Äkäslompolo

Kalervo Niskakoski and Keijo Taskinen

채k채slompolo

the village of seven fells in the flow of time

contents 1st Edition

A Brief History of Time

6

The Houses of Äkäslompolo

20

Village Life

42

Fishers, Hunters, and Herders

68

Gathering the Harvest

80

Earning Daily Bread

100

Tourists Visiting

126

© Kirjakaari & Authors, 2012 Authors: Kalervo Niskakoski and Keijo Taskinen Photo acquisition and photographing albums: Kalervo Niskakoski Design and photo editing: Keijo Taskinen Layout and photo retouching: Heikki Riikonen, Laboratorio Uleåborg English translation: Aki Myyrä, Molehill Communications Publisher: Kirjakaari Printed by Saarijärven Offset, Saarijärvi, 2012 ISBN: 978-952-5969-08-5

Foreword and Acknowledgements I have always been interested in history, pondering how we have come to where we are. Äkäslompolo is such a pleasant village that its past deserves to be recorded. That is why I began to gather information and photographs from the villagers. I established the Äkäslompolo.fi website as a storage and reading location for the material, which began to accumulate quickly—and the work still goes on. Much has been lost, but much has also been recovered. I have gone through museums and newspapers, gathering material concerning Äkäslompolo.

I have spent my spring vacations in Äkäslompolo since 1986. With our children, we have a cottage in Kaulavaara, and I have lived permanently here since 2009. Because my childhood home is here in the Torne valley, I am quite familiar with the dialect and life-style of the olden times. As I was making this book, I relived my childhood experiences, such as herding, logging, lodges, log floating, and other chores and circumstances of the era. But I must confess, I still don’t miss being out on the hayfield.

The thought of a book based on photographs felt good from the start. I was responsible for gathering material and part of the text. The successful result was guaranteed by our effective cooperation with the other author, Keijo Taskinen. As a professional, Keijo has been vitally important to the outcome.

In gathering and checking the information, Markku Kurkkio has been absolutely irreplaceable. Markku knows the village and its history throughout, and has written some of the sections concerning history, names, and local terminology. Texts by Markku’s mother, Anja Kurkkio, and other writers have been quoted from the book Lehon torpan tarinoita (Stories from the Lehto Croft). Another valuable and quoted book is Maila Alatalo’s Elämän eväät Äkäslompolosta (Equipped for Life in Äkäslompolo).

When I was working on my book Ylläs – elämää tuntureiden kupeissa (Ylläs – Life amidst the Fells), a wish was repeated in my discussions with the villagers: “Someone has to make a book about the history of Äkäslompolo.” I thought it was a wonderful idea, but I didn’t feel like I was the right person to do it. A year passed by. I got acquainted with Kalervo Niskakoski and the extensive work he had done in saving the villagers’ old photographs. The pictures taken over the years in Äkäslompolo were incredible! There were so many fine pictures that I got the idea to put them in a book. I asked Kalervo to join me in the project. It was time to get things running.

I look at the world through the individual. I wonder what a tourist smelled like to a villager (Kauno Kaulanen: “like oranges, chocolate, and hot rum mixed together, like exciting perfume”), and what Pikku-Kusti was thinking when he skied toward the bear’s winter den. Some things we easily share with our ancestors: birth, love, death—the timeless cycle of life.

I wish to thank all the villagers, who have had a positive attitude toward our project and offered photographs and other information. The people I have “bothered” the most are Maila Alatalo, Emmi and Tatu Friman, Sirkka Friman, Aatos Kaulanen, Heli Kaulanen, Kauno Kaulanen, Liisa Kyrö, Heino and Orvokki Tapojärvi, Reijo Viuhkola, and Elsa Äkäslompolo. The Äkäslompolo Village Association and the Äkäslompolo Family Society have been sympathetic to the project and offered us much needed support.

Museums have also been important partners, with regard to source material. A special thanks to the West Uusimaa Regional Museum for their research and for many of Torsten Rancken’s photogaphs. Seppo and Arja Saarinen have offered us UA Saarinen’s photos and related information. Unfortunately the local newspapers had no photographs from the time-span of the book. Information about the photographers of pictures from villagers’ albums was not usually available. Nevertheless, those photographers deserve many thanks for memorializing life in Äkäslompolo for future generations. There is a list of photograph sources at the end of the book.You can comment on the pictures or the book in general, for example, through the feedback form at the Äkäslompolo.fi website.

I wish you many enjoyable moments with our book!

In Äkäslompolo, 18 January 2012.

Kalervo Niskakoski

A cloudberry bog, twinkling in yellow; a reindeer path adorned with autumn leaves; the heavenly dance of the northern lights... These, too, are timeless images. Although the old pictures are black and white, the people lived in a world of many colours. And they worked with their hands, just like we do. In honour of ancient manual skills, I took pictures of the modern-day villagers’ hands doing chores of the olden times.

Elämänluukku 22.2.2012 Keijo P.S. Let’s shake hands when we meet, shall we!

Ylläksen Ykkös Caravan

Mäkelän Mökkija talomajoitus

Lyhty Kahvila

Oravanpesä

Mailan Putiikki

Mäntymajat

Ylläksen Kiinteistöhuolto Tunturioravat

Kesängin Keidas

Parturi-Kampaamo Tarja

Mäkelä

Ruskapirtti

Kullervo Gardin

Jakola

1927

Haapalan Mökit

Jounin Kauppa

Ylläksen Yöpuu

Destination Lapland

Haapala

Jounila

Purola

Peltola

1962

1949

1954

1954

1939

Riihi 1849

Stiina Heikintytär s. 1850

Keski-Kaulanen 1884

Arvid Juhaninpoika s. 1853

Kenttä 1917

Humina

Taneli Juhaninpoika Matilda Heikintytär s. 1834

s. 1841

Heikki Heikinpoika s. 1808 key:

Heikki Juhaninpoika s. 1777 people houses/estates companies

Taneli äkäslompolo s. 1712

Kirsti Juhontytär s. 1726

YlläsSähkö

äkäsSolmu

Kauno Kaulanen

Hilkka Tolonen

Navettagalleria

Vihertunturi

Selvä Pyy

TunturiTohtori

Harjun Mökit

Ylläksen Revontulet

Lomakiekerö

Lumiperhonen

Velhon Kota

Kuoppa 1885

Lahti 1912

Kotila 1955

TaloYlläs

Kurula

Kukaslompolo

Kuukkeli

1800-luku

Lomakeskus Seita

Nilivaara 1896

1935

Lehto 1959

Tano 1887

Lehto 1915

Tiina Kaisa Juhanintytär, s. 1844

Juhani Heikinpoika s. 1807

Harju 1959

Möyhölä 1800-luku

Johan Petter Juhaninpoika, s. 1838

Karila 1953

Takalehto

Kumpu

1920-luku

1950

Sivula 1937

Kustaa Juhaninpoika, s. 1835

the houses/estates of äkäslompolo The houses/estates have been given their old names. Below the name is the year of building. Of the present estates, only Mäkelä and Nilivaara have not been related to the Äkäslompolo family.

The old bond between the Riihi estate and the Äkäslompolo family also broke in the 1950’s.

Juhani Tanelinpoika s. 1749

By following the arrows to the companies related to the estates, you can see how the heirs of Taneli and Kirsti Äkäslompolo have built and developed the village. A vibrant village and successful tourist centre have developed from one single farm in the outback.

a brief history of time

To light a fire before the era of matches, people dug out a tinderbox that contained flint, a fire striker, and tinder. They struck the flint, generating sparks onto the tinder or pitch wood flakes—and soon they enjoyed the ancient dance of the flickering flames. During the full moon, hunters could well run their trap rounds until night. Glowing flames connect the tired wanderer to the millennia-long chain of huntsmen that have reclined at the open-air resting places in the wilderness.

“Men, wanderers in the wild; women, travellers on the trails.

The wilderness surrenders only to those on foot. Even the fell must be conquered one step at a time.

Scenery is mere pictures, unless you actually feel it in your body.”

- Ilmari Manninen An expedition of the Finnish Forest and Park Service looking for a road route from the Äkäs River to the village of Sirkka in summer 1955.

a brief history of time Äkäslompolo, the little lake amidst nine fells that has only three waterways to the outside world, was once the fishing water of Pietari, son of Martti, the ‘Gaffer of Mämmilä’. His ‘field of fish’ was by Autioniemi on the northern shore of the lompolo, but then Taneli of Jarhoinen came from Sweden, built a house on the shore, and took over Pietari’s fishing waters.”

- Samuli Paulaharju

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a brief history of time /

hunters and settlers

Hunters and Settlers

T

he newest archaeological discoveries suggest that the Ice Age passed from the Äkäslompolo area already 11,000 years ago. The shore of the Ancylus Lake was around Hannukainen, meaning that Äkäslompolo was near the shore of the vast predecessor of the Baltic Sea.

People lived around Äkäslompolo Lake already in the Stone Age. For example, a piece of an ice pick from the Ice Age and two ancient skis, yet to be dated, have been found in the village. Pieces of quartz, which tell of ice age weapon production, have been dug up from the shore of Ulkutieva. We do not know for sure who these Stone Age inhabitants were.

Before Finnish settlements, Sami hunters and fishers lived in Äkäslompolo. Very little signs of their life can be found in the terrain because their buildings and tools were made of natural materials, which decomposed in a few decades. Best preserved are the wild reindeer trapping hollows that can be seen, for example, by the road to Kesänkijärvi. Culture has preserved history better than nature: the old names of the fells and other significant geographical locations are derived from the Forest Sami in the local dialect. For example, many names begin with hangas- and äkäs-, which is what the Forest Sami called their wild reindeer trapping fences.

The Forest Sami tamed wild reindeer and used them as draught animals and load carriers, and to attract and trap forest reindeer. Reindeer were also milked. When hunting had rendered the wild reindeer population too small for meat production, they began herding semi-domesticated reindeer.

Some of the Forest Sami integrated with the Finnish settlers and adopted their source of livelihood, smallscale animal husbandry. Respectively, strands of the traditional hunting and fishing culture were woven into the settlers’ lifestyles. Some of the Forest Sami followed the decreasing herds of wild forest reindeer up north already in the mid 1700’s. According to Samuli Paulaharju, however, they returned later to practise reindeer herding.

European rulers were interested in the mythical Lapland already 2000 years ago. Over the centuries, many explorers came up north to find out about the area’s culture and financial resources. The international significance of Western Lapland increased when an ironworks was established in Köngäs of Pajala in 1646.

The ironworks enriched the surrounding areas, including Äkäslompolo, during the following centuries.

Among others, Giuseppe Acerbi, who made an expedition up to the Arctic Ocean in 1799, visited the Äkäslompolo area. A.F. Skjöldebrand made records of the expedition.

hunters and settlers

/ a brief history of time

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a brief history of time /

hunters and settlers

“Here and there you can see human abodes, but they are like a drop in the ocean in that boundless wilderness. The landscape is ruled by gloomy forests and treeless bogs as far as the eye can see, and barren fells sticking out of it all. The nature of the scene is magnificent and grave, and as such it deeply affects the viewer. How insignificant the smiling, condensed lake scenes of Southern Finland seem, as I take in this expansive view.”

- Aatto S-nen, Suomen Urheilulehti 3/1900 The enchantment of Lapland comes from the scenery.

The timeless beauty of Pyhä Fell.

Reindeer Sami families didn’t come to Äkäslompolo until the 1800’s. According to local lore, the Äkäslompolo area featured several places and constructions connected with the Sami people, such as milking fences and nilis (storage huts). We don’t know if the stories are about Forest or Reindeer Sami—or both. the terrain still carry the name of the Junkka family: Junkanpalo near Kiuaskero and Junkanvaara on the north side of Lake Iso (big) Kauppi.

The blood of these Sami families flows in most of the native inhabitants of Äkäslompolo.

The Forest Sami built clearings for their Goahtis on their important hunting grounds. Originally, Goahtis apparently had pole frames and were covered with birch bark. This model of Goahti was called pirrikota, and it was adopted as such by the settlers. Relics of such Goahtis can still be seen by ancient meadows, for example, at Lalvavuoma, Ahojänkä, and the head waters of the Niesa River. The Reindeer Sami who came from Yliperä later introduced the use of movable Goahtis to the Kolari region as well.

According to lore, Heikki Kaartinen moved from Northern Savo to Kärsämäki. When the hated Russian plunderers burned his house in the end of the 16th century, he moved onward and settled north of Pello, on the western shore of Väylä (the waterway formed by the Muonio and Tornio Rivers, on the border between Finland and Sweden), where he established the village Kaartinen. His descendant, Taneli Kaartinen, moved to Äkäslompolo in 1748, and was the village’s first permanent dweller. Taneli’s name changed to that of his abode, Äkäslompolo.

Reindeer Sami families in the Äkäslompolo area were Junkka, Nutti, Taskinen, Vasara, and Suikki. They arrived with their reindeer from Muonio, Enontekiö, or the fell regions of Sweden and Norway. The last significant reindeer herder of the Taskinen family was Simon Salmijärvi, “Salmi-Simu”, who lived by the shore of Salmi Lake. The Vasara family’s clearing was at the mouth of the Ruona River, at the southern end of Äkäs Lake. The Suikki family lived by the shore of Paka Lake and on the heaths around Pakasaivo. The Nuttis lived at Tiura Lake. Locations in

- Markku Kurkkio

Important Years in Äkäslompolo Some family members become Swedish citizens The first permanent Four “smokes”, resident arrives or houses

1748 CE

1809

1870-luku

The Äkäslompolo The first lodge, estate Kariniva, is built is parcelled The first telephone arrives The first tourist groups arrive 1915

1934

The first tourism A telephone business, Seita, is The first exchange is set up established stores The first ski-lift The winter road The school gets its is built to the village own building Electricity is opened The road is improved

A school is established in the village 200 inhabitants

War-time 1939

1939–1945

1940-luku

1946

1948

1950

1953

1956

1957

1966

1967

Äkäslompolo cannot be found on most old maps. A significant exception to the rule is Samuel Hermelin’s long-used regional atlas from 1796.

In the municipal map of Kolari from the 1860,’s, one can see the Äkäslompolo and Kaula estates.

The semi-domesticated reindeer is the most important animal of the north.

Important Years in Äkäslompolo A new electrical ski-lift is built

Telephones are connected to the automatic network

A TV-mast and road are built up on the fell

Riemuliiteri

The first hotel (Äkäshotelli) is built

1968

1973

1974

Äkäslompolon Finnair flies Matkailu ry (tour- Passenger traffic by to Kittilä ism association) train to Kolari Velho-operas and ski-track network are 300 inhabitants established 1983

1984

1986

1990

1993-2001

400 inhabitants The chapel is built

1999

500 inhabitants

A scenic road is built to Ylläs Lake

2005

2006

2010

Eila (on the left), Eeva, Kustaava, and Pauli Äkäslompolo in front of their humble home. All that the cabin had for heating and cooking was an open hearth. Both walls had bunks for the family to sleep in. The location, Kumpu, was close to Lake Pikku (little) Kauppi, and thus there was a saying: “Little Kusti’s Little Pauli went to Little Kauppi to fish for little perch.”

the significant estates

/ a brief history of time 13

The Significant Estates

T

he first abodes of the village were primitive: dark, smoky, and cold. The only source of heat was an open hearth so, for example, baking bread was not possible. The vigorous settlers wouldn’t settle for such abodes for long, so they carved proper log houses for their families. However, in the 1900’s, when most of the villagers had lived in log houses for generations, Mölö-Heikki still lived in a soil hut.

Houses had scant storage room for belongings. There was a pantry in the antechamber, a pole near the ceiling of the sitting room for drying rye bread, and pegs and other hooks in the walls. For example, there was no room to store the barley harvest. This is why almost every farm had a granary, which was often used for storing clothes as well.

The refrigerator of the olden times was a little cellar underneath the sitting room floor, where people stored potatoes and other foods needed weekly. Out in the yard, there was a large cellar with a soil roof, which was used for storing berries, meat, and salted fish.

The drying barn was a vital building. Grain that had been pre-dried on the field was brought there to dry fully. There was a stove to heat it. Grain dried in the warmth and smoke of a drying barn kept well. Drying barns

The well often dictated the location of the house.

A good well made daily chores easier; a poor one could take people’s strength and health.

Most of the houses had draw-wells, but the Jakola farm had a stylish wheel well. In a slot in the wooden wheel, there is a chain with a bucket on one end and a counterweight on the other.

were prone to fire, which is why they were built a safe distance from other buildings. Threshing time was short, so drying barns served as store rooms the rest of the year. They were also where dead bodies were kept prior to burial. That is why people tiptoed passed them quickly in the dark.

Cows were tied to a beam in the barn. Calves lived in stalls. The fields and meadows of Äkäslompolo were tiny, so the cows could be counted on one hand. The barn was the lady’s domain; the horse stable the master’s. In the summer, the cattle were free on the pasture.

Dry hay was stored in a shed. Large sheds had a hatch above the door through which they were stuffed full of hay. Barns and stables often had their own hay sheds.

Saunas were in the yard or by water. Skilfully carved smoke saunas had a large stove made of a heap of rocks. The sauna was also where new life began, since women didn’t get to go to the “painted villages” (=larger towns) to give birth until 1953.

A granary on the Riihi farm in summer 1958. Nowadays, it is in the yard of artist Veli Koljonen in Muonio.

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a brief history of time /

bread of life

Good fishing waters were a lifeline for the settlers. Pikku-Kusti coming back from his nets in Lake Äkäslompolo.

Bread of Life In the old, smoke-scented times, the livelihood of the Äkäslompolo people was in little bits around the fells. They tilled little patches of field and tended cattle. Natural resources, fish, game, and berries, were indispensable to their livelihood. Later they started earning their bread from the forest, too: first from tar distilling, and then from lumber camps and log floating.

“We’d dug up distillation wood before the war, so we started working on a tar distilling pit. It was quite successful, too: we got 35 barrels of tar. We sold it to the peddler in exchange for a horse, which then got bowel obstruction and died. So that was the end of our tar money.”

- Aatos Kaulanen

“As a child, I was jacklighting at Äkässaivo. We had a good fire waiting, and Mikko saw a big pike in the clear water. He stuck it, but it didn’t even move. Mikko shoved the whole fishgig pole in the water, but it still didn’t reach the pike. However, now it noted the disturbance and swam off. The next day, we saw a huge whitefish by our net. Mikko managed to wrap the net around it. We made soup of it, but they complained that it tasted woody and too lean.”

- Liisa Kyrö (née Kangosjärvi)

After a harsh winter, the villagers’ life was a struggle against hunger. Heavenly help came with the spring—waterfowl.

People trapped and hunted the fatty birds eagerly. Bird stew wasn’t the only meal they offered, because special bird houses were made for water fowl, where they were used to produce eggs. For example, a skilled egg-thief could make a pochard squeeze twenty eggs.

