First, let me confess. I have a vested interest in Scandinavian skiing. I owe it my life. Without it, I would not have been born.

Back in the days when everything was in black and white, my father decided to go on holiday to Norway to learn about skiing. He stayed longer than he had intended: he'd fallen in love with a local skiing champion, who eventually moved back to England with him, became his wife, and my mother.

Now, with unprofessional bias, I have to go back to my pre-roots, and make the comparison: does skiiing in Scandinavia match the Alps? Sweden's top ski resort, Åre (pronounced 'Orr-er') is making a concerted effort to siphon off a bigger slice of the Alpine trade, in particular British families.

The difference is obvious before you even arrive: Åre is not easy to get to. Slap bang in the middle of Sweden, nudging up towards the Arctic Circle, it takes two flights and then a hour-long bus-ride to get there from Britain. Unlike the high volume Alpine destinations, there are no regular charters flying in every hour.

But the journey is part of the experience, flying over a hauntingly beautiful frozen landscape, with icing-sugar sprinkled forests pitted with lakes used as roads and criss-crossed by car tracks.

Its very remoteness means there are remarkably few foreigners there. It is a Swedish resort which is, well, full of healthy, tall, slim, fair-haired, blue-eyed Swedes who have been skiing as long as they have been walking. So not only is it very pleasing on the eye, but it also adds to the embarrassment factor for the complete skiing novice.

Compared with Alpine resorts - packed with French, Italians, Germans and Japanese - the volume of Swedes makes it easy for the English: as they often speak our language better than we do.

The downside is that the slopes are littered with knee-high toddler skiers, dubbed by the Swedes 'helmet footlings', who regularly dive-bomb adults at the speed of sound. When the helmet footlings are not endangering public safety, they are disturbingly well-behaved. Åre attracts family groups and has lots of simple blue runs - children-only slopes - and parent-friendly facilities such as crèches.

There are obviously more fundamental differences between Alpine and Nordic skiing - such as the snow itself. In Scandinavia, you get snow because you are far north rather than just because you are at the top of a mountain. That means you don't have to ascend in a cable car to the snow: it is everywhere around you. You can ski right into the heart of the village, pretty much down to sea level.

Being so far north means that if you go in the middle of the season you get very short skiing days of only five hours or so - but then very long ones by April. It can also make it very cold - minus 30C is common in January. The sunshine is thinner and there is less risk of sunburn or altitude sickness.

Because Åre is not in the middle of a major mountain range, it lacks the scenic grandeur and geological drama of the Alps or Rockies. It also means the runs are shorter. The maximum altitude is just over 1,000 metres, with the longest drop in a run 850m.

The snow is easily as good as the Alps - with added bizarre features. On top of the mountain, there are huge accumulations of 'blomsn ' ('cauliflower snow'), whipped into strange shapes by the often ferocious and moist Atlantic winds.

With the first lift built in 1910, Åre is Sweden's oldest ski resort and also its biggest. Its five interlocked villages now attract 300,000 visitors a year to its 45 different lifts and 98 pistes.

It is not a resort for the daredevil professional (there are a few black slopes, but - put it like this - even I managed to get down them without falling over). To make up for this, the latest fashion is the insane ski-cross. Basically, you attempt to ski down a toboggan run with jumps added. It's like doing the Cresta run on skis and is terrifying. They have nets at every bend which I successfully got caught up in regularly.

Åre is the most alpine resort in Sweden, full of cutesy chalets for rent and lots of funky, hopping bars for aprés ski or 'after ski' as the Swedes intriguingly call it. This being Sweden, one difference is the price. I saw a man buy a bottle of Bacardi with a 1000 Kr (£80) note and get only a few coins for change.

But despite its alpine appearance, Åre is very definitely not in the Alps. Here, you are a visitor to a winter wonderland where the entire landscape and culture are based on snow. People cross-country ski and skidoo just as a way of getting around. Everywhere there is dog-sledging, ice climbing and reindeer rides. You even get reindeer wandering around the pistes. You can visit T nnforsen, Sweden's largest waterfall, suspended in icy motion.

You can even go to see the oldest snow-culture of all, that of the Sami, or the Lapps as you are not meant to call them. Around 2,500 families in Sweden still subsist on reindeer and you can visit some of them in their huts, made of skin and logs, at Njarka Sami camp. There the Sami will cook you flat bread in the log fires and force-feed you weird twig-like sweets with a citrus flavour.

They will also explain their reindeer culture. It was news to me that all reindeer, like cattle, are domesticated.

Reindeer are quite tiny, little bigger than a Great Dane dog, and have luxuriantly soft fur. The fat in their wide flat feet remains soft even in very cold weather, making it ideal for protecting the skin. Oh, and they taste pretty good.

You can go on reindeer sledge rides, which help to keep Rudolph employed outside Christmas. Or, actually, Rudolpha: male reindeers lose their antlers over Christmas, so Rudolph - who is always depicted with sparkling horns - must be female.

Or if you want a bit more excitement, and don't mind farts in your face all the time, you can go dog sledging. We introduced ourselves to a team of 12 Alaskan huskies - half pure husky and, judging by their behaviour, half poodle.

After extended instruction, I managed to turn the wooden sledge over in about 30 seconds, tipping my partner Paula over into the snow and dragging me along behind, desperately clinging on so I didn't lose the dogs and sledge. The dogs were the only beings around that didn't speak English and didn't understand 'Stop!'

You have little control over the dogs, other than shouting instructions or braking by stamping a metal plate into the snow, which you do almost continuously, since the dogs are all eager enthusiasm, yelping, straining and running without a care - whether you have fallen off or they have just run under a low branch.

It's exhilarating and you get to see the hauntingly serene winter landscape that you could otherwise see only by skiing crosscountry - or by taking the James Bond version of the dog sledge, the 85hp skidoo. We went on a 30 kilometre 'skidoo safari', at speeds of up to 80kph, tearing across lakes, weaving in and out of trees and flying into the air on any bumps. In other words, shattering the silence and being a nuisance to nature lovers. What fun!

But skidoos are also practical. They come with electrically warmed handles and even a thumb warmer for the accelerator lever. Åre is in fact a bit of skidoo heaven. Most houses have them and, the week we were there, Åre was hosting the world skidoo championships.

Now they didn't have that when my mum met my dad.

Five British operators feature Åre: Crystal Holidays (0870 848 7000); Neilson (08705 14 14 14); Bridge Travel Service (01992 456300); Astons (01905 829200); and Frango Travel (01428 606160). See www.skiscandinavia.com. The season runs from December until 1 May