|
|
*** FINLAND 2012 - WEEKS 8~9 *** | |||
This week's
Photo Gallery |
Reindeer
Photo Gallery |
Bottom of Page |
Return to
Index Page |
|
|
From the range of Hossa's forested walking routes, we set off the following morning on a 9 kms path to find the Värikallio prehistoric rock-paintings. Driving to the walk's starting-point, we
passed the small lake of Iso-Niskalampi, where in gloomy light the reflections
of pines and
The wilderness forest walk at Hossa had provided a treasure trove of both botanical and historical interest to satisfy us both, topped by more reindeer sightings as later we returned along the forest road (Photo 5 - Roadside reindeer in Hossa Trekking Area).
In truly miserable weather conditions with driving rain and bitterly cold Arctic northerly wind but thankfully no snow, we camped overnight at a small site just to the north of Kuusamo set in a lakeside forest clearing (which could describe most campsites in Finland). North past the Ruka ski resort, an offensive blot on the gloomy fell-scape, we turned off onto Route 950. At the village of Käylä, we took a side-turning onto 14kms of unsurfaced lane which eventually dipped steeply down into the valley of the Oulankjoki, the river which flows through the Oulanka National Park and eastwards into Russia before eventually turning north to outflow into the White Sea. The helpful Oulanka Visitor Centre again supplied maps and details of walking routes, and 1.5kms beyond, we reached the straightforward National Park campsite. We were given a smilingly reassuring welcome by the young students at reception and the charges were very reasonable, the setting glorious amid pine and birch forest on the banks of the Oulanka river, the facilities in turf-roofed huts (see right) had everything you could ask for with spotlessly clean, snugly heated showers, well-equipped kitchen/wash-up, drying room for wet kit, and small kiosk at reception selling basics. We settled in happily under the pine trees (Photo 6 - Oulanka National Park campsite).
Route 962 was a
magnificent road carving a way over the forested watershed of
the Pyhä-Luosto bare-topped fells, down
into the broad Kitinen valley to join Route 4 northwards to the outskirts of Sodankylä. After the rural peace of the last few days, Sodankylä seemed a busy
little town set at the junction of 2 major highways. Its rather drab
modern appearance thanks to WW2 German destruction, gives little impression of
its history: founded in the late 17th century as a market town for the
Finnish settlers and scattered indigenous Sámi population who travelled here
from a wide region to trade and attend church, by boat in summer and
reindeer-pulled sledge in winter. It still forms the major service centre for
Central Lapland, one of Europe's least populated
regions with just 0.8 people per square kilometre and many more
reindeer.
The
town's TIC provided another heap of brochures and enabled us to collect emails
and consult the weather forecast, and across the street a bronze statue intended
to celebrate reindeer husbandry looked more like a bull fight between a reindeer
and an elf. Far more impressive was the Sodankylä's wooden Old Church (Vanha
Kirkko) dating from 1689 and one of the town's few buildings to have survived
the 1944 German scorched earth retreat. The small wooden chapel, standing in a
graveyard surrounded by a low wooden fence next to the less noteworthy 19th century church which replaced it, is no longer used for services but is now a
popular wedding venue (Photo 18 - 17th century wooden Old Church at
Sodankylä).
The dark wooden interior was delightfully restored, with plain
The guide returned and opened the parliamentary plenary chamber (see left), giving us a presentation on the Sámediggi and answering our many questions: there are 21 members of the devolved Parliament elected from the Sámi domicile areas of Finland for a 4 year term. According to law, a person is eligible to vote if they consider themselves as Sámi and they or their parents/grandparents speak Sámi as mother tongue. The Parliament was established under a law of 1973, making it the self-governing body for all Finnish Sámi, with devolved powers on issues concerning Sámi language and culture and their status as the indigenous people of Finland. It also decides on the distribution of funds earmarked by the Finnish State for Sámi affairs. It was however difficult to determine precisely the real level of devolved self-governing powers, since the definitions seemed so vague. We were keen to understand the relationship with the Finnish State Parliament, and as expected, the major point of contention was over land rights and access. Of the 3 Nordic countries, only Finland still denies the Sámi unique right of access to the traditional reindeer herding grounds. This was a very different view from the blandly patronising response to our questions on this issue we had received in Helsinki. The small circular parliamentary chamber named the Sajos, the Sámi term for their traditional nomadic encampment (Photo 25 - Plenary chamber of the Finnish Sámi Parliament), had simultaneous translation facilities so that members speaking in the different Sámi languages could understand one another. We had achieved our visit and leant much not only about Sámi language and culture, but about their limited constitutional rights to self-determination and government in the face of the overwhelming economic clout of the powerful forestry and mining lobbies which had the ear of the Finnish State.