Many tasty eggs were gathered from this hollow tree trunk, the inside of which was carved wider by axe to serve as an “egging nest” for water fowl.

bread of life

Game was hunted every which way, and closed seasons were an unknown concept. There was plenty of motivation: still one hundred years ago, large families could live a month on the price of a couple of fox skins. Intensive hunting had its consequences: for example, wild reindeer and beavers were completely obliterated.

According to local lore, the last beaver was killed by Jussa Äkäslompolo (b. 1807) in the Kariniva area by the Äkäs River.

Various traps were commonly used. The “paw plank” was an ancient fox trap. The cruel trap, carved in a tree stump, is ready for applying bait (Pyhä Fell 1936).

In later days, carnivores were hunted even with poisoned bait.

Viljo Pakasmaa from Pallasjärvi making a poison capsule for a fox.

“Clearing a field was pure handwork. Luckily explosives were easier to acquire than nowadays. Tree stumps were blown to bits and torn out of the ground. Huge piles were made of branches and stumps, which were then burned.

Burning juniper was fun for us kids because it crackled.”

- Raimo Tolonen

/ a brief history of time

Reindeer were the peasants’ draught animals. Almost all houses had at least enough reindeer to pull a sleigh. Reindeer herding was the primary source of income for many families. Lenna Friman at a reindeer round-up with his fur hat typically tilted.

In old times, every part of the reindeer was used, including its hoofs and tendons. However, there were too many antlers, so Director Anders Hellant established a reindeer antler glue factory in Tornio in the mid 1700’s.

Making glue from antlers was simple: chopped-up antlers were slowly boiled for a few days; then the glue water was sifted, chilled, and cut into suitable pieces. Glue was boiled for both local needs and for sale. It was floated to Tornio in barrels. The poor couldn’t be glue-makers—it required a large and expensive water-heating cauldron and lots of antlers.

Marja Äkäslompolo posing for the tourists with handsome antlers.

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a brief history of time /

from war to peace

In the beginning of the Continuation War, the Generals were in a hurry to take back the areas lost to the Soviet Union in the Winter War. The rush resulted in poorly planned offensives and heavy losses. Many young men from Lapland lost their lives in the hopeless battles of Kelsinkäinen. Taking part from Äkäslompolo were Jouni Kaulanen, Pontus Ristimella (wounded 27.8.1941), Kauno Äkäslompolo (wounded 11.7.), and Pauli Äkäslompolo (fell 8.9.).

From War to Peace

T

he remote fell village was swept into World War 2 on 30 November 1939, when the Soviet Union attacked Finland. Everyone was needed: the men went to the front, and others kept the village running. It was calm in Äkäslompolo, but there was a shortage of almost everything. Luckily Äkäslompolo was so isolated that the Germans didn’t burn it during the Lapland War. Worry, fear, and sorrow were daily emotions both in battle and on the home front. The war took nine men from the Äkäslompolo school district.

In autumn 1944, the Laplanders were evacuated. The people of Western Lapland were moved to Sweden; other Northerners went to Ostrobothnia. They were allowed to bring along very little of their belongings, and their cows and horses. They had to kill the cats and dogs, but sheep, pigs, and chickens were slaughtered for food on the way, or left to survive on their own. From Kolari, 3,800 people were evacuated to Sweden with their cattle. A herd of 50 cows left Äkäslompolo. The decision to leave was not easy, and not everyone left, so the village was inhabited through the Lapland War. Karhu-Kusti (“Bear Kusti”) left, but he soon had enough with the Swedes and fled back home. After the evacuation, everything ran short. Regulation and ration cards were everyday life.

But life soon recovered. The Baby Boom came, and the wheels of society began to turn. However, peace didn’t end all the suffering—many veteran families were ravaged by war trauma for decades.

“When I arrived in back of a lorry to Kolari, the sight was desolate: mere chimneys. The only building left standing, by which I recognized the area as Jokijalka, was the old church. At the Äkäs River mouth I got out and walked to Huukki, a village on the Swedish side. Everyone was still evacuated, mostly in Southern Sweden. But my father was in Huukki, and my sister, Milja, was in Kaunisvaara, where she had stayed as a maid for the Lampinen family. Freetriika and Helvi Kaulanen were also in Huukki with their cows. And so we headed out to Äkäslompolo to bring their cattle home. Jouni Kaulanen was also on leave, so together we walked the cows amidst the minefields. Tuure Kaulanen brought Freetriika and the rest of our belongings by horse.

He had stayed home through the war.”

- Toivo Kaulanen

People from Äkäslompolo were first evacuated to Pajala and Täräntö.

Awaiting them was a sauna-bath for lice, a doctor’s examination, vaccination, and a three-week quarantine. Then they were dispersed around Northern Sweden.

People from Jerisjärvi, Särkijärvi, and Kangosjärvi in front of their temporary home in Backe, Sweden, in 1945.

from war to peace

“Armas never came home. Mother cried the whole Christmas season. That year’s Christmas porridge was salted with tears, they said.”

- Maila Alatalo

/ a brief history of time

Lorens Gardin was a citizen of Sweden without knowing it. When the fact came out during the war, Lorens and his two sons, Pauli and Jaakko, had to apply for alien’s passports.

Horses were also ordered to war. The Kuoppa farm’s horse, Mikko, lost its sleigh and harness, but survived the Winter War. The Frimans had to send Mikko off again to the Continuation War. Lauri Ristimella took Mikko, his familiar work horse, with him to serve the army. After the war, Lauri came to Kemi. Among the horses at the station he saw Mikko, who whinnied happily to greet his old friend.

The veteran of two wars in peace-time, hauling logs.

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a brief history of time /

toward modern times

In the 1920’s, people in the north travelled mostly by horse.

Gradually automobiles displaced horses. The first speed limits tell a lot about both the cars and the roads: 20 kilometres per hour by day and 15 by night. At first, cable ferries did not operate for free.

Pedestrians got the cheapest ride, 25 pennies. The road north from Kolari went by two cable ferries at Kolarinsaari.

The Saarenpudas cable ferry around 1930. The car is driven from the right side, so it is Swedish. The man with the leather jacket is apparently the ferry-master.

Few travellers turned aside from the Väylä waterway to Äkäslompolo, for there was no road. One of the first visitors was Forest Officer Torsten Rancken, who took this picture of the village women in 1933. In the upper row: Saimi Äkäslompolo of Kenttä (on the left), Amanda Äkäslompolo of Tano, Hilda Holck, Linda Viuhkola, Aili Äkäslompolo, and Amanda Äkäslompolo of Riihi. In the bottom row: Sirkka Äkäslompolo, Anja Kau­lanen, Nanni Äkäslompolo, Stiina Ulrika Äkäslompolo, Maija Ristimella, and Alli Gardin.

The first tourists were women who came to Lapland for skiing courses. From the last railroad station in Kauliranta, the journey continued by bus. Finnishspeaking women travelled via Muonio to Pallas. Swedishspeakers exited the bus at the Äkäs River mouth and walked to Äkäslompolo.

A skiing course in 1934 beginning their bus trip from Kauliranta to Muonio.

Tourists enriched the village’s life both materially and spiritually through close interaction and learning from each other. A sunny day of skiing is culminated by lunch up on the fell. The equipment, then timely, included welder’s goggles, skipoles with large rings, and wide skis with fell bindings.

toward modern times

The first taxi in the village was Antti Kuru’s Pobeda. There was no proper winter road to Kaulanen and Peltola, so Antti’s taxi was often parked at the Riihi house. Before they got a proper telephone in Peltola, the children of Riihi ran to tell Antti of anyone needing a ride. Antti, wearing a regulatory taxi-driver’s outfit, and his Pobeda in the late 1950’s. When it became possible to buy a Western car, Antti got a Mercedes.

/ a brief history of time

An encounter in 1949. The boy is amazed because the 1938 Plymouth is perhaps the second or third car to visit the village. In the background, a hay shed and a saura haystack.

Machinery revolutionized the Lappish way of life.

The snowmobile came to Lapland in 1961. Soon people roared off on their “metal reindeer” from every other yard in the village.

Martti Kaulanen returning on his Ockelbo snowmobile from seeing a plot in late winter 1975.

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the houses of äkäslompolo

Ten generations of inhabitants have opened the doors of the Äkäslompolo estate.

Houses on the Lompolo side being heated in the freezing cold of February. It is probably Saturday because smoke is also rising from Friman’s red sauna.

This photo of the charming village was taken by Torsten Rancken in 1960 and used in a postcard.

the houses of äkäslompolo There weren’t many houses in Äkäslompolo in the days of my first memories. Back then, the village comprised three areas: the Kaulanen side, the Lompolo side, and the Poikkijärvi side. Lompolo was separated from Kaulanen by the Äkäs River and from Poikkijärvi by the Kaupin River. We at the Lehto croft were kind of in the outback, and without the Kenttä farm, we would have been pretty much isolated, sometimes without path or road through the snow. Our closest neighbouring houses were Kenttä and Lahti. Then, circling the lake from the left, were Nilivaara, Heikinkota, Kaulanen, Riihi, Pekanpirtti or ‘Pekka’, and Kamari or Villenpirtti. Near Riihi there was a big farm named Tano, or Uusipuoli (New Side, or Annex), as they called it. Then was Konitieva.”

- Anja Kurkkio about the Äkäslompolo of the 1920’s

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the lompolo side

The Lompolo Side

Taneli Alarik’s wife, Matilda Katarina Äkäslompolo (b. 1841), bore 11 children.

Samuli Paulaharju took this picture of Matilda—one of the village matriarchs—in 1922.

The Äkäslompolo Estate

T

aneli Tanelinpoika (b. 1712) from Jarhoinen in Pello established the Äkäslompolo estate in 1748. It was registered as a taxable estate in 1793. Taneli had seven children, and his youngest, Mikko Tanelinpoika, became the next master of the house. Mikko did well: in 1820, he owned 75 reindeer, 6 cows, a bull, a heifer, and 10 sheep. In fact, no other peasant reindeer owner in the entire Torne River Valley could match his herd.

Dark clouds loomed over the estate in the early 1830’s: according to local lore, the old, large, two-story house of Äkäslompolo burned to the ground in freezing January weather. The folks had to live in the drying barn until the new house was built in around 1835. This house, or the “Old Side”, wasn’t torn down until the 1950’s. In the 1850’s, the Äkäslompolo farm consisted of two “smokes”—the houses of Äkäslompolo and Riihi. A couple decades later one more smoke was added to the estate.

During its quarter-millennium history, many kinds of people have lived on the Äkäslompolo estate. Sometimes many families lived within the log walls. Coexistence wasn’t always harmonious: in the late 1800’s, the Tano household was in and out of court with ownership disputes. The newspaper Finlands Allmänna Tidning reported on 13 April 1861 that Taneli Alarik (b. 1834) filed a complaint all the way to the senate. One after another the applications for the registration of title to property were refused. However, in 1915, the Äkäslompolo estate was finally split into three parts.

The “New Side”, the Tano house, was built in 1887. In those days full of life, the house became desolate in the late 1950’s, when its last inhabitant, Teutu Äkäslompolo, passed away. Today, Tano is once again flourishing: Ahti Kaulanen has restored the building that graces the village landscape in front of the chapel. The heirs of Tano are also many: descendants of the “sisters of the handsome porch” in three generations live on the estate’s land.

People from Tano, or Äkäslompolo, in 1940. Wearing aprons, the widow Amanda Äkäslompolo (on the left) with her daughters (Sirkka and Irma). Amanda was a widow for 52 years. Lilja Heikkinen peaking from behind Irma, and Saimi Äkäslompolo is on the right. Beside her, laughing, Teodor “Teutu” Äkäslompolo, the sixth master of the original homestead.

the lompolo side

/ the houses of äkäslompolo

Riihi Heikki Heikinpoika Äkäslompolo (b. 1808) built a house in place of Äkäslompolo’s old drying barn in 1849. The new building inherited the name Riihi (Drying Barn). His sons were in ill health, so Arvid, his son-in-law from the Tano farm, became master of the house after Heikki. Arvid and Stiina Ulriika Äkäslompolo had six children. In 1916, they willed the estate to their son, Einar, in return for accommodation and full board for life, but he moved to America that very year. Therefore, Arvid and Stiina decided to lease the estate to their children Hilma and Otto. Otto married the estate’s maid Amanda Viuhkola (b. 1892) in 1922. The old lady of the house, Stiina, disapproved of the marriage and loathed her daughterin-law for the rest of her life.

Otto and Amanda had no children together. Amanda’s daughter Linda married Armas Friman. The young couple had four children at a fast pace. But the family fortune ended abruptly when Armas was killed in the Winter War. More sorrow followed, as Otto died in 1952, and Linda, who had remarried, died in 1959. Grandma Amanda became a matriarch who warmly cared for her own and her foster children.

Over time, Riihi became the village’s central estate. Tourism in the village began at Riihi, where many travellers were accommodated and fed over the decades. At first, the road ended at Riihi. Riihi was a link to the outside world because until 1956, it had the village’s only telephone, and later a pay phone and telephone exchange. The role of Riihi was also emphasized by the fact that Amanda, who had gone to school for as much as four years, was a literate and efficient woman. She wrote many of the village’s old documents. By Amanda’s initiative, a village school was established, and it operated the first two years in the Paakari (Bakery) building of Riihi. Later, the same building hosted the Torne Valley Retail Co-operative store for a few years.

The old buildings of Riihi have been demolished, except for the main building, which has been renovated into a lodging house. Some of Linda’s descendants still live on the old homestead on both sides of the Äkäs River.

Jakola Otto of Riihi’s sister, Hilma Kristiina Äkäslompolo (b. 1888), married reindeer herder Lorens Gardin in 1918. The couple lived in the Riihi house until 1939, when they moved across the river into Jakola, the house they had built. The Gardin reindeer family still lives in the Jakola area on Riihi lands.

Folks from Tano, Riihi, and Jakola in front of Riihi in the summer of 1933 or 1934. Ossi Holck standing on the ladder. In front of him are Hilkka Friman (on the left), Ilta Äkäslompolo (later Kaulanen), Alli Gardin (later Ristimella), Hilma Gardin, Ville Äkäslompolo, Jaakko Gardin, Amanda, and Pauli Gardin. The watchdog, Leiju, feeling lazy.

Erkki Vilho Äkäslompolo (b. 1875), or “Iso-Vilkko” (Big Vilkko), of the Tano household, standing in front of Riihi with a jug of homemade brew in his hand in 1933. Chatting with him are engineers Matti Andelin from Hanko (on the left) and Wrede from Teijo. Ilta Äkäslompolo and Alli Gardin playing by the porch.

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Möyhölä The oldest building in the village is a log cabin on the hill of Möyhölä, moved there from the yard of Äkäslompolo. Johan Petter Äkäslompolo (b. 1838) lived in the cabin called “Pekka’s cottage” with his wife, Kristiina Luttunen (b. 1856). The house was also called Rantala.

The youngest of the couple’s three children, Johan Valerius (b. 1894), stayed at his home estate. In 1922, he married Saimi Maria Kurkkio from Kittilä. They had eight children. Johan, or Jonne, picked up the mail from the Äkäs River mouth. He passed away while evacuated to Sweden in 1944, and his daughter, Elsa, inherited his job as a mail-carrier. Äkäslompolo got its own post office in 1946, and the natural location for it was Möyhölä. People started calling the farm “the Posti Place”, and the children Posti’s Elsa, Antti, and so on.

The widowed Saimi began lodging tourists in her small cabin. They got more room in the 1950’s, when the boys, Antti and Heimo, returned from the frontline and built a house on the plot. The post office moved to the new building, but for the tourist season it was moved back to the old cabin. The move had its challenges: carrying the heavy safe onto a sleigh and hauling it across the yard required many men.

Hammering was heard again in 1966, when Heimo built a house on the shore, and Elsa also got a new house named Pikkutieva (Little Tieva). Descendants of Johan Petter and Kristiina still live on the hill of Möyhölä.

The Äkäslompolo family at the door of Möyhölä in 1937. Saimi is holding Leena; in the back are Elsa and head of the family Jonne; in the front, Inkeri, Heimo, and Antti.

the kaulanen side

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The Kaulanen Side

T

he Äkäslompolo house got a neighbour when Erkki Ollinpoika Luosujärvi (b. 1811) built a little, about four-by-four-metre hut where the restaurant Ylläksen Kaivohuone stands today. The new Kaula farm was taxed for the first time in 1844. It was named after the nearby hill, Kaulavaara. Erkki’s hand can still be seen on Kaula lands: water has eroded three of the dewatering trenches he dug into little gullies. Tax debts and the great years of hunger 1866-1868 were too much for Erkki, and the Kaula farm became desolate in 1869.

Official sources state that the farm was inhabited again after four years, but according to village lore, it wasn’t until 1878 that Johan Eevanpoika Pudas (b. 1847) and Greta Matilda Koskenniemi moved there with their four children. As a child born out of wedlock, Johan was going to be left without inheritance, so he packed his possessions into two boats and punted up the Äkäs River from Saarenpudas to start a new life. His oldest child, Herman Yrjö (b. 1872), told his grandchildren how the children of the Äkäslompolo farm came to the shore to wave their welcome as their new neighbours came up stream. Later, the parents changed their names to Juho and Matilda Kaulanen. Those who carry the name Kaulanen are all descendants of Juho and Matilda.

Erkki’s old cabin was soon small for the new settlers: they had 13 children. Therefore, in 1884, the new house, Keski-Kaulanen, was built. The sons stayed in the area, but the daughters were married off. One of the girls, Laura Matilda, is the grandmother of multi-talented artist Kalervo Uuttu.

Kaula was made into a hereditary estate in 1892, but there wasn’t much to inherit. After Juho Kaulanen died, Matilda could no longer manage the debt-laden estate, so she had to sell it in 1912 for 20,000 marks to an Oulu-based logging company. The family lost its lands and forests, but now they could, at least, live in the house.

The largest house of the village, Keski-Kaulanen, was demolished in 1990 to make way for the new Tunturitie road. Son-in-law Antti Kuru with his wife Helvi in the yard of Keski-Kaulanen. Helvi’s brother, Martti Kaulanen, holding the horse.

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Mäkelä Ten years later, Juho and Matilda’s sons Herman, Tuure (b. 1879) and Evert (b. 1893) bought back the Kaula estate from the Snellman company for 15,000 marks. Living together had its problems, especially when they all had their own family. There were three large rooms in the big house, but only one barn, which added to the tension. Evert built his own barn on the site where the Mäkelä house stands today, and Herman built his near the Kurula house. Evert managed to save the money for a house first; Herman built his later.

Tuure and Fredrika Kaulanen stayed at Keski-Kaulanen. Of their eight children, a few built their own house in the neighbourhood. Tuure and Fredrika’s oldest son, Martti, was the last inhabitant of Keski-Kaulanen.

