that guests will be offered something unique.
The Story of AINO Private Island
The story of AINO Private Island begins more than three centuries ago, when Vartiosaari was first charted in 1712. Its Finnish name, meaning “Guard Post Island”, recalls the island’s earliest known role as a place of watchfulness on the Kemijoki River. From its position in the waters of Rovaniemi, watchfires known as Totto Fires were lit against the northern sky, warning communities along the river whenever danger approached.
A gentler and more personal chapter began in 1909, when pharmacist Axel Castrén purchased Vartiosaari as a summer retreat for his family. Eighteen years earlier, in 1890, Axel had married Aina Amanda Maria Porthan in Pielisjärvi. Together they had three children, and Ainola became a place where the family could retreat from everyday life in Rovaniemi and spend their summers surrounded by the river and the quiet beauty of Lapland.
In those days, arriving at Ainola was part of the experience itself. The Castrén family made their journey from Rovaniemi by river, carried to the island by local rowers in the long, slender wooden riverboats traditionally used on the waterways of the North. Narrow, light and flexible, these boats were particularly suited to navigating the flowing, rocky rivers of Lapland. Long before roads and bridges shaped modern Rovaniemi, the Kemijoki was a natural route through the landscape, and the journey to Ainola began upon its waters.
After acquiring the island, Axel added a rooftop terrace to the original wooden pavilion, creating a place from which Aina could linger over the remarkable view as the Kemijoki flowed past both sides of the island. It was then that he gave their cherished summer retreat a new name: Ainola, in honour of his wife. With that gesture, Aina’s name became forever entwined with the story of the island.
Here, embraced by the river and beneath the long, light-filled skies of the North, the Castrén family found a place apart. Summers unfolded at the gentle pace of the Kemijoki, with the river carrying them from the bustle of Rovaniemi into the stillness of their island home.
The original wooden pavilion, dating from the 1880s and later extended by Axel with its rooftop terrace, has endured through the changing chapters of Vartiosaari. Today, known as the Library Pavilion, it remains a tangible connection between present-day AINO and the family whose summer retreat first carried the name Ainola.
History, however, was to change the character of Vartiosaari once again.
During the Winter War and Continuation War, the island returned to a role shaped by vigilance. It was used in connection with Finland’s long-range patrol and radio operations, adding another chapter to a story that had begun centuries earlier with the watchfires along the Kemijoki.
The memory of those wartime years remains part of the island today. A monument erected in 1991 commemorates the fallen soldiers of Osasto Paatsalo, ensuring that this chapter of Vartiosaari’s past is not forgotten.
After the wars, life gradually returned to the island. Vartiosaari passed once more into private ownership, and its character began to change from a place marked by wartime necessity to one of hospitality and retreat.
By the 1980s, a picturesque suspension bridge had joined the island to the mainland, opening a new era in its history. A boutique hotel and restaurant were established, and Vartiosaari became known by yet another affectionate name: Onnellisten Saari, “The Island of Happiness.”
Across the centuries, the island has been a lookout, a family summer retreat, a place touched by war and, eventually, a destination for travellers. Yet through each transformation, the Kemijoki has continued to flow past its shores.
From Vartiosaari to Ainola, from Ainola to the Island of Happiness, and ultimately to AINO Private Island Hotel, its story is one of change, memory and enduring connection to the river and the landscape of Finnish Lapland.
SantaPark Arctic World
Aino Private Island Hotel is a proud to be part of SantaPark Arctic World, the brand family specialising in providing extraordinary experiences with Christmas and Arctic themes. Other experience destinations – in addition to Aino Private Island Hotel – operating under the same brand include Arctic TreeHouse Hotel and its Rakas Restaurant, Santa Park – Santa’s Home Cavern SantaPark, Santa Claus Secret Forest as well as Lapland Luxury DMC and Hidden Arctic Cloud Villas.