Just beyond SIIDA, a lane branches off to a
parking area from where a way-marked footpath leads in 4kms to the Pielpajärvi Erämaakirkko (Wilderness Church). The church dates from the mid-18th
century and had served a Sámi settlement once sited in the meadow near the
church, where the nomadic reindeer-herding families had
Tomorrow we should move further northwards to cross the Finnish border into Arctic Norway, heading towards Kirkenes and the tundra wastes of the Varanger Fjord region. Join us again shortly for our continuing journey. Next edition to be published in 3 weeks
|
CAMPING
IN FINLAND and LAPLAND 2012 - Eastern Finland and crossing the Arctic Circle
into Lapland:
Continuing our journey ever northward along the
Via Karelia through the deserted boreal forests parallel with the Russian border
just 10 kms to the east, we reached our next stopping-point, the Hossa Trekking
Area. The Hossa Visitor Centre, operated by the Finnish National Forestry
Agency, Metsähallitus, helpful as usual provided us with detailed maps and
walking route information, and served as reception for the neighbouring
Karhunkainalon Leitintäalue campsite set amid forested heathland. The site's
first class facilities with washing and drying machines to catch up with
laundry, well-appointed kitchen to help conserve our limited gas supplies, and
Visitor Centre's free wi-fi for contact with our family, provided a comfortable base in the wet and gloomy weather.
clouds in the still waters and a formation of Whooper Swans passing
overhead presented a quintessentially Finnish landscape picture (Photo 1 -
Pine and cloud reflections at Lake Iso-Niskalampi).
The way-marked path led through wilderness forests above the narrow Ala-Ölkky
lake-canyon and at several points we disturbed capercaillies among the dense
crowberry-lingonberry-bilberry groundcover. Midge-helmets and DEET-repellent
spray kept the midges at bay as we crossed boggy valleys on board-walks. It was
here among the glorious gardens of wild flora that we had our first sightings of
the distinctive Dwarf Cornel which was to become one of the trip's iconic
flowers (Photo 2 - Dwarf Cornel - Cornus suecica). The path
eventually crossed a wooden bridge where lake waters tumbled over into the
river-canyon, and on the far side led to a long wooden walkway at the
lake's edge
(Photo 3 - Värikallio lake-side rock face with Palaeolithic rock-paintings).
The walkway ended at the foot of a vertical rock face alongside a gallery of
Palaeolithic paintings, indistinct traces of red-ochre painted figures thought
to date from around 2,500 BC. There were several human stick-figures which
are incorporated into Hossa's emblem (see right), and an outline painting of a shaman figure in dance pose with ritual horned mask (Photo 4 - Detail of Värikallio prehistoric rock-paintings) . But despite a
protective layer of silica, most of the paintings were now obscurely smudged;
for details of the Värikallio prehistoric rock-paintings, visit the
The
following day in pouring rain we continued north to reach the small town of
Kuusamo, which although still in Kainuu had all the feel of Lapland with its
boundless boreal coniferous forests, lakes, marshland and reindeer. Kuusamo
suffered the same WW2 fate as the rest of Lapland when in September 1944 the
Germans mercilessly torched the town with their retreating scorched earth
policy. The result is that today there is little of architectural merit in Kuusamo. The supermarkets in the town's suburbs however enabled us to stock up
with a week's provisions in readiness for our time in the remote wilds of
the Oulanka National Park. The TIC's free internet access showed the weather
continuing pessimistically wet and gloomy with low temperatures and even the
possibility of snow! With the rain still pouring, we took a brief look around
Kuusamo, pausing by the modern church built in 1950 to replace that destroyed by
the Germans 6 years earlier, and alongside the Finnish war cemetery filled with
WW2 dead. Despite its lack of noteworthy sights, Kuusamo did have 4
noteworthy features: well-stocked supermarkets, a helpful TIC, a delicious
smoked cheese, and the cheapest
diesel yet encountered in Finland, €0.10 less costly than further south.