The lady of Keski-Kaulanen, Fredrika, was the sister of Otto Äkäslompolo of Riihi and Simppa of Kenttä. Late in her pregnancy, Fredrika made Tuure Kaulanen face the music, and the couple was married. The relationship must have had its storms: Fredrika’s ring is dated two years before the wedding. She died at 75 years of age, working in the barn.

Master of Keski-Kaulanen, Tuure Kaulanen. In February 1945, Tuure went to examine his traps but never came back. He was found dead on the Telajänkä bog, carrying a willow grouse.

Aino Jolla came to Keski-Kaulanen to work as a nanny and maid for Fredrika. When the baby, Markku, had grown up, Aino started working for Evert, who had cows but no wife. Evert and Aino fancied each other, and soon they stood at the altar. Keski-Kaulanen grew small for three families, so the next step for the couple was to build their own nest.

Their house, Mäkelä, was built in 1927. Soon a sauna and all the other necessary buildings rose on the plot. The log house was later lined with boards and painted, first white, then yellow, and finally light green. By coincidence, both Mäkelä and Keski-Kaulanen were demolished on the same day in 1990. At Aino’s wish, the old Mäkelä house wasn’t demolished until after her death. The old logs were donated to be props for the Velho Opera.

Aino and Evert had seven children. Of them, Emmi, Esko, and Paavo still live on family land. The next generation has also settled on the Mäkelä estate.

In this family portrait, from the left: Aino holding Hannu, Emmi, Teuvo, and Evert Kaulanen.

the kaulanen side

/ the houses of äkäslompolo

Kurula Herman Kaulanen lived with his first wife Maria Kustaava Äkäslompolo for a while on the Crown Farm Kukaslompolo. Maria disliked the remote house, so the family moved back to Keski-Kaulanen. Herman was widowed when Maria Kustaava and their two daughters died of consumption. Of their two sons, Toivo died after being crushed under a load of logs, so their only surviving child was Hille Hilarius Kaulanen, who has many descendants in the village.

concentrated fire at Äyräpää. Herman’s grandson Aatos Kaulanen came to the house as a farmhand. The old couple needed someone to care for them, so Aatos took ownership of Kurula in return for accommodation and full board for life on 11 September 1949. In 1952, Aatos married Irma Äkäslompolo. Two rooms were renovated for the growing family in the cold end of Kurula. For tourists, they built two rooms and a fire-place room upstairs. Aatos, Irma, and their descendants in three generations still live on Kurula lands.

In 1920, Herman married his hireling, Johanna Kivijärvi, who had a son of her own, Väinö Kivijärvi. Herman moved a large outbuilding from Kaulanen to be the main house of Kurula. It was completed in 1935.

Herman and Johanna’s son Kauko contracted polio and was disabled.

Väinö was supposed to take over Kurula, but he was lost in the heavy

The Kurula house on the right. Nowadays, it is part of the Sportshop.

The barn on the left was later demolished, and a new one was built to the right of the house. Nowadays, the new barn hosts the art gallery Lumiperhonen.

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Jounila

Purola

Jouni of Keski-Kaulanen married Terttu Ristimella and started building a house for his family. Colonel Terichoff said to Jouni, “Start keeping a store.”

No sooner said than done: the Julius Tallberg corporation gave Jouni a small loan for a store, and in spring 1950, he opened the village’s first store and Tallberg’s ski-maintenance shop. In the background, Jouni Kaulanen’s house under construction in 1948-49. In the forefront, neighbour Jaako Gardin hauling firewood by reindeer.

Markku built a house next to his brother Jouni’s. Typical to the time, the livelihood of Markku and Senni (née Pietikäinen) Kaulanen was in small bits here and there: smallholding, cattle tending, forestry, and tourism. The Purola folks in summer 1961: Senni Kaulanen (on the left), baby Veikko, Heikki, Erkki, Jukka, and Markku with Kaisa in his lap.

People of Keski-Kaulanen on 7 April 1937. From the left: Martti, Jouni, Tuure, Fredrika, and Maija. Holding the reindeer, youngest child Lauri and maid Eila Pietikäinen. Aino Kaulanen (on the right) visiting with her son Teuvo.

the kaulanen side

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Peltola

Haapala

Fredrika Kaulanen’s daughter Helvi accommodated and catered to tourists almost her entire life. She married Antti Kuru. The young couple first lived in Keski-Kaulanen. In 1954, they built a house by the present-day road Peltotievantie. Helvi Kuru on the stairs of her new home.

Tuure and Fredrika’s youngest child, Lauri, built a red bachelor’s cabin across the street in 1961. It wasn’t long before he had to expand it into a family house: in 1965, Enni Oja from Jerisjärvi came to be his wife. Their children, Jouko and Heli Kaulanen in their yard in 1970. Keski-Kaulanen in the background.

Fredrika Kaulanen celebrating her 70th birthday with her daughter Helvi and grand daughter Paula on 15 April 1956.

The Kaulanen’s daughters Alma Avita (on the left), Laura Matilda, and Sandra Eufemia in the 1950’s.

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Nilivaara According to local lore, the third Erkki of the Luosujärvi family living on the Kaula estate, Erkki Erkinpoika Luosujärvi (b. 1855) established a new estate on the hill of Nilivaara, high above the reach of the frost. Nilivaara became a Crown forest croft already in 1896, but it was not taxed until 1931. After this youngest Erkki, the farm was run by his daughter Olga (b. 1882) with her husband, Kusti Kangosjärvi, from Muonio.

Olga and Kusti’s children included Einari, Tuure, Helli, Kalle, Eelis, Väinö, and Sylvi. Kalle started building a house on Nilivaara land, but then moved to the veteran estate he was granted in Hannukainen. Eelis Kangosjärvi (b. 1912) continued running Nilivaara and married Veera Maria Palomaa (b. 1922) from Kukaslompolo. They had ten children, two of whom died young.

Being a mother of a large family and running a farm called for organizational skills. When Veera went to the hay meadow, she packed her little children on a wagon and hauled them along. At the age of a year and a half, Pekka toddled to the river and drowned. One after another, the children moved away from Nilivaara. The youngest, Matti, stayed to run the farm. Four of the other siblings still live in the region.

The children of Nilivaara in their homeyard in the mid 1960’s. Standing, Eetu (on the left), Salmo, Seppo, Jussi, and Elli. On the ground, Hellevi (on the left), Kaarina, and Matti Kangosjärvi.

the kaulanen side

In late winter 1959, Vieno Kangosjärvi watching from the window as tourists head out on a reindeer ride. Reino Gardin holding his reindeer, and Kirsti (later Uuttu) watching by the door. Standing in front of the stairs, Tauno Kangosjärvi (on the left with his hands in his pocket), Aimo Gardin and Tuomo Kangosjärvi (with his back to the camera).

/ the houses of äkäslompolo

Einari and Vieno Kangosjärvi in 1951.

Sivula Eliisi, daughter of Kustaa Äkäslompolo, had a daughter named Vieno (b. 1909), who married Einari Kangosjärvi (b. 1904) of Nilivaara in 1932.

Vieno and Einari started off as temporary roomers in Einari’s home, and then for a while in the Lehto croft. In 1933, they moved to live on rent in Kukaslompolo. Then Einari inherited the Telajänkä plot from his father, so they returned to Äkäslompolo lands.

In 1937, Einari built a cabin with his brothers, which was named Sivula (Aside Place) due to its remote location. The outbuildings took time to make, so at first they sauna-bathed at the Kurula farm. The cabin grew

small, as Vieno and Einari had 13 children, two of whom died young. In 1956, they finished building a big house with room for tourists as well.

Later, Tuomo built an extension for his parents and, himself, lived in the old sitting room. When Vieno and Einari passed away, Tuomo moved into the extension and turned the old side into a store room. Four of Tuomo’s siblings and two of Einari and Vieno’s grandchildren also have houses on Sivula lands.

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The Poikkijärvi Side Kumpu

J

uhani Äkäslompolo’s son Heikki Kustaa, or Kusto (b. 1835) married Stiina Karoliina Muotkavaara. Kusto renovated a fishing net shed into a home for his family and called it Luusteri. Of the couple’s children, Hannu Kustaa, or Karhu-Kusti (Bear Kusti), Vilho, or PikkuVilkko (Little Vilkko), and Eliisi stayed in the village.

Pikku-Vilkko started building a cabin close to Möyhölä, but he only finished one bedroom. That is why they named the cabin Kamari (Bedroom). Karhu-Kusti built a modest house for his family in Konikumpu, across the Kaupin River. Kusti and his wife Kustaava (née Palomaa) had two daughters and a son, Pauli, who died in the war in 1941. After the war, the family moved to Kamari on the Lompolo side, and Pikku-Vilkko moved elsewhere. Eila, one of the daughters, got married in Sweden, and Eeva’s husband Erkki Mäkitalo built a new house in Kumpu, where family members still live.

Kustaa and Kustaava Äkäslompolo celebrating Kustaa’s 80th birthday on 24 May 1952.

Kusto and Stiina had six children, one of whom died young. Their daughter Hedvig, or “Viiki”, emigrated to America.

Standing, Kustaa and Kustaava’s daughters Eila (on the left) and Eeva Äkäslompolo. Seated, their cousin Vaili Äkäslompolo.

the poikkijärvi side

Kenttä The oldest houses were built in the best locations. This applies to Kenttä as well: according to Samuli Paulaharju, Martin Pietari from Pello built his fishing hut on a sunny shore slope already in the 1700’s.

Simo Äkäslompolo of Riihi married Sandra Palovaara (b. 1881) of Kur­ takko in 1902. First they lived in Simo’s home on the Riihi farm, but on 28 December 1916, they bought the Kenttä plot, which comprised one third of the Riihi estate, for 4000 marks.

/ the houses of äkäslompolo

Kenttä in 1954.

Sandra had given up her portion of inheritance for her brothers, and all she got was a rocking chair. That bothered Simo, so once while sitting in the rocking chair, he said, “This here’s the fell’s most expensive rowin’ chair.” Sandra made amends for the situation by asking her brothers to make them a house. So they first put up a log house in Kurtakko, from where the logs were transported by horse via Luosu to Kenttä, where it was once again raised, apparently in 1917.

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Simo and Sandra had 11 children of whom Saimi, Sigurd, Aapo, and Hannes stayed on the estate. Hannes died while building his house, so Grandma Sandra and Aapo took care of his children. Sandra’s daughters got to go to elementary school even before there was one in the village. The clever ones, Aili and Ulla, continued their studies all the way to commercial school.

Simppa and Sandra’s descendants still live on Kenttä lands. The old main building has been renovated into a summer house, and the “rowing chair” still rocks in the Kenttä sitting room.

Ristimella

the Lahti estate on the northern shore of Lake Äkäslompolo. Their son Onne (b. 1889) married Rosinda Eufemia “Mia” Eero. The couple lived in the Lahti house all their lives. After them, the house became desolate.

Onne and Mia had one daughter and six sons.

As a bachelor, their oldest son, Ilmo, often lodged at his granny’s house, Tano. Ilmo built a house on land bequeathed to him by Vilho Äkäslompolo beside the Tano farm. Pontus married Linda Viuhkola of Riihi.

Oiva married Alli Gardin; Osvald married Anna-Liisa Heikkola. Olavi settled with his wife Anja Lahdenperä on the estate’s lands by the road Karilantie. The youngest of the Lahti house, Vilho, built the Uutela house, where his mother, Mia, also moved. A lot of the boys’ descen­ dants still live on Ristimella lands.

Iisakki or Iisko Ristimella (b. 1859) came to Äkäslompolo as Taneli Alarik’s farmhand and son-in-law. With his wife, Maiju, they acquired

Sandra of Kenttä had a way with words, and many of her sayings live on. Sandra smoking a pipe on the steps of Kenttä in 1958. Little Birgitta was so much with her grandmother that she was called Little Granny.

Mia Ristimella (second on the left) with her sons Osvald and Pontus on the steps of Ristimella. Three tourist ladies and an unidentified woman with a light head scarf are also in the picture.

the poikkijärvi side

/ the houses of äkäslompolo

Lehto The Crown forest croft Lehto was built in 1916. The croft had only one 6x6-metre room—a typical family house of the era. The walls and chimney breast were whitewashed, as was the custom at the time. The first inhabitants of the cabin moved south and sold it to Saima and Hille Kaulanen, who were married in 1918. They had eight children, whose mattresses were moved from the floor for the day. Sometimes space was needed for fixing a sleigh or other large utensil.

The large, poor family’s life became a fight for survival when Saima died of cancer in 1931. Her daughter, Anja, had to assume the role of mother at 10 years of age. At the same time, the universal depression struck Finland, marking the end of even small jobs and income. All over the

Neighbours Milja Kaulanen (later, Tolonen) of Lehto and Stina Ulrika Äkäslompolo (later Välimaa) of Kenttä, in the early 1940’s.

Saima Josefiina (née Friman, b. 1897) and Hille Hilarius Kaulanen (b. 1897) in the mid 1920’s.

country, many people went hungry and wandered in search of work and food. The folks of the Lehto croft tightened their belts, pulled together, and survived the hard times.

In the book “Lehon torpan tarinoita” (Stories from the Lehto Croft), the children and grandchildren talk about life in the olden times. Many of the quotations of this book are from the memoires of the Lehto crofters.

The roots of many present-day Äkäslompolo residents spring from the Lehto croft. In the 1950’s, the cabin was moved to its present location in Tiukupulju on the shore of the Äkäs River.

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Takalehto After marrying Vertti Kurkkio, Anja of Lehto moved to his home estate in Muusa, a remote village of three houses in Kittilä. Their first child died of tonsillitis less than one month old. Their second child, Markku, also fell sick later, but acquired medicine and was cured. And so Vertti carried him in a birch bark knapsack through the wilderness to Anja’s home village.

In Äkäslompolo, the young couple first lived in Lehto. There was plenty of work to do: they started to run the recently built Stena Lodge. Anja was the cook and housekeeper, and Vertti was the caretaker: he chopped wood, heated the sauna, and did all kinds of household work. In addition, he picked up the baggage of the skiing course participants by horse and sleigh from the Äkäs River mouth and food from Tapojärvi. Stena hosted 12 ten-day courses each year. They certainly had their hands full, because the courses usually had two dozen participants. They had to quit in 1949 when Anja had her first daughter.

In 1947, the little Takalehto estate was formed of Anja’s two-hectare inherited plot and a same-sized additional plot purchased from her father. The living quarters of Takalehto were built in 1950. Over the years, the couple found that a tiny plot and a few cows weren’t enough for a livelihood. So in 1966, they quit farming and started an accommodation enterprise. The Takalehto house is still in the yard of the Seita Holiday Resort.

Anja, Vertti, Marketta, and Markku Kurkkio in their sunday best by their house in 1951. Markku climbed over the fence in his fancy sailor’s outfit, and a branch on the rail tore a hole in the bottom of his brand new trousers. River moss was used as a sealant between the logs of the wall.

the poikkijärvi side

/ the houses of äkäslompolo

Karila The son of the Lehto croft, Heino Kaulanen, married Lahja Sylvia Kurkkio during the war. After the war, the family built a little cabin on the croft’s land. As a veteran, Heino had the right to acquire land from the state based on the Land Acquisition Act of 1945. He was fortunate: in autumn 1951, the family was allocated a plot from state land near the village. The estate was located by rocky rapids in the Äkäs River, so it was named Karila. The following year, Heino cleared a spot for a house by hand and laid the foundation. In 1953, the Karila house and barn were built. At the order of the settlement officials, Heino started to clear the Nilijänkä bog into a field—a hopeless endeavour that nevertheless had to be continued for ten years. Luckily the fields cleared beside Karila produced enough hay for the cattle, and tourists brought income.

Lahja and Heino had five children, two of whom still live in Äkäslompolo. Their youngest child, Lea, is now the lady of Karila. Instead of cows, a fairy-tale world created by Lea can be found in the barn.

Karila in April 1961. It is the only veteran estate in Äkäslompolo.

Eira Kaulanen smiling in the yard of Karila in the 1960’s. A tourist is enjoying the sunny day while Heino is walking his horse, Ilpo, to the stable.

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the houses of äkäslompolo /

other estates

Other Estates There are two houses near Äkäslompolo that have long been part of the village life. Kukaslompolo and Kuoppa have a place among the houses of Äkäslompolo.

Kukaslompolo The origins of the Kukaslompolo farm are not known. The date 1881 can be seen in the granary, but the builder is unknown. Originally the farm was on the slope of Kukastunturi, where signs of ancient farming can still be seen. The newer Kukaslompolo house had two gables for tenants.

Juho and Aino Palomaa from Hannukainen lived in one. Tenants of the other gable included Herman and Maria Kustaava Kaulanen.

The story is told that some villager intended to buy Kukaslompolo.

Onne of Lahti skied one evening to tell Juho of the ongoing negotiations. Juho harnessed his horse and drove through the night to Muonio,

and in the morning of 25 March 1912, he purchased the house with his brother, Kalle. Juho and Aino continued living in the other gable. Their neighbours changed, as Einari and Vieno Kangosjärvi and Nili-Vilkko Nilivaara lived for a time at the other end. Later, Juho and Aino shared the house with their daughter Veera’s family. When Veera eventually moved to Nilivaara, the old couple lived on the estate with Veera’s three children. Over the years, the Kukaslompolo buildings have been demolished.

Gathered in the yard of Kukaslompolo in 1937, Einari Kangosjärvi (on the left), Einari’s wife, Vieno (wearing an apron), with her daughter Helga, Veera Palomaa with braided hair, and Veera’s mother, Aino, holding Liisa Kangosjärvi. Behind the man holding the dog, Otto Äkäslompolo; to his right, Iso-Vilkko of Tano and Juho Palomaa, who is wearing a fur hat.

other estates

Outbuildings of Kuoppa in 1933. After moving to Kuoppa, Kilian’s family first lived in a tar-distiller’s soil hut. Then Kilian built the cabin on the left in the picture. When the new house was complete, the cabin first served as a drying barn and later as a summer barn. In the middle, a smoke sauna is being heated. The lefthand side of the building was the sauna, and the right-hand side was a workshop.

/ the houses of äkäslompolo

Kilian Friman in the early 1930’s.

Kuoppa Kilian Friman (b. 1854) from Kieksiäisvaara in Sweden founded the Friman farm on the Kuoppa estate in the late 1870’s. The Kuoppa estate was made a Crown forest croft in 1885 and a forest ranger’s croft in 1901.

Kilian lived to be 86 years old and had 16 children with his wife Hilda Maria Gardin (b. 1856).

Kuoppa was at an ideal location: a sunny southern slope near the confluence of two rivers. It is no wonder that three Stone-Age abodes have been found near the house. The Kuoppa house was a natural resting place for travellers, because the path (later a wagon road) from the Äkäs River mouth to Äkäslompolo passed the house. Through marriages, relations were formed with the Äkäslompolo estate. The nearby large lumber camps and their lodges had a significant impact on life at Kuoppa.

