Think of Sir Arthur Evans and you will probably find yourself thinking of Crete, and of his efforts to pin down the dawn of European civilisation at Knossos.

You might remember too that he was keeper of the Ashmolean, Britain’s oldest museum, where in 1894 he oversaw the last great rebuilding programme there before the recent one.

But a new book by Tony Lurcock, who until recently was a teacher in Oxford, shows that early in Evans’s remarkable career he travelled in a different direction altogether: to Finnish Lapland, which in the late 19th century was just becoming accessible to visitors, thanks to the introduction of a railway network and boats operating on the larger lakes.

The book, No Particular Hurry (CB Editions, published this month at £10), throws new light on the remarkable trip he took to points north while still an undergraduate at Brasenose College in 1873, traveling during the summer vacation with his schoolfriend from Harrow Francis Maitland Balfour, brother of the future PM, who was regarded by colleagues as “as one of the greatest biologists of his day” but was sadly killed aged 31 while climbing.

Mr Lurcock, who was a lecturer in English at Helsinki University before returning to Oxford, has unearthed some extraordinary insights into life in Finland as it entered the modern era and also into the character of the archaeologist.

Evans (1851-1941) kept a meticulous journal of everything he saw on his travels, and sent it home to his stepmother in instalments together with descriptive covering letters; Sweden is delightfully represented as “a land of cream, wild strawberries, blue eyes and flaxen hair”.

The letters home contain marginal sketches. In addition the Pitt Rivers Museum possesses a collection of drawings from the expedition showing places, boats, and people that this remarkable pair of undergrads came across.

He found his Lap hosts in remotest Finland to be “really very well off, with seven or eight cows, barley, rye and potatoes, and any amount of salmon for the trouble of getting them”.

Evans bought Youlbury in Boars Hill in 1893 and lived there from 1894 until his death. The house, with its Minoan-style decorations, has sadly burned down, but much of the estate is now a Scouts activities centre since he left land there to the Scout movement.