The
following morning, although the air
temperature was still chill at only 10°C, the cloud had broken to give patchy
but warming sun filtering down through the pines. Our plan for today was to walk
the 8 kms nature trail which passes Oulanka's key natural feature, the
Kiutaköngäs river-rapids and its backdrop of red dolomite cliffs. The path began
just beyond the Visitor Centre following the course of the river which at this
stage flowed with innocuous placidity and was lined with an array of distinctive
wild flora growing along the mossy banks, like the curiously pendulous
One-flowered Wintergreen (see left) and the spiky-flowered Herb Paris (see
right). As we moved on, the sound of churning water increased as the river
approached the narrows of the Kiutaköngäs Rapids; a side path led over rugged
rocks to give a bird's eye view as the river waters were funnelled into the
narrows and churned into a breath-taking series of seething white-water rapids
and cascades surging through the narrow channel (Photo 7 - Kiutaköngäs Rapids on the Oulanka River); against a back-drop of
ruddy-brown dolomite cliffs, dark green pines rising up the hillside behind
and the vividly blue sky, all lit by bright sunlight, this was an awe-inspiring
sight viewed from this rocky grandstand, the air filled with the roar of the
foaming river (Photo 8 - Churning waters of Kiutaköngäs Rapids). A few
lone specimens of Mountain Avens grew on the very brink of the precipice 30 feet
above the rapids. We followed the rocky path through the trees with its
startling views of the rapids as the river was funnelled through the narrow
ravine, finally gushing out into a wider and more peacefully flowing stretch of
river beyond.
As the river settled back into a more somnolent pace
sluggishly meandering into ox-bows, the
onward path advanced through more open pine woods along a broad, flat-topped heathland plateau above the deep valley.
Looking out from this terrace across the wide gulf of the river valley, pine
woods stretched away over distant hills of this boundless forested wilderness
towards Russia; there was a fearsome awe about this spectacle. The path
continued through coniferous woodland passing the delightful small lake of
Hiidenlampi. The marshy land again provided a wealth of glorious wild
flora nestling among the sphagnum moss alongside the narrow board-walk:
delicately attractive pink-white globular Bog-rosemary, cloudberry flowers with
their fragile white petals, shy pink Cranberry flowers, Bogbeans with their
fringed white flowers, and today's floral highlight, tiny isolated specimens of
insectivorous Sundew with the sunlight just catching the sticky red hairs on
their fly-catching leaves (Photo 9 - Insectivorous Sundew - Drosera
rotundifolia).
The walk concluded with a reminder that we were approaching the reindeer herding
region of Lapland: a restored wooden-fenced reindeer corral where the husbanded
reindeer are gathered twice yearly for tagging and culling. Back at camp, as the
midge swarms mustered for their evening assault, the BBQ was lit after another
wonderful day's walking amid Oulanka's peaceful coniferous forests.
We
spent our 2nd day at Oulanka walking the Rytisuo nature Trail (luontopolku), a
circular route starting from the Oulanka campsite, with the possibility of
seeing the spectacular wild orchids which grow in the National Park. The
way-marked path rose steeply through the forests lined with further wealth of
wild flora growing on the nutrient-rich sloping mire draining down the hillside;
these included the tiny white insectivorous Alpine Butterwort (Pinguicula
alpina) growing out of a rosette of sticky leaves whose curled-up edges trap
their insect prey (see left below). But the real highlight of the day was yet to
come. We were too late this year to see the Calypso (Fairy Slipper) Orchid which
flowers in June and forms the Oulanka National Park's emblem (see left), but
growing in a profuse clump alongside the boardwalk, we found plants of the Lady
Slipper Orchid (see right): their huge, curiously-shaped flowers had a large yellow bulbous
bowl-shaped lip spotted red inside with 3 large maroon wings (Photo 10 - Lady
Slipper Orchid - Cypripedium calceolus);
how on earth did such a bizarre flower evolve? They made the purple Marsh
Orchids seen later growing in marshy ground seem quite mundane (see below right).
But there was more
wild-life
to come: a rustle in the nearby vegetation alerted us to a large mottled brown
female capercaillie strutting nervously away probably in an attempt to divert us
from her nest of eggs or young. And later near to Rytilampi lake, a Wood
Sandpiper sat on a tree branch singing insistently to distract us from its nest
in the nearby marshes. We had been fortunate with weather, but the day declined
rapidly meaning a sweaty plod back to camp later in full waterproofs as rain
began.
Soon
after resuming our northward journey on the Via Karelia, we crossed into Lapland
as we approached the line of the Arctic Circle. We knew that any fixed marking
of the Arctic Circle, defined as the southernmost point at which the sun does
not actually set for at least one day a year, was purely notional; the actual line
slips northward by some 15m each year due to the earth's changing angle of tilt.