Kilian’s son Kaarlo (Kalle) Juho Friman (b. 1875) and his wife from the Tano farm, Lydia Matilda Äkäslompolo (b. 1878) lived in the croft with Kilian. The couple had 11 children, so the house was bustling.

The next inhabitants were Kalle and Lydia Matilda’s sons Svante and Usko. Svante married Ellen Eufemia Joki in 1933. They had nine children, two of whom died. Usko was married in the same year. In 1952, Usko built a house that is presently held by the owners of the interior design shop Grooppi. The house was built in place of the old building.

Usko had no children.

Nowadays, Svante’s grandson lives on the Kuoppa estate with his family. There are also several holiday lodges on the estate’s lands.

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village life

“Linda is going to boil potatoes on a griddle. For sauce she will melt butter in an enamel mug over the potato pot and mix in some onion stalks. The potatoes are eaten with salted fish and melted butter.”

Britta Äkäslompolo and Orvokki Viuhkola heading out to ski around the Lompolo in the mid 1950’s. In the hurry, Orvokki has put on Grandma’s mittens.

- Maila Alatalo

A griddle is a splendid device for cooking or making coffee over an open fire.

Villagers got stones for their fireplaces and ovens from a secret place at Lalvavuoma.

village life The big boys fixed old, broken skis whenever they got their hands on them. They sharpened the tips, tarred them, heated them by the open hearth, and quickly placed them in a crack in the wall to settle.

In the morning, they had fine new skis. They carved poles out of suitable, slender pieces of wood. Usually they were birch, so they withstood braking, which was performed at the time by holding the pole between the legs and sitting on it, digging it into the snow, as modern turning techniques had not yet been developed. The tip was reinforced with sheet iron cut from Swedish snuff cans. Those one-kilogram cans had many uses. The sheet metal was forged into a kind of bushing at the tip of the pole to provide extra strength. A horse shoe nail was then struck in and sharpened so it would dig into the snow better.”

- Anja Kurkkio

43

Alli Gardin and Maija Ristimella washing clothes by the Äkäs River in summer 1933. As adults, the girls swapped family names.

other estates

/ village life

“On Saturdays we heated the sauna. Maija and Linda soaked the sheets, towels, and pillowcases in hand-warm water. Linda mixed ashes in water in the sauna water heating pot, and boiled the mixture. She left it to sit overnight, and in the morning, the water was clear. Linda then ladled the water from the pot into a large bucket and cleaned the pot. Maija scrubbed the soaked laundry on a washboard. The lye-water was put back in the heating pot, and the laundry was put in and heated. Then it was put back in the bucket and scrubbed once more on the washboard.

The clothes were then rinsed on the river ice by pounding them with a wooden pole in the bucket and changing the water frequently.”

- Maila Alatalo Orvokki Viuhkola and Anne Ristimella doing the laundry.

Irma Äkäslompolo filling a sauna water bucket, which is waiting for transport on a worn-down sleigh. Water for the cattle was run straight into the barn through the chute behind her.

People sauna-bathed at least once a week, except in extremely cold weather. Sauna whisks were made for the winter in midsummer. Fresh whisks were dried to await use. Gertrud Bäck (in the middle), a tourist at Tammitieva, admiring how skilfully Johanna Kaulanen is making whisks with her son Kauko.

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village life /

handicrafts

“Although mother said that Hille was the bread-maker, she certainly did her share. Skilled in handicrafts, she carded and spun all the time, for our own use and for other villagers as well. She spun a lot of knitting yarn and thread for long johns. The thread had to be fine so it would pass through the machine. She also knitted lots of socks, mittens, and laces. In addition to our own household, she sewed wadmal trousers and other trousers for the men of the village. She also sewed plenty of blouses and shirts, even though she had no sewing machine and had to go to the village to sew. The old Gramp of Kurula gave me Granny Kustaava’s machine when they were evacuated.”

- Anja Kurkkio

Hammering and clanging could be heard from the blacksmith’s shop from dawn to dusk. There was plenty of work making and repairing tools. Products made by a good village blacksmith spread far and wide.

A blacksmith forging a scythe in Kolari in 1929. In the corner, bellows made of a barrel with which the coals of the forge are blown to a red hot fire. First the blacksmith heats the scythe blade red hot and then smiths it thinner with his forge hammer.

The platform of the anvil is original: an upside down tree stump.

The intended use determined the type of wood. For example, rake teeth were made of durable rowan, and goat willow was used for sleigh runners due to its toughness. Otto Äkäslompolo of Riihi has fetched a goat willow from the forest for his sleigh. He will work it in the warmth of the sitting room.

Each task and chore usually had its own, special tools. The axe was the multi-functional tool of the time.

handicrafts

Eliisi Äkäslompolo carding wool. The next stage was to spin the wool into thread with a spinning wheel. Pleasures of life, a pot of coffee and a pipe, are also in the picture.

Birch bark was for long the most common roofing material.

Shingle roofs grew more common when iron nails became available. Up to the 1950’s, shingles were hammered onto roofs in Äkäslompolo. The tops of the shingle blocks were doused with red ochre, so people knew which way to nail them. Roofing was hard work: one square metre required around 170 shingles.

The folks of the Luttunen farm and their neighbours using a shingle machine in 1921.

/ village life

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village life /

in the house “We moved into our own cabin on 19 July 1946. The first night was horrible. There were tons of mosquitoes. The walls hadn’t been sealed off yet, the other room had no windows, and the separating door was a mere old blanket. It was impossible to sleep for all the mosquitoes. Our nine-month-old son slept on the floor. All he had for a cover was an old mosquito tent and a net against the insects. My wife went down to the floor beside the boy; I went outside and managed to sleep a few winks under my blanket. The following night was much better: every day we sealed as much of the walls as we could. Oh, the feeling, when the first rain pattered on our own roof!”

- Heino Kaulanen

The mosquito tent made peaceful sleep possible in the summer.

Amanda Äkäslompolo making leipäjuusto (“bread cheese”, also known as “Finnish squeaky cheese”) at an open fire. Martta Friman keeping her grandmother company.

Houses were dark in the winter. In the warm glow of the hearth, people did their handiwork, played, told stories, and exchanged news. After a day of skiing, sauna-bathing, and a hearty meal, guests from the south are enjoying a moment of reading by the hearth.

in the house

Master and Ma’am of Kurula, Herman and Johanna Kaulanen, chatting by the hearth. Johanna baked delicious, yellow biscuits called “mettäkakko” (Woods Cakes).

Her hands were so hardened that she could take hold of a hot pot of coffee with no pot holder. Johanna was almost overly nice, and she rushed around serving the whims of Herman, who had become cranky at old age.

Music was part of the life of many homes. There were musicians among the villagers and visitors. A tourist playing the harmonium in the dim light of the Riihi sitting room.

Amanda Äkäslompolo listening with a child in her lap.

/ village life

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community

Work gatherings, or bees, were important events that brought the community together to help each other. In Äkäslompolo, all sorts of things have been done over the years in such bees, from harvesting to caring for the poor, and from building a dance floor to installing the telephone line.

A work bee was arranged to fix the wagon road between Kuoppa and Äkäslompolo in 1952. Third on the left, Lenna Friman; in the front with a light shirt, Kauko Kyrö; and drinking coffee on the right, wearing a hat, Hille Kaulanen.

Men who returned from the war established the sports club Ylläksen Nousu in 1945. It wasn’t only about competing, because sharing time together was considered important. Nousu was the whole village’s shared venture, which can be seen in the crowd gathered at the club’s event in Kurkkio in 1953.

In May 1941, an international walking competition against Sweden was organized to raise team spirit. Inspired by the “march”, similar events were organized later as well. One such event was the Äkäslompolo folks’ trek to Kuoppa and back in 1964. Master of Kuoppa, Svante Friman (in the front, on the left, wearing light suspenders), is pleased with the popularity of the march.

community

Midsummer Eve was the whole village’s celebration. Midsummer was particularly significant for the northern fell village, because that was when “proper” summer really began. Sometimes people went to the festivities in Aavasaksa, but normally they climbed Ylläs. Village youth celebrating Midsummer in the late 1950’s on Ylläs Fell. From the left, Urho Kangosjärvi, Eero Äkäslompolo, Tatu Friman, and Kauko Kyrö. Feminine beauty is represented by Rauha Kangosjärvi (on the left in the back) and an unidentified young lady.

The Kittilä Fair in July was a big event that gathered people from near and far. A trip to the fair was a tradition for many villagers. It was a several-day trip, because before the highway was built, people walked through the woodland. Liisa Kangosjärvi with her cousin on the way to Kittilä.

“In the summer, we danced our weekends almost until Monday morning. We didn’t care to sleep much. I don’t know how we always found something fun to do. Free time was never boring, and we never had problems thinking of what to do with our spare-time.”

- Anja Kurkkio When the dance ban was lifted after the war and times got better, open-air dance floors were built in villages all over Finland. The Äkäslompolo people loved to dance, too, so they set up a work gathering to build a dance floor. The wood was sawed in Nilivaara, from where it was taken by boat over the lake and then by horse to the location near the Helukka gravel quarry.

The opening steps on the Helukka dance floor in 1951.

/ village life

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depending on others

A law was passed in 1878 to ensure more equal distribution of inheritance to women and men. Until then, the oldest son usually inherited the lion’s share. In 1919, women were granted the right to work without their husband’s permission. Spouses became legally equal in 1929.

Depending on Others

B

ecause there was no pension scheme in the old days, old couples usually willed their estate to a child with a subsistence agreement that included accommodation and full board for life. If the young couple died before the parents (or the agreement was otherwise changed), it often resulted in inheritance disputes.

Arvid and Stiina Äkäslompolo assigned the Riihi estate to their son, Otto, with such a subsistence agreement on 17 March 1917. In return, the elderly couple received subsistence that included: - 2 litres of milk per day - 2 kilogram of butter per month - 200 kilograms of barley and rye flour per year - 25 kilograms of meat per year - 25 kilograms of fish per year - 25 kilograms of salt per year - 5 kilograms of tobacco per year - 2 kilograms of ground coffee per month - 2 kilograms of sugar per month - a pair of socks and mittens, and 80 marks for clothes per year After five years, Otto married Amanda Viuhkola. The old matron, Stiina, didn’t like her daughter-in-law at all. She complained about almost everything, such as the daily amount of milk. Finally, Amanda couldn’t stand it any longer: she poured and poured milk until it flowed over the sides of the jug all over the table. After being reproached, she asked, “Is that two litres yet?”

The old days’ solution for the care of children and the elderly: under the tree, baby-sitter Vilho Äkäslompolo (b. 1876), who was looked after by Elsa Äkäslompolo in return for a small remuneration from the municipality. If Marja Äkäslompolo tried to run off, Vilho would stop her with a broom.

depending on others

/ village life

“Salmi-Simu has cared and provided for his concubine Kaija’s children and given Kustaava everything he has given to his own, legal daughter, including a hand loom, a dresser, and of course, reindeer.

Aunt Kaija’s life hasn’t been easy, since she has no home of her own, and has lived here and there. There was an old farmhouse where people with no home lived. She lived her last years on the Riihi estate with a municipal pension, like all the poor of the time.”

- Anja Kurkkio

During the war, everyone able had to do men’s work. Anja Friman and Kauko Kaulanen working a two-man saw.

”When I came home one night, I got a sudden pain in my back that dad tried to heal with an old trick. He put a piece of newspaper in a glass and lit it. Then it was pressed against the skin, and it stuck like in fire-cupping.

But it didn’t help.”

- Anja Kurkkio

In the olden times, a visit to a doctor might take even a week, and cost a fortune. That is why folk healers were so important. In many things, such as treating limbs, they were at least as good as doctors. On the other hand, superstitious incantations and spells were the only help for many other ailments.

Ville Palomaa from Kolari healing rash in 1922.

The disabled had varying status in families. What they had in common was that they did whatever work they could. Deaf Helli Kangosjärvi did well: she lived in a separate cabin in the yard of Nilivaara and worked.

She got to eat in the main house. In addition to her other tasks, she was a cook at Nilipirtti, owned by the Lehtonen family, who wrote the caption: “Helli Kangosjärvi, the happy cook.”

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village life /

village traffic

If a draught animal was free from work, the older children could borrow it to visit neighbours. Eero Äkäslompolo has driven his stylish sleigh to visit Kalle Friman at Kuoppa in 1950. A loop has been cast in the footing for fastening reindeer.

Traffic from the village to the north was smooth in the 1960’s because the road was ploughed all the way to Tiura Lake. The inhabitants of the Kaulanen side had no winter road, so they had to keep the paths open on their own.

In sinking snow, the only way to move forward was on long and wide skis. The deep snow skier’s equipment included home-made poles and reindeer skin boots and leggings, which Juho Palomaa always wore to keep his legs warm.

Boats were used to travel between the Poikkijärvi side and the village. Crossing Äkäslompolo Lake in Midsummer, Maija Ristimella (in front), Anja Kaulanen, and Aili Äkäslompolo.

Bicycles were ridden all the way to Kolari. Siblings Lauri and Helvi Kaulanen going on a visit to Luosu in the 1950’s. In the background, Puolimatkanmänty (“Halfway Pine”), a rest stop on the old Luosuntie road.

The log-floating co-operative built a dam and a bridge across the Äkäs River. The villagers didn’t want to participate in the costs, which agitated the co-operative: they built a store room in the middle of the narrow bridge to prevent people from crossing it on horse.

Sirkka Äkäslompolo skiing across the dam bridge during the war.

The narrow bridge was a nuisance for the villagers.

Horses had to wade across the river below the bridge at Maitoniva. It was most difficult during floods or weak ice, when wagons had to be taken apart and carried over the bridge.

Crossing the river during summer. The light-coloured horse is Tuure Kaulanen’s Voikko.

Tourists had no bicycles with them so they usually walked to the store. Annukka Nurmela and Sapo Stude on the way from Jouni’s Store to the Röhkömukka lodge of Ylläskerho in summer 1956.

Uuttu-Kalle heading off to work at the Kotamaja lodge, where he hept a ski-track café with his wife, Kirsti. The road is demanding, so Kalle uses mini skis to help keep his balance on his moped.

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village life /

the children’s world

Orvokki Viuhkola teaching her little brother Reijo to read. Perhaps the teacher herself needs some learning in her ABC’s!

“We had no trouble thinking of things to do, even though we had never even seen any proper toys. We just had to invent our own games and toys. Mostly we played outside if there were many kids around. In the winter, we played in the sitting room. All our play was learned by watching older people. We had our peddlers and customs officers.

One of us was the officer, and others had “declarable” stuff in their pocket or rucksack. The customs officer stood in a certain place, and when peddlers came, he or she chased them and tried to seize the goods. It was terribly exciting to run past the officer. Sometimes he caught me, sometimes he didn’t.”

- Anja Kurkkio

As a tourist village, Äkäslompolo kept up with the times.

The hula hoop boom swept over the village already in 1960. Four-year-old Marja Äkäslompolo was so good at it that she had to give plenty of shows for the tourists.

At the Mäkelä farm, Hannu Kaulanen has some allowance for growth in his skiing equipment. He has apparently skied eagerly, since one of his bindings is broken.

the children’s world

/ village life

“Of my childhood playmates, I remember Tiina of Kenttä, who was later called Ulla. On the Kenttä side, there was a hill that we called “Little Fell”.

There we kids spent many a summer day playing house. Tiina and I were the parents, and Milja was our child.”

- Aatos Kaulanen

In 1957, there was plenty of room to cycle safely on the village streets. From the left, Heikki, Erkki, and Ahti Kaulanen.

The Gardin brothers, Aimo (on the left), Timo, and Reino, and their neighbour Reijo Viuhkola. Aimo hasn’t wanted little boys’ suspenders, but has made a belt out of rope.

Tourists were eager to photograph children wearing Lappish hats, like Birgitta Äkäslompolo in the picture. Once Birgitta’s sister Pirkko stormed home, threw her hat away, and complained, “Those tourists want photos of that hat, not me!”

The Riihi children had fun with their milk cart. One of them went on board and was covered with a blanket, and the others pushed it around to familiar places. The one under the blanket had to guess where they were.

The Nilivaara girls, Hellevi (on the left), Elli, and Kaarina Kangosjärvi in a milk cart in the mid 1960’s.

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At School

I

n the 1930’s, there were still old people in Äkäslompolo who couldn’t even write their own name, so they used an “X” for their signature.

Penmanship was rare, so people turned to trusted writers in important matters. The village “secretary” was Amanda Äkäslompolo, who had beautiful handwriting.

Many of the village children only went to school for a couple of weeks in the fall and spring. They also completed a few weeks of confirmation class. These were the only training they got in the basics of literacy. When a school was built at the Äkäs River mouth, some children went there. Amanda Äkäslompolo of Riihi wasn’t satisfied with this, but began arranging for a school in her own village. After a long wrestle, she succeeded, and teaching began in 1946 in the bakery-building of Riihi. Eino Saarnio was the first teacher. When the school got its own building in 1948, it was established as an essential part of childhood in the village. The school got its second teacher in 1960, when there were 30 pupils.

For middle school, people sent their children to Pello on their own account. Things got better when a municipal middle school with a dormitory was started in Sieppijärvi in 1959. The dormitory keeper maintained strict discipline and herded the pupils to do their homework. There was school on Saturdays as well, so pupils came home late on Saturday night. They headed back on Monday morning at around four.

“I envied the kids that got to go to school. Especially Nanni, even though I knew well that I didn’t have the slightest chance to go. I didn’t have much time, even for the touring school whenever it happened to stop in the village, because I had to tend to the cows first. Sometimes I had to bake, churn milk, or do other chores. The main purpose of the touring school was to help us make it through confirmation class. But it sure would have been useful to learn maths and writing, too.”

- Anja Kurkkio

at school

/ village life

People gathered to watch children’s performances on special occasions. Sunshine blessing Mother’s Day in 1962.

Many of the girls continued their studies at the Ylitornio Christian Folk High School. In this photo from 1949: front row, second from the left, Impi Torvinen and, second from the right, Irma Äkäslompolo; in the back row, on the right, Emmi Kaulanen.

The daughters of Sandra of Kenttä received education even before there was a school in the village. Their continuing education was also successful, and Stiina Ulrika graduated from the trade school of Raahe on 30 April 1948.

With donations from tourists, the Äkäslompolo school children made an excursion to Helsinki in 1950. For provisions, they took a jug of milk and some well-preserving food such as dried meat. They were accommodated in a sleeper at the railroad station. The trip was eventful: for example, the water closet caused an uproar. When the boys pulled the string the first time, water rushed so loudly into the toilet that they ran to the teacher yelling that it was broken.

Excursionists in front of their lodging. Back row, from the left: Teacher Aino Joro, assistant Irma Äkäslompolo, Martta Friman, Vilho Ristimella (peeking), Leena Äkäslompolo, Liisa Kangosjärvi, Kerttu Kaulanen, and Esko Kaulanen. Front row, from the left: Toini Kangosjärvi, Saara Ala, Kalevi Friman, Kalle Friman, Tatu Friman, and Maila Friman.

