LAPPLAND!

One highlight of my time in Finnland has been a trip to Lappland with Juho, Jukka and Joel whom I know from my physics courses. 1000 km from Helsinki via Oulu to Savukoski at 67° north Latitude, where we left the car at an "old lady's" house in the early morning. Expecting darkness except few twilight around noon, we were really surprised when the sky became a bit blue at 8 and quite bright at 9. That was good since we had to find the mökki (little wooden cottage without electricity, heating or running water, but with a fireplace). We travelled the last kilometres on skis carrying all we needed on our backs.

After skiing on a frozen river, a lot of work around the mökki kept us warm: shoveling the snow from the roof and to the sauna, shed and outhouse, warming up the mökki,... Joel even skied back to fetch the gas cartridge. In order to get drinking water, we drilled a hole in the frozen river and used a mechanical pump.











The light was very beautiful!










Amazing that the sun even came a bit over the horizon although we were north of the polar circle and it was just 2 weeks after midwinter. On the first day we had -15°C - not so cold considering that it had been below -30°C there some days before our arrival. Nevertheless, in the beginning in the mökki it was as cold as outside so that my frozen hair didn't melt immediately ;-)













The sauna had already served as a dining room because there it was significantly warmer. Finally in the evening it was hot enough for a real sauna :-) At night we could see incredibly many stars because no light of human civilisation desturbed the surrounding darkness. Furthermore, it was completely quiet, not even sounds from animals could be heard.

The first trip took us far off roads and paths into the wild forests, plains and along rivers, thanks to Juho's ability to orientate surely with a compass in the darkness. We even saw reindeers (poro) :-) At certain places we spotted many of their tracks. Apparently they have their favourite places to hang around together - kind of social life.

The river close to the mökki was 30-40cm tick frozen, whereas a smaller, faster streaming one obviously wasn't. Juho broke into the ice! Fortunately, his rubber boots were higher than the river deep. See the proof... (good that parents and friends read this story only after our safe return...)

On the opposite side of the river we dicovered a sheltered fireplace where we wished to cook something warm so that we dared to cross the river:

Our bravery was rewarded with a fire on which we could melt snow in order to cook noodles and hot chocolate :-)

We came back only at midnight - exhausted and happy. It had been a gorgeous day full of adventures. When we woke up on the next morning and looked out of the window, the sun had already risen. Thus we had missed valuable hours of sunlight. But our eyes were getting used to the darkness so that we could see until approximately 4-5pm, later we used a headlamp.

Somebody is looking forward to the second tour :-)

We went skiing through the untouched snow, but we heard dogs barking, probably from sledges.

Plan for the day: climb on that mountain and visit the old lady who had invited us for a coffee.

We had eräsukset, extra wide and long cross-country skis. Nevertheless it was not too easy to arrive on top of the hill.

Then it was already getting dark so that I couldn't take good pictures. But we saved the view over the river, plains and even to human settlements with our inner eye.

When we reached the old lady's house, we found a broom in the entrance door, a sign in Lappland that somebody is not at home.

So we went home, cooked and had another sauna. Between the sauna times I rolled in the snow - even twice! However, Juho rolled 4 times. So if I had wanted to top him, I would have had to roll 5 times. But instead I ceded the heroism to him ...

The following morning was unfortunately already the last :-( We cleaned the mökki and skied back to the old lady's house, where we got a coffee and electricity to heat the car. The man told us that bears are luckily in wintersleep during this period. Yet, in summer he saw one behind his house! Damit hat er uns wohl keinen Bären aufgebunden...

The drive back was pretty long. Even I drove a bit. Driving on lonely streets in Finland with speed limits of 60km/h - 100km/h is much more relaxed than on German autobahnen! Despite that, I was not able to speak Finnish while driving because I had to concentrate so much...

We left Jukka at his parents' place in Oulu, where we were kindly welcomed and had dinner. Finally we arrived in Helsinki at 5am.

Some practical aspects:

• Food: Since we had to carry everything, we hardly took any food containing water. Instead we had e.g. mashed potato powder, powdered soup, dried soya, oat flakes with instant blueberry soup, cocoa with milk powder,... Apples and oranges were frozen so that we grilled them - a bit like Bratäpfel :-) We had bought cheese in individually wrapped slices which could still be separated. Our favourite snack was clearly peanuts with raisins, but we also consumed a large amount of chocolate.
• Clothes: Many layers were advisable, preferably without cotton. Our skis had such a binding that we could fix our own shoes in them. Lined rubber boots served well.
• Language: In the beginning we mostly spoke English, but later only Finnish or German. We just agreed that English would be allowed in danger of life, for example when I was driving (I have to add that I hadn't driven a car for one year)...

It was such a great trip: nature, snow, adventure, silence, light, skiing, reindeers and a very nice travelling group :-) Thank you for this unforgettable journey!