But despite these technical trivialities, it was satisfying to find a
surprisingly discrete sign at the Hautajärvi Visitor Centre just north of
Oulanka village indicating the notional line of the Arctic Circle (Napapiiri in
Finnish) and official 'crossing the line' photos had to be taken (Photo 11 - Crossing the Arctic Circle at Hautajärvi).
Northwards from here, the topography of the terrain changed dramatically to
hilly Lapland fells, partly forested with bare tops, the Sallatunturi fells
south of Salla now sullied by the over-commercialised ski industry. The large
village of Salla was originally a widespread community of small settlements
spread over an area twice the size of the modern municipality; but now it is a
place of modern apartment blocks with a forlorn air and sad history after the
dreadful suffering of WW2.
We
drove into Salla to learn more about its history at the Salla Museum of War and
Reconstruction, which describes the traditional farming life within the
municipality of Salla, the destruction and disruption caused in WW2, and the
post-war period of reconstruction and re-housing of refugees from the area lost
to USSR. In 1939 massive Red Army forces launched the invasion of Finland
through Salla causing people to flee their farms as the Soviets attempted to cut
Finland in half at its narrowest point. Despite having no anti-tank guns, the
Finnish forces aided by winter conditions and determination to defend their
homeland resisted and the Soviet attack stalled amid fierce fighting. But the
terms of the 1940 Treaty of Moscow ending the Winter War brought horrendous loss
for the people of Salla: the easterly border of their municipality was forcibly
shifted to the westward bulging border line seen today, as the Finns were
compelled to cede to the Soviets 6,000 square kms of territory now known as Old Salla (Vanha Salla) (see map left). The Continuation War enabled the Finns to
recover some of this and Salla's
refugees reoccupied their farms and even laid out a war cemetery by Old Salla
church for the 1939~40 war dead. But with renewed Soviet attacks in 1944, the
people of Salla were again forced to flee their homes with even worse to come:
the retreating Germans destroyed all the buildings of Salla village with
fighting again ravaging the area. The 1944 peace treaty reinforced the new
border line with USSR, meaning a permanent loss of Old Salla's territory and the
need to re-house 4,000 refugees. 9 entire village settlements and farms were
rebuilt around New Salla which expanded during the period of post-war
reconstruction and life started all over again. The villages and farms of Old
Salla with its church and war cemetery, all now within Soviet territory, fell
into dereliction and the area of territory lost to Russia is now entirely
depopulated as a border zone. The young lady at the Salla Museum of War and
Reconstruction responded with candour to our many questions. This is another of
those admirably brave little museums which proudly tells the tragic tale of a
community which suffered so grievously from the ravages of war, and whose
municipality had been victim of rapacious territorial loss at the hands of the
Russians and totally destroyed by retreating Germans. No wonder modern Salla
still has something of a sad air. Do make a point of visiting its excellent
Museum, and ask for a copy of the local guide Vital Villages Salla Tour
for an informed exploration of the municipality. Before leaving Salla, we drove
the 20kms along Route 82 leading to the modern border-crossing point into
Russia, although without a visa we could not see for ourselves this disputed
region. We expected to see the usual queues of trucks at the border-crossing,
but access to the lost area of Old Salla was today dismally deserted, the grimly
dark clouds seeming to symbolise the human suffering of its tragic history (see
below right).
We camped that night at the foot of the
Sallatunturi ski slopes at Sallainen Camping (see left), but our hope of a first
experience of the Midnight Sun across the open vista of the lake were frustrated
by a bank of late cloud.
The following morning we went instead in search of Lapland reindeer at the
nearby Salla Reindeer Park (Poropuisto), admittedly with some misgivings about
this possibly being an over-expensive tourist-trap with animals in zoo-like corrals too
distant to photograph. In fact the park covered a large area of natural woodland
criss-crossed by walking trails and after a couple of kms of walking, suddenly
in the trees ahead we spotted the first of a small herd of freely grazing
reindeer. The animals were of varying ages and sizes, including young calves,
their antlers at this stage of the year covered with soft downy velvet. Being
semi-domesticated, the herded reindeer had no fears about our presence and we
were able to move freely among them taking our photos and examining closely
their cumbersome antlers and curiously shaped hooves; 2 cloven sections at the
front and curiously delicate-looking 'high heel' at the rear which clicked as
they walked and supported their weight on snow covered ground in winter (see
below right). We had already seen a number of reindeer ambling along roads but
this had been our first opportunity for close encounters with a whole grazing
herd of these animals which are such an iconic symbol of Lapland and form the
staple of its traditional Sámi lifestyle and economy (Photo 12 - Lapland reindeer at Salla Poropuisto).