The village’s first secondary school graduate was Sauli Kaulanen. The next to receive their white hats were Britta Äkäslompolo and Markku Kurkkio. Britta in her graduation photo in 1967.

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delivering mail

Delivering Mail

T

he village mail carrier used to go and collect the mail once a week from the Äkäs River mouth. The job was trusted at least to Kusti Kangosjärvi, Heikki Mölö, Hille and Heino Kaulanen, and Jonne Äkäslompolo, whose daughter, Elsa, began her long career as a mail carrier at the age of 13 in 1940, as she had to fill in for her father.

She made the 60-kilometre round on foot or by riding her father’s bicycle from between the bars. Over the years, the route got almost too familiar to Elsa. Once on her way back, she really felt like she’d had it! She sent the horse home ahead of her with a covering letter and spent the night at the Kuoppa house. In bad weather, too, Elsa stayed overnight at the houses along the route. After the war, a post office was started in Äkäslompolo, and Elsa was hired to run it. She still delivered mail either by bicycle, ski, reindeer, horse, or motorcycle. Even with a mere name on the mail, it was delivered to the right address, because Elsa knew everyone.

Mail started to be delivered by car in the mid 1950’s. Around the same time, the Äkäslompolo post office became a first class office that handled not only mail but also the money transfers of the Post’s Savings Bank.

Elsa was given a raise and two employees. In the spring skiing season, there was quite a bustle because it took five hours a day to merely stamp all the postcards. Elsa retired in January 1990, after 42 years of service.

“This is Elsa’s week routine: three times in all she is seen, carrying her load of mail, on the long delivery trail.”

- Reino Helismaa

Postmistress Elsa Äkäslompolo’s daughter Marja sitting on the post office steps in 1958. A quarter century later, the picture was on the front cover of the Penninki magazine.

telephone lines

/ village life

A page of the first telephone directory • • • • • • • • • •

Kotila 1 Karila 2 Jounila 3 Kurula 4 Mäkelä 5 Peltola 6 Takalehto 7 Möyhölä 8 Kenttä 9 Stenan maja 10

Tornionlaakso 11 Svante Friman 12 Ylläskartano 13 Lehto 14 Kemi-yhtiö 15 Ristimella 16 Usko Friman 17 Välimaa 18 Posti 19 Mäkitalo 20

The village young people helped the Riihi folks with the telephone exchange. Anneli Palomaa (later Erkheikki) operating the exchange.

Telephone Lines The distance to the nearest telephone from Äkäslompolo shortened in the 1930’s, when a telephone line was pulled to Kuoppa to serve the large lumber camps. In 1939, the villagers extended it, partly by volunteer work, all the way to Äkäslompolo. On the party line, Kuoppa was one ring, and Äkäslompolo was two. The village got a telephone exchange in 1956. Because there were only three lines out, sometimes callers had to wait hours on end for the call they ordered. Time was money because an urgent call cost double the regular fee; a lightning call ten-fold. The exchange was automated in 1973.

The Riihi telephone exchange was operated mostly by the Riihi folks themselves: Mother Linda and Grandmother Amanda, with the help of the others. Other workers were, for example, Impi Friman, Leila Kangos­

järvi, Anneli Palomaa, Raila Gardin, and Pirjo Komulainen. The operator’s salary was bound to the number of calls and time of day. In 1969, 32 telephones, four automatic switches, and public phones at Hannukainen and Luosu, were connected to the exchange. There was also a public pay phone at the Riihi farm, which people often had to line up for.

The telephone wasn’t only useful. Lightning struck Svante Friman’s house at Kuoppa through the line on 12 September 1963. It proceeded to the barn by ground, cutting a furrow through the yard. The house and barn burned to the ground. Miraculously, nobody was killed.

“During the Winter War, Äkäslompolo was completely isolated.

There was no radio in the village, so Valtti and I phoned Komulainen every evening, and Ma’am Kerttu would tell us the news.”

- Aatos Kaulanen

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famous visitors

Professor Samuli Paulaharju visited Äkäslompolo twice on his trips gathering folklore. The only surviving records of his visits are three photographs and two short texts. Jenny and Samuli Paulaharju interviewing the Stålnacke couple in Ylitornio in 1921. The work distribution of the industrious couple was clear: Samuli interviewed and sketched out drawings, and Jenny wrote down the stories. However, Jenny took care of interviewing the women. Many pictures of their travels have survived because they both knew how to use a camera.

Most of the oldest photographs taken in Äkäslompolo belonged to Forest Officer Torsten Rancken (b. 1889), who first visited the village in 1933. Torsten also had the first lodge of the village, Kariniva, built in 1939. He spent a lot of time there with his family and friends. Torsten was born in Oulu, but the waves of life carried him to Tammisaari. That is why most of his pictures are kept at the West Uusimaa Regional Museum, which offered them for use in this book. The Rancken family still has an effect on the village: Torsten’s grandson Kåre Lagerbohm owns Riemuliiteri and has helped in obtaining pictures and information.

Torsten on a boat trip with his friend’s children in summer 1956.

Lieutenant General Hjalmar Siilasvuo normally had a stick in his hand because, as a short-tempered man, he vented his spleen by hitting the ground or his boot with the stick. During the final stages of the Lapland War, he lodged at Keski-Kaulanen. Once when he was away, Lauri, the youngest of the family’s boys, crept in to try on his handsome lieutenant general’s coat, ordained with stripes and an officer belt. He was parading himself in front of the mirror, when the officer suddenly returned. To Lauri’s extreme relief, the temperamental military man only asked, “Well, does the coat fit?” The war hero liked Äkäslompolo and took part in village life even after the war.

Hjalmar Siilasvuo in his element “somewhere out there” on the front.

famous visitors

/ village life

Famous Finnish singer-songwriter Reino Helismaa and singer-actor Tapio Rautavaara visited Äkäslompolo for the first time in the late 1940’s. On the trip they wrote one of their most beautiful songs about Lapland, Rakovalkealla (At the Camp Fire), and made a short film, Laulu Tunturille (Song for the Fell). Äkäslompolo became their favourite holiday location, and over time they learned to know the houses and people well. Repe (Reino) wrote a song about the village, which Ahti Kaulanen put on paper: “By Ylläs Fell, Kukas, and Kuer, Kesänki and Lainio, a little, pretty village lies.

Hey, hey, helly-rey, the village Äkäslompolo the best place in Lapland, it surely must be so.

All the village folks befriend you quickly, because they are so brisk and happy.”

Reino and Lempi Helismaa gave the Möyhölä folks their picture, which has been looked at so much during the years that its corners are dog-eared.

Reidar Särestöniemi was still an en plein air painter in the 1950’s. His favourite subjects were Särestö, Pietarinoja, and Ylläs. He made his first painting trip to Ylläs in June 1950 with the Pyykkö brothers, Allan and Olavi, and Robert Gunst. They travelled from Kaukonen, first by punting the river, then up a wagon road, and finally crossing the wet backwoods along duckboards and reindeer paths. It was a lot of fun, since Reidar talked and sang constantly.

On the way back, there was a road construction site at Kurtakkoselkä. One of the workers glimpsed at the passersby and asked, “Is that the crazy boy from Särestö?” Reidar overheard, raised his chest, and said, “That’s me!”

Reidar sitting at the peak of Ylläs in 1950, reading out loud Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

Photographer Urho Aarre Saarinen (b. 1927) fell in love with Lapland’s beautiful scenery and pleasant people in the 1950’s. Known by his professional name UA Saarinen, he lodged at Kurkkio and funded his skiing holidays by taking pictures. The photo he took of a reindeer and Markku Kurkkio wearing a Lapp outfit, ended up in an American magazine and geography book, which resulted in Markku receiving mail from, among others, an Alaskan school class. The pupils’ letters were gathered in one envelope, which was addressed to “Markku and Musta, Lapland, Finland”. It arrived without a problem.

Among UA Saarinen’s employers was Suomen Kuvalehti, a prestigious Finnish weekly magazine.

Saarinen at work in the 1950’s.

The view from Ylläs Fell. Reidar’s easel stood on the fell in many summers.

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village life /

the cycle of life

Like the day turns to night, human life runs its course. In the morn of life, we frolic fresh like dew; at midday we walk all-powerful; in the evening, we reflect on the past. What is left of you and me—us?

Generation follows generation; grey heads lay down at night; babes wake up at dawn.

A lot of water has flowed by in the Äkäs River since Aapi Äkäslompolo was the size of his brother’s grandson Hannes Halonen.

Because the Riihi estate was the village centre, its inhabitants were photographed a lot. For example, there are pictures of Orvokki Viuhkola since she was two hours old. The unique baby picture was taken by Gunnar Stenfors, who happened to come by at the right moment.

The teacher wrote in the photo, “My cheerful schoolgirl, Orvokki, at 13 years of age.” Orvokki’s mother, Linda, died that same summer of 1959.

Orvokki married Heino Tapojärvi on 6 January 1968.

the cycle of life

/ village life

In the tiny village, dating was a sensitive issue, which tended to result in teasing and parental interrogations. That is why young people usually met in secret. Being seen together in public meant that the relationship was already serious.

“And so we were married in the Satta sitting room on 12 February 1950. The wedding lasted over two days. On Tuesday, the wives asked me to pour some beer on the ground, because the party would otherwise have kept on going.”

Lauri Kaulanen and Pirkko Satta (later, Lompolojärvi), maid of the Mäkelä farm, walking toward Keski-Kaulanen in summer 1960. They said that there was no romance between the two friends.

Sirkka Äkäslompolo and Lenna Friman were married on 18 June 1950. Wedding guests on the porch of the Tano house: Irma Äkäslompolo (on the left), Amanda Äkäslompolo, the bride Sirkka, Impi Friman, Lenna, Teutu Äkäslompolo, Emmi Kaulanen, Ilta Äkäslompolo, and Lenna’s sister Eini Friman.

In 1952, the car drive from Äkäslompolo to Hannukainen was still quite bumpy. That is why Otto Äkäslompolo wished that his last journey be made with dignity by boat. Markku Kaulanen (on the right) and Pauli Gardin setting off by boat with the coffin to Hannukainen, where Otto’s journey continued in Aukusti Raittimo’s car to the graveyard in Kolari.

- Esko Vapa

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village life /

stories

Maria Johanna Ristimella (b. 1865) died in the evening and, after the hymn, was left in the bedroom. The next morning, she shocked the family by coming to breakfast, but that day she died again— this time for good.

This picture from the Hannukainen farm in the early 1900’s is an

“Aapi is lighting a lamp in the dim sitting room when he hears a door open.

‘Reitari, where are you coming from, and how are you?’ Aapi asks, astonished.

‘I came to see you, and to see which of us has the more handsome beard,’ Reidar answers, stroking his beard. This wasn’t the first time they challenged each other for the length of their beards.”

- Maila Alatalo

example of the custom to mark the deceased in photos with a cross.

People may pass away, but stories live on.

“It wasn’t but sixty years ago that people believed sincerely that gnomes, goblins, and ghosts could appear whenever and wherever they wished. There was no radio, let alone television back then. The men in particular gathered in the evening by a warm hearth and mostly talked about ghosts and goblins. Those men were few, who hadn’t seen or heard something supernatural at some point of their life. And they all seemed to be quite serious.”

- Anja Kurkkio

“Lorens Gardin had little notebooks in which he wrote down reindeer issues, receivables and debts. One of the notes: “Wille Nilivaara has received butter 1 kilo, chewing tobacco 1 roll, butter 1,200 ram., coffee 1 kilo, chewing tobacco 1 roll, in return for hay-making. In the final account at Kukaslompolo, 50 marks 2/12 1932.”

- Aimo Gardin

“I remember how fun it was for us kids when Kustaava came over to bake. She didn’t have her own oven at Konitieva, so she used our good baking oven. She brought her own flour and firewood in her sleigh, and often her children came to play with us. She would often give us warm pieces of bread and spread butter on them with her black thumb. To us it was a great treat.”

- Aatos Kaulanen

“Grandma Saimi put little Hannu to sleep by pushing the pink carriage further with her foot, and then pulling it back with a weft rag, all the time joiking: ‘Lol lo lolloo, lolo loi lolloo, lol lol loo.’ When Saimi went to lull Päivi asleep, the girl said about the singing: “At least not the Lollo!”

- Marja Äkäslompolo

“I didn’t get the wife I wanted, and the one I would’ve got, I didn’t want. The equipment I’ve been given for a wife, I’ll take back to God and thank him for lending them.”

- Teudor Äkäslompolo

stories

end fastened on the Swedish side. When the raft floated off ‘by accident’, it went to Sweden without anyone smuggling it.”

Einar Äkäslompolo emigrated to Seattle in America in 1916. There, he died in 1929 in an accident, which damaged his gold watch, too.

The watch was sent to Finland, and it was inherited by Einari’s sister Fredrika.

“Pekka Aadolf Äkäslompolo (b. 1844) of the Riihi farm, had an odd illness that caused his toe to fall off.

It was considered “coal disease”, or anthrax, because the toe went black and fell off. The toe was placed in a bag in the attic to await Pekka’s burial. Pekka died and was buried—without the toe. Nobody knows what happened to the toe that was forgotten in the attic, which gave rise to ghost stories.

The old wooden house of Riihi creaked and cracked when the temperature was below zero. People would say: ‘Pekka’s up there looking for his toe.’ The attic became a scary place where few children dared to go.”

- Maila Alatalo

“In those days they didn’t tell children things straight, like where babies came from, but they invented all kinds of tales. Sometimes they were found in a well, sometimes in the urine pit, and sometimes they were brought by a forest troll.

There we were, then, wondering where they’d found each of us. The well was where they found their children at Kenttä, so Hannes came from a well. Aapo was a couple of years older, and he thought they already had enough children.

He climbed on the well, looked down, and saw his own reflection on the water.

He ran inside and screamed, “Already there’s another little devil in their peeking out!”

- Anja Kurkkio

/ village life

- Tatu Friman

“Back then there was no road to the village, and the nearest stores were in Kolari and Tapojärvi. In the winter, we brought stuff by horse and reindeer. I made my first visit to Kolari by reindeer. We spent the night in Niesa, and in the dark, we went to look at the electric lights over in Sweden. It was extraordinary that a light would go on at the flip of a switch.”

- Aatos Kaulanen

“Mail days! Three times a week, we get mail here in the Arctic Circle. A grey automobile cuts through the winter landscape along a wide staked road and stops by the red-painted village. The driver yanks a post sack on his back and trudges the last half kilometre through deep snow. I wonder if any other village gets as much mail as Äkäslompolo does at this time of the year. In recent years, Ylläs Fell has become the most popular skiing resort in our country. Enquiries and requests for lodging come up from the south continuously. During the best spring-time snow, 500-1000 skiers have been accommodated here simultaneously. That’s when the village wakes up from its winter torpor, and from March to May there’s a lot of traffic on the ski-tracks and trails on the fell.”

- Vappu Roos

“We didn’t know granulated sugar even existed: we carved it from a sugarloaf onto our porridge. We learned about lump sugar and pre-roasted coffee much later, not to mention ground coffee. Back then we bought coffee raw, and whenever we could afford it. It was quite a task roasting that coffee.”

“The older women smoked a pipe first thing in the morning and last thing before bed, starting right at their birth: ‘a tit in one corner of the mouth; a pipe in the other. ’Many a ma’am thought that tobacco restores; poisons strengthen.

Their favourite brands were ‘Lumberjack’s Strong Leaf’ or ‘Mighty Matti’. For some, a five-mark pack was plenty for the week; for others, not so. In the years of shortage they smoked yarrow.”

- Ilmari Manninen

“After the war, exporting tar to Sweden was banned, but Swedish law allowed importing. They made little rafts at the Äkäs River mouth to float down the Muonio River. Secretly, someone attached a heavy wire to the raft, the other

- Anja Kurkkio

“The first visitors from the south arrived already before the wars. Later, they started to call them tourists. The villagers wondered why anyone wanted to come up from the prosperous south to the poor, little village way out in the roadless wilderness. The tourists said that they thought the area was beautiful.

The locals had never taken notice of such a thing, and they had nothing to compare the scenery with, anyway. Most of them were born and died in Äkäslompolo without going much farther than the church.”

- Aatos Kaulanen

67

fishers, hunters, and herders Simu Salmijärvi (b. 1841), son of the rich Reindeer Sami, Matti Sieppi, lived for decades at a little farm called Salmijärvi, around 15 kilometres north-west of Äkäslompolo. After living a nomadic lifestyle, Simu settled at Salmijärvi to tend his reindeer and little patches of field. The remote farm was wealthy: in 1902, “Salmi-Simu” had 200–250 reindeer.

Simu was a grim man, and according to local legends, he aimed at more than just animals with his rifle.

fishers, hunters, and herders Fishing and hunting equipment was sure different in the olden times. Fishing nets were woven at home from thick cotton thread; their ropes were woven from horsehair; and the floats on the head-rope were either rolls of birch bark or wooden plates. Stones were tied with birch root twines into little birch bark baskets and attached to the foot-rope as weights. Dragnets also featured ropes woven from birch roots.

In winter evenings, people fixed and made nets by their open hearths. In the spring, boats were repaired and coated with self-made pit tar.”

- Maila Alatalo

Tiina Kaisa Äkäslompolo was SalmiSimu’s concubine. Their daughter, Maria Kustaava, is the female ancestor of many Äkäslompolo villagers.

Samuli Paulaharju took this photo of Simu and his wife in 1922.

69

By the fish-rich waters of Äkäslompolo, it was usual for mothers to send their sons to catch fish for food. “Put your hat on, take your birch-bark knapsack and fishing pole, and off you go!”

Around 12-year-old second cousins Antti Pietari Äkäslompolo (on the left) and Pauli Immanuel Äkäslompolo heading off from the Riihi farm to obey the command.

food from the water

/ fishers, hunters, and herders

“Every shore, island, bay, river, and creek offers fish beyond measure, all year round.”

- Olaus Magnus 1555

The oarsman had to be attentive, because even a small mistake would rouse a fiery comment from the one gathering the net.

Cooperation skills were tested, especially on windy days.

Antti Äkäslompolo laying his fishing net.

“Dragnets were usually owned together by several farmers. In Äkäslompolo, the Kaulanen and Riihi farms shared a dragnet. The lines of this net were already manila rope. Two boats and several workers were needed to use a dragnet. We often went with the men of Kaulanen to Kesänki Lake and caught enough fish for our hay-making and winter needs.”

- Maila Alatalo

Men pulling a dragnet into boats at Jeris Lake in the summer of 1933. Women beating the water with poles at the open end to stop the fish from escaping.

In the early winter, fishermen sped over black ice on skates attached to their shoes.

Ilta Äkäslompolo walked the war-time evacuation journey to Sweden and back wearing these woodsoled shoes.

