Part One, Journey Beyond the Arctic Circle: Traveling to Finnish Lapland

I awoke to the sound of my alarm clock ringing at 5:30 AM and I quickly dressed, grabbed my things, and went outside to wait for my friends to pick me up to begin our almost 700-mile journey north to Nitsijärvi, Lapland. By 6:00 AM we were on our way. The plan was to drive through the Finnish region of Pohjanmaa (Ostrobothnia) to Oulu (near which we would pick up one more person), then to Roveniemi, then to Ivalo (where we would buy food and some supplies), and finally to our cabin north of Lake Inari. I had been invited to tag along this trip to icefish, hike, and snowshoe if there was still enough snow.

Other than the fact that it was already fully light out, the first few hours of our drive were rather unremarkable. Then we hit Pohjanmaa. I had heard many things about Pohjanmaa from Finns, both good and bad (for example, I heard the term “red neck” used a lot in a negative sense. For the record I grew up in the country side and so I reject this negative connotation), and I was interested in seeing why everyone had an opinion. Unfortunately, we were not in Pohjonmaa long enough for me to understand the differing opinions among Finns about this region, but I was able to develop my own first impression and it was mostly positive. Four things stood out to me right away: large rivers (uncommon in most of Finland), lots of large farms, flat open spaces with a big sky, and people who seemed similar in character to people living in the Midwest of the United States (think share croppers and men wearing camouflage during normal activities).

It was very nice to see so many rivers which I am accustomed to seeing in the United States. They possess unique ecosystems and are great for outdoor activities like paddling and fishing. They also are very fertile which may explain the next feature: farms. The farms that I saw where very similar to what one would expect to see in the Midwest of the United States; clusters of red barns and silos near a farm house in the middle of huge fields. Tractors were everywhere and large flocks of migrating birds, such as swans and geese dotted the fields. In contrast to much of Finland, I felt very small under the large open sky. Because Pohjanmaa is so flat the sky seems huge. This was not Montana, but compared to the forested area of Finland that I had been to previously the place felt immense. The only features breaking up the landscape was some small forests and the rivers that cut through the flatlands on their way to the Gulf of Finland in the Baltic Sea.

Then there were the people that I encountered at the gas stations and cafes that we stopped at along the way. They were somehow different than the Finns I know from Helsinki or Tampere and they definitely had a country feel. They were less refined and were mostly dressed for manual labor on farms or in similar occupations. As mentioned before, many of the men were wearing camouflage pants or baseball hats. My broken Finnish also attracted attention here and I got some curious looks from people at one café. In many ways it reminded me of where I grew up and I will definitely be back again for a longer visit.

After passing through Oulu the terrain started to change ever so slightly and one began to get the feeling that one was heading into the wilderness. It was at this point that we came across something unexpected. We were somewhere between the towns of Kemi and Roveniemi when we passed through a small village that was full of asylum seekers and immigrants from the Middle East and Afghanistan. I of course was well aware that the migrant crisis sweeping over Europe had spilled into Finland from across the Swedish boarder in Lapland, and yet it was very strange to see. Groups of young Arab men were walking along the road and waiting at bus stations and I saw a woman in a burka taking her children for a walk. Against the background of frozen lakes and snow it all seemed a little surreal. I would have liked to have stopped and spoken with a few of the migrants to get their impression of Lapland, but we still had more than 6 hours to go and so we pushed on.

When we reached Roveniemi I learned that it was actually a large town by Finnish standards with a population of over 60,000. It has a well-established university and all the enmities of modern life. I came to the conclusion that one could live happily there while exploiting both modern living standards and the Lapland wilderness. After Roveniemi though thing changed rapidly; the fells (tunturi in Finnish) became to appear. These were particularly beautiful as they rose up over the frozen lakes and forests.

A few hours later we arrived in the town of Ivalo, which was small by any standard, but still managed two groceries stores and a few restaurants. Here we bought enough food for a week and some equipment. While there, we ate at a small grill named Lauran Grilli. It served a great-tasting, large double-decker burger (kerroshampurilainen) for only five Euros. After filling our bellies with this gut bomb we competed the last leg of our journey and 14 hours after leaving Tampere, Finland we arrived at our cabin on the shores Nitsijärvi. We had traveled nearly the entire length of Finland and seen the different peoples and landscapes, but the adventure was just beginning.