We spent a happy couple of hours following the reindeers around the forest
clearing, and some of our photos are published here on our
Our
next stop was at Kemijärvi, a small town sitting astride the tooth-shaped lake
of Kemijärvi, itself a huge swollen body of water along the course of the mighty
Kemijoki River which flows down from Northern Lapland to its mouth at Kemi at
the head of the Bothnian Gulf. The road crossed the river/lake on a causeway and
on the western side of the town, we reached Camping Hietaniemi.
The warden was welcoming and helpful, the lakeside
setting delightful, and it was the first time we had camped on grass since
leaving Åland. The custom was to fly the flags of guests' countries and we were
gratified when the Russian Federation flag was removed to make way for the Union
Jack; the warden admitted she had few occasions to do this! Tonight the sun was
still shining in a clear sky late into the evening, and a reasonably clear view
of the northern horizon unimpeded by pine trees raised further hopes of a first
sighting of
the Midnight Sun. Sure enough as midnight approached, through the trees we had a
partial sighting of
the sun positioned on the horizon but not actually setting. It was clear that
north of the Arctic Circle during the critical few days of the Midnight Sun
period between late June and early July, the sun dipped but did not actually set
below the horizon; it appeared to traverse horizontally for a full 90° from NW
to NE until it began to rise again in the early hours of the new day. This was
an unforgettable experience actually to witness and photograph the
phenomenon of the Midnight Sun, and we finally turned in at 1-00am still full of
excitement. (Photo 13 - First experience of the Midnight Sun).
Slightly
blear-eyed after our late night of sun-watching, we woke to find the sun now
fully risen. The compact centre of Kemijärvi is of course entirely modern after
wartime destruction; the church which was re-built after WW2 to replace the one
destroyed by the Germans has a war cemetery and memorial, and nearby the
separate 18th century bell-tower still stands, remarkably having survived German
destructive attention (Photo 14 - Kemijärvi modern church and 18th century bell-tower).
Following the valley of the wide Kemijoki, we turned north again onto Route 5 to the farming village of Vuostimo
with its scattered red-painted wooden dwellings each with their wood stack. Just
beyond Vuostimo we reached what undoubtedly was one of the
trip's most delightful and hospitable of
campsites, Kuukiurun Lomakylä. We were welcomed by the charming elderly couple
who have been running what is understandably a popular little set of cottages,
café and small campsite here of the banks of the Kemijoki for a number of years
(see left), and settled into the grassy camping area in warm evening sunshine.
This was as truly a peaceful jewel of a straightforward campsite as you could
find anywhere. The sky was perfectly clear and still this evening and the sun
still high at 11-30pm. Tonight however woods obscured our view of the horizon,
but as we turned in around midnight the sun's light was still glinting
through the trees as it sat on the horizon ready for its eastward traverse
ready for early sunrise tomorrow. It was only 1 week ago at Kuusamo that
temperatures were down to 5°C with bitterly cold Arctic wind and tonight we sat
out for supper in warm sunshine, such were the vagaries of wind-direction
dependent weather north of the Arctic Circle. The following day we enjoyed a
'jobs day' at Kuukiurun Lomakylä with beautiful sunshine and temperatures of
30°C. The campsite owner called by to offer us use of the rowing boat on the
river; they were driving into Kemijärvi to the supermarket and could they get us
any shopping, such was their hospitality.
Sorry
to leave the homely surroundings at Kuukiurun, we set off northwards the
following day to cross the bare-topped Lapland fells of Pyhä-Luosto on Route
692. The road was almost traffic-free enabling us to make good speed, but other
hazards lurked along this road: Sheila's job became elk and reindeer watch. The
greater hazard are elks, real brutes of beasts which can leap out unexpectedly,
but fortunately we only glimpsed one of these in the roadside forest. Reindeer
on the other hand are innocently amiable creatures which tend to amble in small
groups along the road in a care-free way, totally oblivious to traffic and only
move out of the way if you drive slowly towards them. Although
semi-domesticated, the herded reindeer wander freely over the forests and fells
to graze, but when the midges become too bothersome, they stray onto open spaces
including roads to get relief from the midges, graze the grass verges, and in
spring lick the residual road salt. Although they do not leap out unexpectedly
like elk, they do constitute a real hazard for carelessly speeding traffic and
100s of cars are written off every year through hitting reindeer. Each day we
had to keep a sharp watch out for ambling reindeer, and pause to avoid them as
they ambled along the road (Photo 15 - Lapland traffic hazard of reindeer ambling along the road).