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fishers, hunters, and herders /

food from the water

The most famous fish trap in Äkäslompolo was the selfdesigned wicker bucket trap at the Kuerlinkka Falls, or the Linkkas. The inventor, Kilian Friman, was prosecuted for overfishing: “This is a true story about our grandfather, whom we called Pappa. Many kilometres of the Kuer River flowed through the lands of Kuoppa, and Pappa started watching how the fish climbed the two Linkkas. He noticed that they always attempted the lower Linkka at the same, narrow spot, and they always fell back in a certain place if they failed. Then he got an idea. He made a sparse wicker bucket and placed it between two poles in the waterfall, right where the fish were falling. Only red-fleshed fish could climb the Linkkas, so the Kuoppa farm had an abundant supply of quality fish.

The bucket had to be emptied every 2-3 hours; otherwise the current would tear the fish apart. Even I got to empty it in summer 1942, when I was visiting Kuoppa with my aunt Helli, and their regular fisher wasn’t home. But this mode of fishing caused Pappa some trouble because, out of envy, some of the Äkäslompolo men filed a complaint to the County Administrative Board.

In hay-making time, Pappa was delivered a summons to court in Oulu, to answer charges of overfishing. Lapland was part of the Administrative District of Oulu back then. Pappa had foreseen this and bought a camera for my father, Yrjö, who had also learned to develop the film. He used it to take pictures of the bucket in the Linkka, which showed how small a spot in the river the bucket covered, proving that it wasn’t overfishing. Carrying the photos, Pappa went to court, which wasn’t at all a small matter. First, he went by horse wagon to Tornio; from there by train to Oulu.

The court studied the case, and Pappa was acquitted. He wasn’t satisfied with this. He also demanded compensation for all his expenses from the informers, and the court ruled in his favour. This resulted in discord for as long as Pappa lived.”

- Esko Vapa

Angling was also quite popular. People caught brown trout and grayling, the northern sailfish, on the Äkäs River, and salmon on the Väylä (the waterway formed by the Torne and Muonio Rivers on the border between Finland and Sweden). Flies, lures, and plugs were self-made.

Forest officer and fishing book author, A. E. Järvinen demonstrating genteel fly fishing at the Äkäslinkka waterfall in 1955.

Kusti Kangosjärvi ordered a real, factory-made lure for young Jouni Kaulanen.

Jouni was once stripping leaves off trees for the cattle, when he decided to try the new lure. He attached it to the same line he used to trap grouse.

He got a bite behind a big rock: a four-kilogram trout was thrashing at the end of the line. His leaf-stripping chore was forgotten as he ran home to show off his impressive catch.

Jouni frying brown trout for his sons Tapio and Esa.

Men emptying Kilian Friman’s controversial bucket trap.

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fishers, hunters, and herders /

the last of the mohicans

The Last of the Mohicans

H

ans Kustaa Äkäslompolo, or Pikku-Kusti (“Little Kusti”, 1872– 1960), was a prominent person and celebrity of his day, who was often interviewed and photographed. He was also the last person in Äkäslompolo to live entirely on game and fish. Like his grandfather Jussa, Pikku-Kusti killed nine bears. He also caught wolverines, lynx, plenty of other fur animals, and around thirty moose, which were rare in those days. Kusti usually always carried his rifle and might head out hunting even amidst hay-making. He spent his summers fishing and didn’t grow anything other than a tiny patch of grain and potatoes.

A newspaper article from the 1950’s: “Every hiker in the reindeer country of Western Lapland knows Kustu.

He was christened as Kustaa, and his last name is, of course, Äkäslompolo, because he lives in that little village. Because the man is already over eighty, and because in his manhood he felled nine kings of the wilderness and thirty-odd moose with his breechloader, a wanderer does well to sit on the bunk in his tiny cabin and listen.

“It sure was different in the olden times, when we duelled for life or death. It was no laughing matter when I dared to attack my first bear at the age of 22. I’d already found the den the previous winter under a huge fir covered with beard moss, but I hadn’t braved it yet. The bear would certainly return to the same den the following winter, so I had time to get me a good gun and learn to use it. And so, the next winter, my helper boy and I skied up toward the fell. The air hole of the den was brown-rimmed, so we knew the bear was snoring under the snow. I took a long pole and started poking it in the den. That was all it took. A couple of hollow growls, and soon the king of the wild stood before me in all its splendour, its mouth wide open, beating its forepaws together, enraged.

I shot it right in the forehead, and I thought the battle was over, but I was wrong. The bullet had only scratched the bear’s forehead. But the beast seemed to respect my rifle enough—luckily, because it was singleloading, and had the bear attacked, I reckon I wouldn’t have had time to reload. It turned on its heels and ran, bellowing, toward my unarmed apprentice.

I yelled: “Jump in the tree, jump in the tree!” The boy climbed up the fir nimbly like a squirrel, but the bear charged up right after him. I was horrified, and I couldn’t believe my eyes. I didn’t dare to risk a shot, lest I hit the boy, so I could only hope he would make it high enough, so the branches would no longer carry the weight of the bear. Suddenly the racket stopped. For a moment, all was quiet, and then a brown mass crashed down from the tree, right down to the ground under the snow. I waited a moment, but it didn’t move, so I risked a peak. The bear was dead. The bullet had done its job after all.”

Kustaa Äkäslompolo had been so frail at his birth, that his father is told to have said, “Should we kill’im off from sufferin’?” He wasn’t blessed with size, even as an adult: Little Kusti stood 150 centimetres tall.

Kusti’s sister Hedvig moved to America and sent her brother a lever-action Winchester rifle. To Kusti it was a treasure, because with it he could shoot several times without reloading.

The hunter was known throughout Finland, as shown by this article of the newspaper Päivälehti from 1901.

Aapi Äkäslompolo was known in the village for his reckless use of guns. As a youngster, he had shot the cuckoo from a clock inside his home. The Riihi farm’s bull was on the loose once, and he shot it in the family jewels with a salt cartridge. The bull had to be put down.

Aapi even fumbled a shot through the neighbour’s window once. On another occasion, Aapi’s father Simppa got angry with his wife, Sandra, and said, “Aapi, good lad, shoot that damn crone!”

reindeer herding

/ fishers, hunters, and herders

The Reindeer’s Visit to Sweden

I

n old times, reindeer wandered over the ice of the border river every now and then. Sometimes they even swam across the Väylä during the summer. In the early 1970’s, a herd of 300 reindeer wandered over to Sweden. Heino Tapojärvi, Jaakko Gardin, and Vilho Nilimaa, with their reindeer herding dogs, went to bring them back to Finland.

They had heard that the reindeer were close to the border, but they had actually wandered far away.

The men only had some coffee and scant provisions with them. The November night caught the reindeer fetchers off guard, and they had to spend the night in a loggers’ cabin they found. It was around All Hallows, and it snowed up to their knees. Reindeer herders from Sweden, including Uno Sevä and his brother Isak, came to the aid of the Finns.

Uno hired two men with snow-mobiles to help. One of them boozed so hard the first night that he was unable to join the posse. The other one came, but the snowmobiles of the time weren’t good in deep, soft snow.

So the Finns continued their task with Uno. The herd was gathered into a nearby reindeer fence. Heino laid his hooded pelerine by the gate and commanded his dog to stand guard on it. When small groups were brought close, the dog herded them the rest of the way in. The gate was open all the time, but the dog stopped them from escaping.

Reindeer round-ups were big events that attracted people from near and far. “Jauho-Kalle”, or Kalle Jauhojärvi, entertaining people with his accordion at the Lamunmaa reindeer fence. Behind Kalle is Linda Viuhkola. In the background, Aukusti Raittimo, Tuure Friman, Hulda Förlund (wearing a white scarf), Elli Tiensuu (wearing an apron), Arvid Kangas (with his walrus moustache), Kalle Kangas, and Kalle Immonen. In the front, the third person on the right is Mauno Nivala from Kihlanki, and Armas Friman is on the far right. Sitting on the left, Nelly and Kaino Friman.

Most of the herd was finally gathered, and they began guiding it back to Finland with the help of a bellwether and dogs. It was a slow, gruelling job, and the sweating men finally arrived in Kangosselkä, where they left the herd. At night, tired and hungry, the men arrived at Kangosjärvi where they got food and lodging. When he got home, Heino decided to opt out of such trips abroad in the future.

- Heino Tapojärvi

Reindeer herders spent weeks on end in the wilderness. That is why they built lodges near the reindeer migration routes. This photograph was taken at the lodge in Kielinen. In the back row, Jaako Gardin (on the left), Martti Kaulanen, Einari Kitkiöjoki (or Kitki-Einari), Lasse Suikki, Juho Salmijärvi, and Ville Markkala. Smiling in the front row, Erkki Muotka (on the left), Lassi Muotka, Eelis Jolla, Lenna Friman, and Juho Heikkilä.

“Pikku-Erkki”, Erkki Pudas (on the right) admiring the beard of his friend Auku of Paalumaa (August Jerisjärvi) at the reindeer fence.

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reindeer herding

At the round-up, the reindeer for slaughter are put in their own “offices” or fences. Likewise, reindeer from Sweden or neighbouring herding cooperatives were separated. Markings on the sides of the reindeer meant that they had been counted.

A bustling round-up, photographed by UA Saarinen in the 1950’s.

Reindeer herders spent their winters out with the herd. In the summer, they cut horsetail and made leaf sauras (stacks) for the herds to eat in the winter.

On rainy days, they squeezed loaves of lichen. Reindeer herding co-operatives also hired herders. In the 1930’s, herders of a herding co-operative in Kolari were paid 30 marks per reindeer. With 400 reindeer, the herder’s annual salary was around 12,000 marks. The herder skied around the herd daily with his dog. Storms made things rough, because the herd would scatter if they didn’t drive it to the sheltered side of the fell in time. In late winter, they let the herd scatter. From May to the end of August, herders were off work, except for the midsummer calf-marking time. More hands were hired for round-ups.

“Erkin Kalle” (Kalle Pudas) from Saarenpudas at work.

Most of the 3-4-year-old bulls were castrated by biting so they wouldn’t lose too much weight during their rut in the fall. There was a lot to bite, too, because “bitten” bulls were also used as draught animals.

Vilho Friman holding a reindeer and the biter digging out the testicles.

“You crunch them right down to pieces and then feel them with your fingers to make sure they’re busted. In the fall, reindeer testicles are mighty soft. It’s like biting sugar. Lauri Turtola has a 15-year-old son; he’s got good teeth, and nothin’ to it, he just crunches’em reindeer balls to bits.”

- Ilmari Manninen

gathering the harvest Otto “Ottu” Äkäslompolo’s “wing-scythe” and the hay of Aavavuoma fields were summer acquaintances for decades.

gathering the harvest Our fields were very small, and often the grain was green or smitten by frost, but we sure did anticipate that first oven-fresh bread from the new crop, even though it was often a disappointment.

Most summers we harvested a fair amount of potatoes, although we were often low on seed potatoes in the spring. We always planted long rows of onions and turnips. Sometimes we found really big turnips, which dad grated with a knife and dealt to us kids. It was a big treat back then, when there wasn’t much sweet to eat apart from the syrup we put on our Sunday gruel.”

- Anja Kurkkio

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Before sowing, fields were harrowed diligently.

Eevert Oja of Jerisjärvi and the reindeer Raanakka at work in the late 1950’s.

Ah, Barley Bread!

T

he first farmers of Äkäslompolo cleared their little fields with muscle power. They grew barley, suitable for the short and rather cool growing season. The potato came to the north as late as the mid 1800’s. In the warm years of the 1930’s, people tried to grow wheat and rye as well. Farming in Äkäslompolo was risky, because frost often beat harvesters to the crop. In the 1800’s, the agricultural emphasis shifted more to cattle tending, because the riverside meadows and grassy bogs were suitable for it.

“Threshing days were celebrations for the whole village. The threshing machine was transported by horse from farm to farm, followed by the harvest hands. The crowd was rowdy: sometimes there were squabbles, but mostly it was joyful noise. Food was cooked in large pots at whichever farm the work was being done. A lot of children and people not participating in the work tagged along, but usually there was enough food for everyone.”

Farmers began to toil for the following season already in the autumn, by ploughing the fields, and continued in the spring by spreading the winter’s manure onto the fields. Hauling and spreading dung were rough jobs that required all available helping hands. In early summer, the fields were evened out.

Sowing was timed carefully according to the lunar phases and the forecasted weather. The ripened grain was then harvested in late summer, by taking a handful of straws and cutting it with a sickle. The grain was then bound into sheaves to dry.

Dry grain was threshed by hand in drying barns until the late 1920’s, when the village farmers purchased a shared threshing machine. Threshing days were big events in the growing village.

- Maila Alatalo

“The wives of old times wore specific sowing outfits. The lady of the Tano farm in Äkäslompolo of Kolari also wore one, like her mother before her, as she walked on the field with her bushel. It was a white, long-sleeved, long shirt that stretched down below the knees, ‘like the rich squires’ pyjamas’. White kerchiefs were wrapped around the head.

The shirt was never used for anything else.”

- Samuli Paulaharju Kreeta-Stiina Sakrila hand sowing in Kaukonen in 1922.

ah, barley bread!

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from kernels to flour

The hand mill in this photograph from Jerisjärvi is the Eastern Finnish type, which is light to rotate with its long lever.

Miller and Jack of All Trades Kalervo Uuttu made sure that travellers left Äkäsmylly with sacks of pure, clean flour.

Grinding by Hand In the olden times, it was one of the women’s rough chores to grind grain by hand. The millstones were turned by the young women of the house—maids or daughters-in-law—who lightened the burden with milling songs. To achieve the desired coarseness, home millers raised or lowered the upper millstone. Even in the era of mills, the new harvest was celebrated with porridge made of hand-ground flour.

Hydropower When muscle power was replaced by hydropower, the women’s workload was radically lightened. Over the years in the Äkäslompolo region, there have been watermills by the rivers Kaupinjoki, Nilioja, and Äkäsjoki. All three were simple grist mills: running water was channelled through a flume to the water wheel, which rotated the connected millstone. During spring floods, even little creeks had power for grist mills.

When the village mill was shut down, people had their grain ground in Niesa or Äkäsmylly. Along with the modern society, mills fell into disrepair for lack of use. However, Äkäsmylly was restored as a tourist attraction to commemorate the golden age of mill gnomes.

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people and animals in symbiosis The Finnish Spitz and reindeer have endured for centuries as the most important companions of the people of the north. Markku Kurkkio, Murre, and Musta posing for the camera like world celebrities.

People and animals in symbiosis

M

en and women had clear-cut roles in the olden times. But the line between human and animal wasn’t always distinct. Man and beast lived in symbiosis. Winters were spent sharing the warmth under the same roof. During the hardest of times, people and horses even shared the same crusts of bark bread. The first generations of the peasant village certainly didn’t consider animals as lower lifeforms. In fact, a good cow or horse was worth more money than a maid or farmhand.

Without animals adapted to northern conditions, the village of Äkäslompolo would never have been founded. The most important companions of the settlers were dogs, reindeer, cows, and sheep. Additional income from forestry made it possible to add the horse to the family. The first pig arrived in the village by bicycle, on top of Elsa Äkäslompolo’s load of mail. For a long time, domestic animals were of Finnish breed, but in the 1900’s, people started importing new breeds from abroad.

Northern Finncattle According to legend, when people settled in Lapland, a white cow rose from a spring to be their companion. True or not, on every farmyard you could find Northern Finncattle, the curious, intelligent, friendly, and gutsy breed that needed very little to survive. Mosquitoes didn’t bite white calves; frost didn’t bite muleys. However, the war took its toll on the cattle: cows returned from refuge in Sweden with the rest of the household, but the bulls stayed behind.

Working Gear A fully equipped work horse is a noble sight. The horse is steered with the bridle and reins. With a soft-padded horse collar, the animal can pull shafts and loads. A shaft bow has been fastened with leather straps to stabilize the harness. A harness saddle with a bell is on the horse’s back. A strap attached to the shafts goes over the harness saddle. A breeching around the horse’s haunches makes it possible for it to slow down without being run over by the load. Working reindeer have smaller and simpler harnesses.

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people and animals in symbiosis

people and animals in symbiosis

Many families had lovable pets. Juha Kaulanen’s cat Misse disappeared one summer. They searched far and wide, but couldn’t find it. Only much later did the parents break the sad news: while chasing a mouse, the cat had been run over by a mower.

Two dark-eyed charmers: Samuli Palomaa with his Finnish Spitz

Caring for animals was hard work. Cows had to be milked, horses groomed, and sheep sheared. Giving animals drink and food and keeping them warm were everyday tasks in the winter. At the break of dawn, the women already had fire under the large water heating pots in the barn, to heat water for the cattle. Summer made things easier: cows could wander all day on the forest pastures, and the sheep spent the whole summer on the fell. Horses also ran free on the summer pastures for long periods.

After a taste of freedom, animals were often reluctant to return to their winter abode. Frost drove the piglets home, but it was often a hassle to catch the other run­ aways. However, with help from other villagers, they were eventually brought home.

The cattle may have roamed free in the wilderness all summer, but the people didn’t slack off. Someone had to herd the animals. And of course, gathering winter feed was a vital chore. In the words of Anja Kurkkio:

“It was toughest in the beginning, when Vertti brought his colt from Muusa and we didn’t have a single patch of grassland for him to graze on, so Vertti himself had to pick several sacks of shaggy wild grass by hand wherever he could find it among the bushes.

You can bet his fingers were sore, but that’s how he fed the horse for weeks on end. It made him determined to clear a field of his own as soon as possible.”

Animals were treated well, and they were put to full use. In addition to meat and milk, the skin, horns, veins, bones, and leg skins of reindeer were used. Eevert Oja feeding a newborn, orphan calf.

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At 3 years of age, Kauno Kaulanen ran off behind the house to watch the chickens. His father, Aatos, took a picture of the young chicken guard.

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people and animals in symbiosis

“In those days women called their cows home when they’d been out

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Each family had their own natural meadows. Every tiny spot of bog around the fell was put to use because even the most affluent farmers didn’t have enough fields for their cattle to survive the long winter.

The best meadows were by rivers, such as these at Tiuramatala (above).

in the woods. When the autumn sun was setting, we heard a highpitched cry from the village. It probably echoed four or five kilometres.

Manta of Riihi had a high voice, but it was no match for Hilma’s shrill call. I can’t remember the words of her call, but in the end there was a long ‘suuhuuuu’. She mentioned her cows’ names and told them to come home.”

- Anja Kurkkio Amanda Äkäslompolo feeding a calf by the Äkäs River dam. Leena Äkäslompolo (on the left), Maila Friman, and Martta Friman sitting under log trestles used for sawing floorboards and other household lumber with a pit saw. Two sawyers were needed: one on the ground and one up on the log. Such trestles could be found at many farms.

“Making hay for our cow was anything but easy. I gathered it from 27 different grassy spots around the bog forest, and in the fall I brought it home with my reindeer.”

- Heino Kaulanen

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on the meadow In the mid 1950’s, the teacher of the Muotkavaara school brought German visitors to Jerisjärvi. The visitors took a picture of the Oja family making hay.

On the Meadow

P

eople prepared well for haymaking, because how well the cattle survived the winter depended on the outcome. When the spring sun had hardened the snow enough to carry the weight of a man, they took large jugs of buttermilk and sank them in meadow springs.

Then, in late summer, spirits were high as people set off for the sometimes two-week trip. The women made provisions. The men sharpened the scythes and serviced the rakes. Haymaking was teamwork, so everyone who was able joined the company.

Life on the hayfield was simple: up with the sun; coffee; pitch oil on the skin to repel mosquitoes; sharpen the “wing-scythes”; and off to work.

After a stretch of work, people ate porridge for breakfast and took a nap.

Lunch was dried bread, salted fish, and buttermilk. During the afternoon coffee break, the women started boiling dried meat. After the day’s work, the stock was thickened with barley flour and eaten for dinner.

After a couple of days, the still slightly damp hay was carried with poles into a shed or onto haystacks to dry thoroughly.

“I was with Mauno and Vilho at Kutu Lake making hay, when it started raining. Vilho suggested playing cards in the cabin. When the rain stopped, we went back to continue our work, but the lake had risen and carried away all the piles of hay we had cut. All we could do was gather our stuff and go home. The surface of Kutu Lake could rise even half a metre a day when it rained.”

- Samuli Palomaa

on the meadow

During the stationary phases of the war, soldiers could apply for leave to help with farm work. In the haymaking season, vigorous scythemen mowed the villagers’ fields. Women wore aprons even while making hay. A tourist (on the left) helping make a hay saura on the Tano farm.

Hay was dried on many types of structures with different names in each village. An old-fashioned saura haystack was made by sticking longbranched tree trunks in a row. In another variation, a row of sturdy, pegged poles was connected with long, thin poles fastened crosswise. A more modern version of the saura was the haasio, in which barbed wire was tied in layers between the poles.

Hay sauras at the Kukaslompolo farm.

The main building is in the centre and Ylläs Fell looms in the background.

In the winter, the hay was fetched from the meadow with a horse or reindeer.

Samuli Palomaa on a hay-gathering trip on the ice of Kukaslompolo.

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on the meadow

With the transition from wild hay to sown hay, it became possible to use a mower. In Äkäslompolo, there were no two-horse mowers, but there were two-horse ploughs.

Eelis Kangosjärvi mowing hay, while his farmhand rakes it and keeps the blades unclogged.

Cultivated timothy is coarser than wild hay, so it can be dried on poles locally called tuuttero.

Elsa Äkäslompolo and a tourist boy stacking hay on a tuuttero on the Posti farm.

Heimo Äkäslompolo smoking his pipe amidst work.

on the meadow

Threshed birch leaves, dried leaf sheaves, and horsetail were used for extra cattle feed. In spite of all the labour, cattle feed tended to run low in late winter. Therefore, the cows ran dry and didn’t start milking again until the summer. In late winter, hay was of high value: it was even weighed by hand to determine its price.

Eelis Kangosjärvi (on the left) and Juho Palomaa bargaining for hay at the Kukaslompolo farm.

In later years, hay became a commodity that was imported from the south.

The lorry of wholesaler Eino Aho, just arrived at Jouni’s store with bales of hay, was a familiar sight for all dwellers of the Torne valley.

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the end of a lifestyle The Volvo was a hybrid tractor of its day—it was started with petrol, and when the engine was warm, you could use a lever to switch to cheaper kerosene. Einari Kangosjärvi watching his son, Tuomo, heading out to mow hay in the late 1970’s.

The End of a Lifestyle

F

inland’s agricultural policy leaned toward large farms in the 1960’s. Crofters had to start putting down their fields and cattle. The change struck Äkäslompolo hard: in two decades, grain fields, cattle, and sheep disappeared from the village landscape. But traces of the centuries-old agricultural tradition can be seen in saura-poles and rundown hay barns on the meadows. Luckily people can still feel the old hay-making spirit in restored meadow cabins, for example, at Kutujärvi or Aavavuoma on the Riihi farm.

“One morning there was a loud racket on the other side of the lake, and they said that a tractor was coming. Tractors were quite primitive back then, and the road wasn’t all that great either, even though dad had fixed the worst spots before evacuation, mainly using child labour. Thus the soil began to be tilled by machine, even in Lompolo.”

- Anja Kurkkio

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earning daily bread Lumber camp cooks worked from early morning to late night. For safety reasons, there was only a small window between the kitchen and the lumberjacks’ quarters. Through this “life hatch”, cooks passed the men their meals. Hard work, hearty food—fried reindeer meat and potatoes were a regular lumberjack’s breakfast. Millions of servings were passed through life hatches in the lumber camps of the Kemi Corporation.

earning daily bread After demobilization from the army, logging was the only work I could find. In the spring it was log floating, which paid better and was easier. I’ll never forget buying my own bicycle with the pay from my first float. It was a Jaguar, and to me it looked especially grand. In my later life, I’ve bought many a car, but it has never felt as special as that moment, getting my very own bicycle.”

- Aatos Kaulanen

Horse logging in the backwoods of the Lake Kauppi.

Aatos Kaulanen standing by the load.

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the forest behind the trees

The Forest behind the Trees

W

ood was needed for almost everything in Äkäslompolo: from buildings to heating; from utensils to lighting. The forest yielded lumber, firewood, game, berries, and pastures.

Wood was in high value everywhere in the 18th century. It was the principle raw material for most of the world’s handicrafts and industry.

The forests of Äkäslompolo had no monetary value until the onset of commercial tar distilling and forestry in the 1800’s. Until then, meadows and arable land were much more important for farm owners than forest land, which was considered worthless. Therefore, in the general parcelling out of land, farm owners didn’t usually demand much of it.

That is why most of the region’s forests remained Crown property.

The shortage of wood in Southern Finland increased its value and raised the Crown’s interest in its northern forests. The Crown began to inventory and utilize its forests. There was plenty, because household use in the sparsely populated area had left extensive forests virtually untouched by the axe.

The fell villagers had few money-paying jobs, so tar distilling, logging, and log floating were

As part of the national forest inventory of the early 1900’s, the forest resources of Äkäslompolo were surveyed, and the growth areas were classified. Forest Inspector Torsten Nysten made this growth map of the Kolari forest district in 1913.

essential to the livelihood of many families. Lumber camps also attracted workers from all around Finland. Forestry marked the beginning of monetary economics in Äkäslompolo.

the forest behind the trees Evaluating the outback forests was a demanding job. Plodding through dense forests, bogs, and marshes, the inventory maker truly knew he was earning his living by the sweat of his brow. A work group on the rather wet Kelloj채nk채 bog behind Lainio Fell in 1922.

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tar distilling

Tar Distilling Home Distillery

I

n the olden times, tar was needed in every household for shingles, boats, sleighs, skis, tools, and treating wounds. Pitch oil was also made out of tar and used to repel mosquitoes. During midsummer, smoke rose from tar-distillation pits in sandy riverbanks all around the village. Distilling one’s own tar was the custom of the country.

The end of the sailing ship era was disastrous for the tar exporting industry. As even the domestic demand for tar dwindled, the villagers once again distilled tar only for home use. The last significant tar distiller was Iisko Ristimella, who had a pit at the mouth of the Rautuoja River near Stena Lodge. Aapo Äkäslompolo distilled the last pit of tar in 1960 in the bank of Konijänkä.

Tar became Finland’s first real world trade product, and fleets of sailing ships treated with Finnish tar sailed all over the world for centuries. Tar distillation began in the 17th century, and during its peak in the mid 1800’s, the people of tiny Äkäslompolo worked hard to help meet the vast global demand. For many decades, tar distillation was the village’s largest source of income.

“The town of Kolari derived its name from professional tar distillers (tervakolari in Finnish), whose pits smoked on almost every heath.”

- Samuli Paulaharju

There was plenty of fuel for tar distillation on the pine heaths around Äkäslompolo. A permit from the forest officer was needed to gather stumps and fallen trees. The stumps were chopped up, and the chips were piled in a pit and covered with soil or peat. They were then burned with a smouldering fire that, at a certain temperature, caused the wood to secrete tar. The fire was not allowed to burn high, so it was fed with a limited amount of oxygen. Thus the pit had to be watched and tended constantly.

Samuli Paulaharju took this photograph of a tar distillation pit in Niesajoki in 1922.

Close to the more remote pits, tar distillers built huts that were also used by hunters and hay-makers. Multakota (Soil Hut), near Kotamaja, was originally a tar distillers’ base. Later it became a resting stop for hikers and skiers on the Pallas-Ylläs route, guide-marked by SMY (Suomen Matkailuyhdistys).

Jonne Äkäslompolo running tar through a wooden chute into a barrel, holding a stick with which the tar could be stopped while changing barrels.

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tar distilling

There were tar distillation pits by all the waters running into Äkäslompolo. The pits in the best locations were used for many decades. In the vicinity of the village, there were pits on the shores of the lakes Iso Kaupinjärvi, Pikku-Kauppi, and Kesänkijärvi, and the Äkäs River. They were by water because the tar barrels were floated all the way to the Muonio River.

Midsummer floods carrying tar barrels from Äkäslompolo to the world market.

“If there’s even a calf-skinsized snow patch left on the fell, the water’s still good for tar-floating.”

- Iisko Ristimella

Tar barrels were floated down the Äkäs River to the shore of the Väylä waterway. There the barrels were put in the water with their plugs turned upward and bound together with ropes made of twisted birch twigs.

At the Väylä waterway, tar barrels were assembled into large rafts with a long oar at each corner. There were still 200 kilometres of rafting down the waterway, with all its rapids, to Tornio for shipping overseas. The old church of Kolari on the right.

Tar barrels had to be manufactured with care to withstand the rapids of the Äkäs River. A broken or leaking barrel meant less pay.

The village barrel masters had special tools to make them strong and watertight. Iisko Ristimella was a renowned barrel maker in his time. Visitors to the Tano farm can see an old tar barrel as well as the tools needed to make it, for instance, a round plane.

Lumber camps Felling Green Gold

B

y the late 1800’s, the sawmills at the mouth of the Kemi River had consumed the nearby forests. Thus lumber camps spread rapidly up north along the river. Extensive camps were established in southern Kolari in the early 1870’s, and up the Äkäs River in the following decade. At first, only big trees were felled for lumber, but smaller trees were later used by the paper industry. Birch was used for plywood; aspen for matches.

The lumber camps required far more men and horses than the village had to offer, so lumberjacks were recruited with newspaper ads. Hundreds of workers arrived, even from Southern Finland. Lumber camps were often remote, and even if they had been closer, Äkäslompolo could not accommodate such a large, temporary work force. The problem was solved by building lodges close to the logging sites.

Lumber camp lodges were made of logs and sealed with moss. They were kept warm with sheet metal stoves that required continuous heating. But in spite of the stoves, during the coldest winter nights, it wasn’t at all unusual for someone’s hair to freeze against the wall. If no one was appointed as fire guard, whoever felt chilliest got up and relit the fire.

Lumber camps had their own laws, of which three were above the others: 1.

If a lumberjack felled an unmarked tree, he was fired immediately.

2.

Fights and brawls came with the territory, but manslaughter was punishable.

3.

Touching the camp cook/housekeeper carried the most severe punishment: group beating. The sometimes near fatal beatings were given even if the cook had been willing. The rule was so strict to keep the men from fighting and to guarantee the women’s safety, as they were needed to cook food for the men.

“Earning crust in the wild is heavy toil. / Sweat and dirt your shirt will soil.”

- Tapio Rautavaara in his song Jätkän lauantai (Lumberjack’s Saturday)

lumber camps

There were dozens of lumber camp lodges in the Äkäslompolo area over the years. Some are still in use; others in ruin. Some were modest; some grand. Some were small; some large enough to accommodate a whole village. For example, the two lodges of the camps by the Kuerlinkka Falls had room for 90 men and the managers, as well as an office. In addition, some of the men boarded in the nearby houses.

Lumberjacks of the large Hannukainen camps posing for a group portrait typical of the era. The camp cook seems to be in the family way. A frame saw and a two-man saw bent into a circle are in the place of honour.

This educational picture from a 1930’s classroom emphasizes the importance of forestry.

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Savotat Vihreän kullan kaatajat

K

eKemijoen suulle rakennetut sahat olivat 1800-luvun loppupuolella nielleet lähiseutujen metsät. Niinpä savotat levisivät nopeasti jokivarsia pitkin pohjoista kohti. 1870-luvun alkupuolella alkoivat suuret metsätyösavotat eteläisessä Kolarissa, ja seuraavalla vuosikymmenellä aloitettiin hakkuut Äkäsjokivarressa. Ensin kaadettiin vain isoja tukkeja sahatavaraa varten, mutta myöhemmin myös pinotavaraa paperiteollisuutta varten. Koivuja kaadettiin vaneria ja haapoja tulitikkuja varten.

Kylän muutama mies ja pari hevosta eivät riittäneet savotoiden tarpeisiin, joten työntekijöitä houkuteltiin muualta mm. lehti-ilmoituksilla. Suurin osa työväestä tulikin muualta aina Etelä-Suomea myöten. Työmaa oli useimmiten kaukana asutuksesta eikä Äkäslompolosta muutoinkaan löytynyt sopivia majapaikkoja isolle ja tilapäiselle joukolle. Ongelma ratkaistiin rakentamalla työmaiden lähelle kämppiä. Savottakämpät tehtiin hirsistä, joiden tilkkeeksi laitettiin sammalta.

Lämmityslaitteena oli peltinen kamiina, joka vaati jatkuvaa tulenpitoa. Kovalla pakkasella sisällä tuli silti niin kylmä, että kämpän seinään jäätynyt tukka ei ollut tavaton tapaus. Jos erityistä kipinämikkoa ei ollut, niin viluisin heräsi ensin ja laittoi kamiinaan tulet.

Savotoilla oli omat lakinsa, joista kolme oli ylitse muiden: 1.

Leimaamattoman puun kaadosta sai heti lopputilin.

2. Tappelunnujakat kuuluivat asiaan, mutta miehen taposta

joutui vastuuseen.

3. Kämppäemäntään koskemisesta seurasi ankarin rangaistus eli

sakinhivutus. Siinä oli hengenlähtö lähellä. Hivutukseen joutui,

vaikka emäntä olisi ollut myötämielinen. Rangaistusuhka oli näin

ankara eripuran välttämiseksi ja siksi, että savotoille tarvittiin naisia

ruuanlaittoon ja miesporukan keskellä heille piti taata turvalliset olot.

”Kovaa on kun korvesta kannikan koppaa, Hiki siinä souvissa paitahan toppaa”

- Tapio Rautavaara kappaleessa Jätkän lauantai

lumber camps

Large lumber camp lodges were divided into compartments. The lumberjacks’ quarters were in the “blunt end”. Around the walls of the men’s quarters, there was usually a sleeping bench, later replaced by bunk beds. In the middle of the room there was a stove. There was also a large table and a small drying room for the equipment of horses and men. The “sharp end” was for the cook and the site managers, the “gaffer-master”, cashier, and log scaler. The cashier’s room also served as the camp office. The cook was the sovereign ruler of the kitchen and her adjoining room. The kitchen featured a large range stove. After the wars, lodge builders began using standardized plans, which led to uniform living conditions and better hygiene.

Lodges were loaded with atmosphere and aroma. In this pre-war photo, Heino Kaulanen (second row, second from the left) and Markku Kaulanen (second row, in front of the young camp cook).

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Large camps had their own cashier who paid the wages and checked the measurements of the felled logs. A travelling cashier visited smaller sites. Motley crowds tended to hang around lumber camps, so the cashier often carried a pistol to ensure the safety of log shipments and salary distributions. There was also some sort of a strongbox in the cashier’s office.

Lumber Camp Cashier Arvi Muotka paying a horseman at the Kuer River in 1950. Banknotes were large, but the 1000 mark note was only worth 35 euros, so even such a thick bundle of banknotes didn’t make the horseman rich. Arvi was from Ylimuonio, and he had received a bad head wound in the war, so he could no longer do heavy forest work. But he was widely known in Äkäslompolo as a cashier and assistant foreman.

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lumber camps

The lumberjack’s life was simple and tough. The days took their course: Wake-up was at six, followed by a hearty serving of reindeer meat.

Horsemen harnessed the horses; the others went on ski to the site. Snow was shovelled from a two-metre radius around a tree, so that a two-man saw could be used to fell the tree down to the required low stump. Then the branches were axed off and the tree was cut into logs of the required length.

And then off to shovel the snow from around the next tree... Lunch at the camp-fire consisted of coffee and rye bread dipped in lard. Now and then, lumberjacks helped horsemen with their load. At dusk, it took an hour to ski back to the lodge. Dinner was usually meat soup. Evenings consisted of equipment maintenance, playing cards, and telling stories. Porridge and bread was eaten as a late supper. Sleep came easy...

Kalle Kangosjärvi (b. 1910) and Heikki/Henne Äkäslompolo (b. 1905) from Luosu at work.

Lumberjacks carried bread, lard, butter, and coffee in their back packs. They melted lard on a frying pan or roasted it over a fire on a stick. The lunch break culminated in a pot of coffee. After the holidays, lumberjacks often brought from home a well-preserving pastry called “Mettäkakko” (Woods Cake).

Einari Kangosjärvi (on the left), Eelis Kangosjärvi, Jussa Utterström, and Arvid Utterström taking a coffee break. Eelis is making coffee and Jussa heating something to eat.

lumber camps

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Good workers have always taken good care of their tools. Head of the Kukaslompolo farm, Juho Palomaa, sharpening his frame saw for felling and cutting small trees. Antti Kuru doing the same job a few decades later. The round file reveals that the chainsaw isn’t one of the very first models.

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lumber camps

The horse was the lumberjack’s most important aide, which increased its master’s salary substantially. Thus the horse’s well-being was conscientiously taken care of. After work, the horse was checked, groomed, and fed. Early in the morning, horsemen gave their sidekicks oats or mash made of hay and flour, and moistened with warm water.

A well-kept horse could plough through thick snow all day, pulling large loads to the temporary log store called the lanssi.

Tuure/Tyyre Kaulanen and his horse Voikko giving sawyer Tuure Friman a ride to the lanssi in the 1930’s.

In passable terrain, logs were also hauled by reindeer bulls. Reindeer were cheaper to purchase and take care of than horses. On the other hand, reindeer loads were smaller, which meant less income. The best way to haul logs with reindeer was to ski ahead. The bull would follow, as he had learned to do travelling in file.

Tourists giving way to a reindeer hauling a load of firewood.

lumber camps

After the wars, tractors arrived at the lumber camps. However, they weren’t powerful enough to operate in snowy forests, so horses hauled the logs to the temporary store, from where they were taken by tractor to the float shore.