The
road led up though the spectacularly high ground of the Pyhä-Luosto fells, and
at Pyhä village we paused to see a small modern wood-built roadside chapel whose
interior was the very essence of peaceful, elegant simplicity with vases of
fluffy cotton-grass decorating its altar; somehow it seemed out of place and
time in this unsightly ski resort. 15kms further up into the high fells, we
reached the even more ghastly ski resort of Luosto, thankfully deserted at this
time of year. Curiosity led us up a side lane to a parking area from where a
2.5kms track led to the Luosto Amethyst Mine, allegedly Europe's only working amethyst
mine. A half-hour brisk walk brought us to the Lampivaara café for mine visit
tickets and we made our way up the wooden steps which rose steeply up the scree-covered
upper fell slopes. This was a topography not seen before in Finland. Gaining
height quickly above the tree line, widely extensive panoramic views opened up
across a vista of Lapland fells; the ridge-line of conical fell-peaks
stretched away the 30km length of the Pyhä-Luosto valley, rising above the
tree-covered lower slopes (Photo 16 - Scree-covered slopes of Lampivaara Fell). Mining of amethyst was
begun here on the open summit of 400m high Lampivaara fell in the 1980s by
hand-excavation to find amethyst crystals in the surface layers of rock debris.
Amethyst is formed by slow crystallisation of silicon dioxide which would
normally
produce quartz but the combined presence of iron and aluminium impurities gives
the characteristic amethyst purple colour. Amethyst formed in this way in caves
deep underground is brought to the surface by aeons of erosion of the upper rock
strata and more recently by glacial scouring, hence its presence here on a
Lapland fell-top. The comically
extortionate
admission charge to visit the mine suggested that insufficient
amethyst was produced for commercial viability and they made their money by ripping off tourists.
And the mine visit was a non-event: after a brief introduction, we were given
picks and left to scratch around in the debris for pieces of quartz or amethyst (Photo 17 - Digging for amethyst on Lampivaara fell-top);
you had to be impressed at the sheer
novelty of the rip-off! But the
weather was good and the fell-top setting
magnificent with the distant views of Lapland fells. Returning along the valley
path, we
were again able to photograph more of the elegant Dwarf Cornel flowers
(see right) despite the swarming midges. The path doubled as a walking path in
summer and ski/snowmobile route in winter snows, enabling us to add a further
uniquely Finnish sign to our collection (see left), and back in Luosto village,
a small herd of beautifully antlered reindeer browsed the car park.
wooden pews and
undecorated with an altar made from beams (Photo 19 - Interior of Sodankylä Old Church).
This was certainly Sodankylä's highlight.
Before finding
tonight's campsite, we went in search of Sodankylä's less well-known features
and certainly well off the usual tourist trail: 2 kms north of the town on Route
4, turn left just after a Neste filling station into a small industrial estate,
and there you'll find the factory shop of the Kylmänen meat processing company,
which sells fresh, frozen and tinned reindeer meat and their recommended
specialty, tinned cream of reindeer soup (poro keitto). If you wait to buy such
delicacies at Lapland tourist souvenir shops rather than directly from the
producers, you'll pay twice the price. Well pleased with our acquisition of a
6-pack of reindeer soup (ideal presents for family) and a large bag of frozen
reindeer meat, we turned back into town to find Nilimella Camping on the banks of the Kitinen River. This is a welcoming, reasonably
priced campsite with rowan-divided pitches, free wi-fi and best value washing
machine in Finland (€1 for wash and free drying machine); they don't come better than this. Sodankylä was certainly a pleasantly useful town with all the
services you might need including supermarkets for provisions stock up, but
prices are inevitably more expensive this far north.
Pieni Tankavaara Fell). The
468m high open fell top was a miniature paradise garden of wild flora with
Chickweed Wintergreen (see left) and our first sighting (though
certainly not the last) of curiously-shaped Twin-Flowers still in bud growing
among the exposed stone field (Photo 21 - Twin-Flowers - Linnaea borealis).
As we lost height from the fell top, the descent path led down to the start of a
long board-walk crossing a broad mire, with the usual floral array of Cloudberry,
Cranberry, Bog-rosemary and Bogbeans we had come to expect in marshland,
this time augmented by some fine specimens of Heath Spotted Orchids. The path
led back through spruce forest to 
On
a bright sunny morning, Route
4 northwards was a delightful road passing through
endless boreal forest with the candle-spruces standing out distinctively tall
(see left). As we drove further into Lapland, road signs became
dual-language, Finnish and Sámi eg Ivalo/Avvi and Inari/Anárr (Photo 22 - Dual-language Lapland Finnish and Sámi road signs),
and north of Saarisekä, the road passed over more hilly and open fell terrain
with snow fencing to protect the open sections susceptible to winter
snow-drifting. Despite the busy traffic, we had to slow several times for
reindeer on the road and in the outskirts of Ivalo there were even reindeer in
the builders merchants yard browsing among the Jewson bits and pieces! Ivalo was
a pleasant and functionally self-sufficient small town with shops lining its
main street, and modern hospital and Orthodox chapel replacing those razed in
1944 by retreating Germans. Even the Lapland souvenir shop was better priced
than expected, and the supermarket was well-stocked not only with foodstuffs but
also a wide range of hardware. It clearly served a wide area, including a brisk
cross-border trade with nearby Russia and we heard more Russian voices than ever
among the shelves as we stocked up with provisions. The sign at the town's
central roundabout pointed along Route 91 to the Russian border-crossing, with
Murmansk 303kms to the NW (see below).
North
of Ivalo, Route 4 passed over undulating forested terrain with alluring
views along the southern shores of the massive lake of Inarijärvi whose
waters reflected blue from the clear sky. Within an hour we were approaching
Inari, the main Sámi town of Northern Lapland and location of the devolved
Finnish Sámi Parliament. The town is tiny, just a few buildings,
church, small supermarkets and filling station at the bend of the road by the Juutuanjoki bridge where the
river flowed into Inari Lake. Uruniemi Camping 3 kms from the centre had a surly
and unwelcoming owner, limited facilities and an overcrowded, sloping camping
area, but at least a few level pitches on a grassy terrace facing westwards
overlooked Inarijärvi; if the evening remained clear, this open vista across the
lake would give a perfect grandstand view of the Midnight Sun. The evening sun
dipped gradually towards the western horizon, but frustratingly by 11-30pm a
late band of cloud drifted across totally obscuring the sun
(Photo 23 - Midnight Sun over Lake Inari obscured by late cloud); disappointed this
evening, we turned in hoping for a clearer evening tomorrow to take advantage of
this perfect position for photographing the Midnight Sun.
The following morning we drove into Inari in
search of the devolved Finnish Sámi Parliament, the Sámediggi. Our enquiries
were met with shrugs; was the Sámi Parliament so obscure, or even worse so
ineffectual, as to be unknown or regarded as irrelevant? We eventually tracked
it down to a modern timber-faced building only opened this spring housing the
Sámi cultural centre, library and the parliament
(Photo 24 - Sámi Parliament (Sámediggi) at Inari). We had at least found
the location, but could we achieve a parliamentary visit? The Sámi lady in the
souvenir shop assured us that visits were possible, and while waiting we leant
more from her about Sámi language and culture. There were 3 groups of indigenous Sámi
people living in Lapland each with different languages not mutually understood:
the Inari Sámi living around Inari of whom only 300 speakers of the language
survive; the Northern Sámi, the largest group with 10,000 in all and 2,000
living in Finland; the Skolt Sámi formerly from the Petsamo region of North
Russian Kola peninsula, evacuated post WW2 after the Soviet occupation of
the area, and re-settled around Nellim and
Sevettijárvi in NE Finland; there area only 300 surviving speakers of Skolt Sámi, a
complex language not understood by other Sámi
speakers and more resembling Russian. We asked to learn the word for 'Thank you'
in the 3 Sámi tongues: Inari Sámi
-
Takkâ, Northern Sámi - Giitu(cf the Finnish
Kiitos), and Skolt Sámi - Spässeb (cf
Russian Spasibo). School children have the right to receive their education and
take exams in their mother tongue.
At the far end of Inari, we found what was
reputed to be one of the best museums in Scandinavia, the SIIDA Sámi Cultural
Museum and North Lapland Nature Centre. Its restaurant offers good value lunches
including delicious sautéed reindeer with lingonberry sauce. The name SIIDA was
derived from the Sámi word for the small community or clan which hunted or
herded reindeer; it was certainly
the place to find out more about the Sámi peoples, their traditional nomadic way
of life and how this has changed in the modern world. The exhibitions began with
a timeline tracing the history of the Sámi from their earliest migration into Finno-Scandinavia in the immediate post-glacial period, showing them as
Finland's original indigenous 
settlers as the Scandinavian lands became habitable for humankind following the retreat of the glaciers. The timeline,
against a background of world historic events, showed the development of Sámi
culture from nomadic hunter-gatherers through to domestication of herded
reindeer, initially on a nomadic basis but, aided by 20th century technology such as the snowmobile and improved road development, adapting to a more settled
way of life (see left). The outer walls of main exhibition hall were covered with
impressive photographic illustrations showing the changing natural landscape of
Lapland through the seasons with the impact of extremes of weather and
temperature on plant and animal life, against subtle background sounds of
trickling water, winter winds, rustling birch trees, bird song and enigmatic
Sámi joik song-chants. Of particular interest were the illustrations of the
berries and a cleverly presented panel which helped to explain the phenomena of
Midnight Sun and permanent winter darkness in northern latitudes caused by the
tilt of the earth as it orbited the sun. The exhibition's central area was set
out with displays and descriptive panels explaining in superb detail the various
aspects of Sámi traditional life and reindeer herding from the time of nomadic
culture following the migrating herds through to modern settled way of life made
possible by developments like the snowmobile and outboard motor. The displays
covered the annual cycle of reindeer herding, and Sámi dependence on reindeer
for food, clothing and shelter; centrepiece of the exhibition was a modern
snowmobile, towing a cargo-carrying sledge, which had revolutionised the
Sámi lifestyle with reindeer herds now tracked by GPS
(Photo 26 - snowmobile for modern reindeer herding). The external part of
the museum took the form of a skansen of traditional Sámi dwellings,
particularly the kota reindeer-skin nomadic tents (see right). SIIDA lived up to
its reputation as a thoroughly worthwhile source of learning on Sámi lifestyle
and culture and the natural environment of their northern homeland. 
over-wintered in the kota huts after following their herds over the high fells during summer. This encampment site (Sajos) had formed the original settlement of Inari, but
overgrazing had led to the abandonment of the site in favour of the present day
township of Inari. The wooden church had been saved from dereliction by
restoration in the 1970s in this beautiful floral meadow setting. From the car
park, the path undulated through boulder-strewn pristine forest, the rocks
carpeted with moss, lichen and young pine saplings all safely out of reach of
grazing reindeer, and the forest floor covered with lingonberry flowers. Alongside the shore of Lake Pielpajärvi,
we found one of today's floral highlights, a prolific patch of blue-flowered
insectivorous Butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris). But the best was yet to
come: beyond the lake, the path emerged into the flowery meadow of the abandoned
village, and here flourishing among the long grass and buttercups were patches
of beautiful delicate lilac Lapland Jacobs Ladder (Photo
27 - Lapland Jacob's Ladder - Polemonium acutiflorum). The Wilderness
Church stood at the far edge of the meadow in a small copse of birches (Photo
28 - Pielpajärvi Wilderness Church); dating from
1750, this is one of Finland's oldest surviving churches and the light shining
through
the open shutters showed the grey-painted interior in its plain
simplicity (Photo 29 - Interior of Wilderness Church).
Returning
through Inari that
evening, we called in at the modern church, built in 1952 with American Lutheran
financial help to replace the town's old church destroyed in WW2. The interior
of the A-framed structure had a warm wooden feel, but the most attractive
feature was the altar painting by Väinö Saikko 
depicting
Christ blessing a Sámi family with their reindeer in the Lapland
wilderness (Photo 30 - Altar painting at Inari church showing Sámi family).
Back at Uruniemi Camping, the cloud of earlier was beginning to dissipate with
the sun beginning to shine through; but would the sky clear sufficiently to give a view of the Midnight Sun tonight? (Photo 31 - Will the cloud break tonight?).
By 10-30pm we waited anxiously as the western horizon cleared. Across the open
lake we had a perfect westward line of sight along the full sweep of the
horizon. From the door way of our camper, we watched as the full golden orb of
the sun dipped lower; all looked good for our first clear experience of the
Midnight Sun. Sure enough, as midnight approached, the sun dipped to its fullest
extent, not actually touching the western horizon but visibly standing clear
above it. Here at last we had our long-awaited unimpeded experience of the
Midnight Sun (Photo 32 - Midnight Sun across Lake Inari). The wind across
the lake was bitterly chill, but never mind - we were standing there watching
and photographing the golden sun shining fully and brightly at midnight. It
remained clear of the horizon, traversing horizontally eastwards as expected, its bright light reflected on our camper's windows. It was so
thrilling that we stayed up until gone 1-00am watching this extraordinary
phenomenon (see right).