Barked logs were brought by tractor to the ice of Lake Äkäslompolo in March 1958. In late spring, the ice of “Lompolo” was covered with piles of logs.

Aukusti Raittimo took quick steps in his career. One day at the lumber camp, his saw broke. It had been a bad morning altogether, so Aukusti was done with it: he stuck the stub of the saw in a tree and left. He took driving lessons and managed to buy a truck. This career change made Aukusti one of the first professional truck drivers in the area.

Aukusti driving logs with a rig of the new era.

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log floating

Log Floating

T

he forest resources of Äkäslompolo were vast, but transportation made utilizing them problematic. Distances were long, and no road came to Äkäslompolo until the 1950’s, so the only way to get the green gold to the world market was by floating it to Tornio. A successful float required much preparation, which also impacted the river environment. Rapids were cleared of rocks, and bends were reinforced with sturdy embankments. At some points, floating booms guided the logs in the desired direction. As soon as the ice melted, the tributaries of the Äkäs and Kuer Rivers were dammed to ensure sufficient water for floating. Log floating remained for decades in the landscape of Äkäslompolo, as some of the floodgates of the large Äkäs River dam are still visible beside the bridge. The dams withheld enough water to float logs down the rocky and shallow Äkäs River to the Muonio River.

When the ice began to melt, the men of the village prepared for the float.

A long, wrist-thick fir was barked and dried to serve as the handle of a pike pole. An iron pike was attached to the pole. It had a hook for pulling logs and a spike for pushing them. The logging company provided wooden pry bars for levering logs into the river. The pry bars were also used to break up logjams. Log drivers wore ordinary working clothes, a hat, and a knapsack for lunch. Log drivers wore leather boots that were higher than usual and waterproofed with wax. Rubber boots didn’t arrive in Finland until the early 1900’s, and decades later in the north.

In the winter, logs were hauled by horse to temporary stores called lanssis on the ice or riverside to wait for floating, which was begun as soon as the ice melted. The logs were rolled into the river, and the long voy-

age to the sea began. Due to diligent preparation, the Äkäs River float didn’t last long, but workdays were long and heavy. In places where logs were known to get jammed, men were waiting to break them up immediately. Last of all came the tail group that released any logs still stuck in the river or the riverbank. The logs were floated down the Väylä waterway to the Hellälä repository at the mouth of the Tornio River, where they were sorted out according to the owning logging company.

The log driver’s life was cold and wet. Days were spent on watch, wading on the shores, and drudging with logs. Men were often exhausted, working for days on end without sleep.

Boatmen sometimes became white water rafters. Svante Friman steering, and Pekka Halonen on the lookout in the Maijankoski rapids of the Äkäs River in June 1955. Pekka was told to have survived the Kuerlinkka Falls.

Log drivers with pike poles on the Kuer River bridge. The photo can be dated in the early 1960’s because the men are wearing caps instead of hats. Present villagers: Olavi Ristimella (on the left), Heimo Äkäslompolo wearing a quilted jacket and light cap, and in the front, with his back turned, Aapi Äkäslompolo.

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log floating

At the head waters, the float was rushed because of the brief flooding season. Rivers were quickly free of ice, but they stopped flooding before the lakes melted. That is why channels had to be sawed in the ice of Äkäslompolo and other river lakes. The sawed ice plates were pushed under the ice, creating a channel of running water for the logs. It was quite an ordeal to saw the over kilometre-long channel, as the ice was often a metre thick.

The Äkäs River is now ready to receive the float from the Kuer River. Logs making their way toward the ocean through the channel sawed in Joki (River) Lake in 1933.

The rivers were prepared for the float. Booms were built to stop the logs from spreading onto low-lying fields by the river. Already in 1933, there was a sturdy embankment, or kossa, below the Kuer River Falls, or the Linkkas, to prevent logjams.

log floating

Some of the unbarked logs got waterlogged and sank. For this reason, logging companies started to require barking the logs. Barking by hand was hard and rather unprofitable, so a wood barking machine was developed.

Chips of bark flying in Ahoj채nk채 in 1963, as bark master Markku Kaulanen does his job. A cant hook hangs from a barking trestle. They are used for handling and pulling logs from piles.

Logs were rolled down skids into the water. In the olden times, they were pried by hand. But it needed to be done quickly, so at the larger lanssis they started using bulldozers, and later, backhoe loaders. Machines stole the job of many a lumberjack.

Tracked loaders were nicknamed pillari because Caterpillar was long the leading manufacturer.

Crawler tractors rolling logs into the Paka River in 1949. Men watching from behind, ready to clear shoreline jams by muscle power.

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log floating

Because several companies purchased wood, logs were marked either when felled, at the lanssi, or at the beginning of the float. Company marks were chipped by axe.

When a log found its floating position, it seldom rolled over again, so if it was marked in the water, it was easy to identify at the final repository by the ocean.

Men marking logs, seated on a purpose-built marking trestle at the Joki Lake dam in the Kuer River in 1933.

The Kuer River was passable for floating only during the brief spring flood. In the fast-flowing rapids, logjams quickly grew so big that entire days were wasted clearing them. Releasing a jam was therefore an urgent task that required lots of men. It was also urgent because the water rose quickly in the narrow and deep canyon, leaving the log drivers with few rescue points.

To solve this problem, a kind of scaffold was built with booms (saapponi) above the Linkkas. If a logjam occurred, the chain of drivers yelled “Close the boom!” and gave the agreed hand signal. Whoever was at work on the scaffold closed the booms. When the jam was cleared, “Let the wood flow!” was relayed up the chain. However, during the shut-down, logs had piled at the upper boom, which often caused a new jam.

A log driving crew standing on a platform watching the lower Kuerlinkka in the 1930’s.

Clearing logjams was dangerous work. When the log that caused the jam was sprung free, drivers often had to leap away to safety— sometimes at the hazard of their lives. Kalle (Kaarle) Kangosjärvi (on the left) and Aukusti Raittimo clearing a logjam at the Niverkoski rapids of the Äkäs River.

For at least 21 years, the men of Äkäslompolo were responsible for floating the logs stored by the upper waters of the Äkäs River to the Muonio River.

The logs of the Kuer and Valkea Rivers were also included. All in all, log floating was a springtime activity of the villagers for almost a century, up to 1971. When the last float was over, the foreman offered the village men dinner.

Log drivers taking a break. Villagers recognized in the photo: Tuure Kangosjärvi, Arvo Friman, Aukusti Raittimo, Kaarle Kangosjärvi, Tuure Friman, and Oskar Förlund.

camp cooks

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Camp Cooks/Housekeepers The Women Behind It All “When men take care of their households on their own, they are seldom

in the wild has disappeared along with the old, straightforward sys-

very meticulous about tidiness and other trifling matters. Confined

tem, but no complaints have been heard from the persons concerned!

forest saunas fell into outright disarray. Lumberjacks have acknowl-

The arrival of women at lumber camps has been the greatest event in

edged their deficiency and begun hiring women to take care of the for-

this field of life.”

est saunas. The arrival of women has utterly changed the outlook and

conditions of the saunas. Much of the power and primal feeling of life

Laplander women had to adapt to the requirements of their families and communities. Women’s options on the labour market were limited. Girls who left home were offered only poorly paying jobs as maids or domestic help. The job of a camp cook/housekeeper was thus an attractive alternative. Cooks/ housekeepers had free lodging and food, and the salary wasn’t bad, either.

In addition, summers were off, so work didn’t hinder them from running their own farms. Hence many women from Äkäslompolo were involved in one way or another with provisioning for the lumber camps.

Lumber camp cooks had so much work that two cooks were needed for 20-30 men. Large lumber camps had many lodges and a team of cooks. Lumber camp cook Laura Hoppari working with her helpers at Väylänpää in Kolari in 1938.

- Pälsi 1923

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stirring the soup Camp cooks/housekeepers were provided with courses and guidebooks.

In a handbook printed in 1948, camp housekeepers are educated in tidiness and order. It even offers some useful tips. For example: How do you salvage scorched gruel? It is quickly poured into a clean pot and reboiled! In addition, the book contains recipes.

Stirring the Soup

S

aumber camp cooking evolved in three stages: first everyone made their own food; then the lumberjacks made food together; and finally they ended up hiring a cook. Normally the men of a lodge formed a “household” with one or two housekeepers and a camp master chosen from among the men. The master’s task was to keep the accounts, or in other words, to charge the men for the food and pay it forward to the store. Cooks worked from early morning until late night, making food and keeping the kitchen in shape. At some camps, the cook ran a little shop, selling the most common accessories.

At large camps, the company provided the cook and food supply. At first, the men were suspicious about this system and its costs. “You can’t trust the gents; especially forest gents.” Although lumberjacks paid the expenses of their own “households”, camp maintenance was costly for the companies. Therefore, a frugal but effective cook was worth her weight in gold.

Lumber camp cooks also had an important mission: the men’s diet had to be diversified and less fat used. Head Housekeepers, who were trained in home economics, taught camp cooks the basics of healthy eating. They cleverly applied their principles to practice by, for example, establishing vegetables as part of the menu. The education paid off, because lumberjacks gradually acquired a healthier diet.

Bone soup (for 10): • 1.5 kg bones

• 1 cup barley groats

• 5–6 l water

• 8–10 peppercorns

• 400 g swedes/rutabaga

• 1–2 onions

• 400 g carrots

• salt

• 5 kg potatoes Place the broken and browned bones in cold water on the fire and boil for 4-5 hours. Sift the bones out. Add the rinsed and well soaked groats, the peeled and chopped swedes/rutabagas and carrots, and the spices.

When the ingredients are half done, add the chopped potatoes and boil until done. If there is meat on the bones, remove it, dice it, and serve it in the soup.

stirring the soup

Ilta Äkäslompolo (later Kaulanen) spent her winters as a cook/housekeeper at the lumber camp near Kuoppa on the Äkäs River. Ilta and the logs waiting for the spring flood and the beginning of the 1947 float.

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tourists visiting

Tourist season was a busy time for the villagers.

Feeding the southern guests alone was a lot of work. Sometimes the men had to go as far as Tapojärvi (over 40 km) to find a store with food still in stock. The women baked, fried, and boiled their best for their full board guests. The baker and tasters (quality control) doing their job!

tourists visiting In the 1950’s, tourists often arrived in the middle of the night, hungry. We served them food in the sittingroom, which served as both the kitchen and the family’s only living quarters. A sleeping corner was separated from the room for the domestic help, and there we put our four children in a half-seated position while the tourists ate. Naturally, we’d explained to them that they’d be moved several times during the night, and they slept through it all. Things got a bit easier in 1960, when I built a room in the barn attic.”

- Heino Kaulanen

“We dwellers of the south have greatly enjoyed your fells, and above all, your wonderful hospitality!”

- Guestbook note, March 1951

Heino Kaulanen giving tourists a ride to the roadside in spring 1961. Kariniva Lodge in the background.

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history of tourism

Language Immersion

I

n olden times in Lapland, only travellers’ lodges made significant income from tourism. The situation changed in the 1930’s, when the Lapland fever began to spread in Southern Finland. Soon lodges and hotels were being built everywhere. This isolated fell village also got its share of guests from the south.

For a long time, tourism was only marketed by word of mouth. Tourists and the villagers communicated mostly by mail. Everything changed when the village got a telephone exchange and a road. As the telephone became more common, tourists started reserving their vacations by phone instead of postcard. The first steps of public marketing were taken by inviting people to Äkäslompolo on a popular radio program.

A travel ad in a 1955 issue of Hufvudstadsbladet (a Swedish newspaper in Helsinki).

The pioneer of tourism in Äkäslompolo was Runa Lindfors, who fell in love with the village in the early 1930’s. As an active member of the Swedish Federation for Physical Education for Women in Finland, she brought the first skiing course to the Riihi and Kaulanen farms in 1934.

She developed tourism by starting cooking courses for the women of the village. She also educated the villagers by helping to create the “Äkäslompolo and Kukaslompolo Library”, a small book collection kept at the main building of the Riihi farm.

The most significant forerunner of tourism was Gunnar Stenfors. He taught the villagers the basics of the tourism business by bringing groups to many farms. And quite a job he had, too, because at first the villagers were so flattered by their visitors from afar, that they only charged them a nominal fee.

Thanks to these Finnish-Swedish pioneers, most of the first tourists in the village were Swedish-speaking. Finnish-Swedes also built most of the oldest lodging houses in the village.

In 1922, Telegraphist Gunnar Stenfors was fascinated by downhill skiing and Lapland. The 19-year-old youngster studied downhill skiing in books and practised on the cliffs of Helsinki.

The following winter he travelled to Lapland to ski with his Danish colleagues. Skiing down the fells utterly enchanted Stenfors, and he became a trailblazer for downhill skiing in Finland. The worldly wise man made Äkäslompolo his second home by building the Stena Lodge in 1947. He participated in developing the village and also supported the young sports club, as well as the building of the old partner-dancing venue Riemuriihi (Joy Barn) and the first ski lift. Stenfors died of a seizure after a canoeing accident on the Äkäs River already in 1955. His memorial is at the peak of Kesänki Fell.

Children were intrigued by the tourists’ habits, clothes, equipment, and cars.

Village children watching tourists leaving the Riihi farm: Reijo Viuhkola (on the left) and Aimo and Reino Gardin. Orvokki Viuhkola chatting with the tourists (1954).

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history of tourism

After the wars, almost every farm in the village hosted tourists. At the end of the 1950’s, there were over a dozen providers of lodging.

history of tourism

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Slowly but Surely

I

nspired by Gunnar Stenfors, the Äkäslompolo villagers started developing tourism for supplementary income. In 1939, there were five farms that offered lodging: Riihi, Keski-Kaulanen, Kenttä, Rinne, and Mäkelä. The Second World War interrupted the growth of this endeavour. However, the village was spared from destruction, so lodging continued right after the war.

Tourism to the fells grew in short strides, so Äkäslompolo was still an ordinary Lapp village in the late 1960’s. In addition to the important late winter tourist season, income was generated by farming, forestry, and reindeer herding. Even the collapse of the agrarian society, mass unemployment, and the ensuing wave of emigration from Lapland did not change Äkäslompolo—only a few villagers went to Sweden, and most of them returned later. Instead of leaving, many families began developing their lodging facilities.

Thus the tourism industry flourished in the 1970’s, furthered by loans for accommodation buildings from the Regional Development Fund.

Dancing was added to the program when the renewed Riemuliiteri opened its doors in 1973. The completion of the Äkäs-Hotelli in 1974 was a major step into the modern era. The Lapp village had grown into a tourist centre.

“I arrived in the midnight darkness and I’m leaving under the glowing evening sun. I have seen you, Äkäslompolo, in rain and fog—and always I like you just as much.”

- Guestbook note, August 1948

Anja and Vertti Kurkkio gave up their cattle in 1966 and were the first villagers to venture full-time into the tourism business. They built Seitapirtti, the first accommodation company of Äkäslompolo large enough to need a trade licence. It was the largest lodging house of the village until the late 1970’s.

The newly built Seitapirtti waiting for tourists in spring 1967.

The famous musicians, Tapio Rautavaara and Reino Helismaa, performed at Ylläs-Humina, built in the late 1940’s. It was on a windswept spot, and the wind murmured through the walls. Thus the artists called it the Murmuring Hotel. The development of tourism was moderate, and the price-level was reasonable. In the 1957–58 season, Humina had 160 guests, and a day on full board cost 550 mk (around 12 euros).

Visitor Marjatta Kaarineva (née Nurminen) in the yard of Ylläs-Humina in April 1955.

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travelling

Far Is a Long Way to Go

T

rips to Lapland demanded an active spirit, strong buttocks, and good physical condition. First of all, the trip from Helsinki to Äkäslompolo by train, bus, and horse, took 36 hours. From the end of the railroad in Ylitornio, the journey continued by bus to the mouth of the Äkäs River. The Kemi airport was opened in June 1939.

Aero Oy flew its Dragon Rapide named “Lappi” on the route Helsinki– Tampere–Vaasa–Kemi.

The first groups skied 27 kilometres from the Äkäs River to Äkäslompolo, while their baggage was taken by horse. Because the bus came to the Äkäs River just before midnight, the tired travellers often spent the night at houses on the way. The doors were always unlocked, so when people got up to do their morning chores, they might find the floor of the sitting-room full of sleeping guests.

A winter road for trucks was ploughed from the Äkäs River to the Kuer River in the late 1940’s. The winter road to Äkäslompolo for automobiles was opened on 1 April 1953. For the first time, two bus-loads of people and about twenty cars arrived in the village. The village had no year-round road until the late 1950’s. At that time, bus operator Niskala began a daily bus line from Tornio to Äkäslompolo.

“In those times, there were ten-day skiing courses, five in the spring and seven in the summer, seventy days altogether. The tourists had to walk all the way from the Äkäs River. Only their rucksacks were brought by horse. Of course, if someone was totally exhausted, they were taken on the wagon, but even that wasn’t an easy ride for the unaccustomed.”

- Anja Kurkkio

“We wanderers visited and remember you with gratitude.”

- Guestbook note, April 1949.

Drawing by Bernhard M. Lehtonen.

The brave motorists who ventured the side roads of Lapland had to be prepared for everything. Sometimes the conditions won: for example, many daring drivers were beaten by a muddy stretch in Karittaoja between Kuoppa and Äkäslompolo. This was also the fate of Torsten Rancken’s party in 1933. Luckily help was near: Usko Friman came from Kuoppa with his horse, Poju. Poju had belonged to Kalle Friman, and Usko had bid for him from the heirs. Tatu Friman also often brought genuine horsepower to the aid of cars stuck in the same puddle.

Early buses had scant storage space, so baggage and skis were often carried on the roof. In this photo, on the right, there is a sleigh trailer, pulled by a rubber-tracked tractor or truck. On a good winter road, it could be pulled by car as well. Such a trailer combination was called a halstrakki. Rancken called it a rokotiili, (crocodile). Trucks couldn’t pull it up the steep hills at Hannukainen.

Skis being moved from the roof of a bus to the roof of the sleigh trailer at the Äkäs River in March 1951.

travelling

Tourists returning from Äkäslompolo to the Äkäs River in March 1950. Fellow travellers serve as safety belts and heaters.

When the post-war import regulation was slackened, people could apply for a permit to buy a Western car.

The Beetle was a popular and trustworthy ride. Its engine was at the back, which meant good traction.

On the other hand, the trunk was hopelessly small for a trip up north.

Guests of Tammitieva packing holiday equipment and souvenirs on a car rack.

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travelling

For a long time, the Äkäslompolo road ended at the Riihi farm in the winter. From there on, baggage was carried to lodging places by reindeer or horse while the travellers skied.

Folks in the yard of Riihi packing things on a sleigh heading for the Kariniva Lodge.

The village boys found a way to earn pocket money by hauling travellers’ baggage by reindeer to their lodges and cottages. Seppo Välimaa (on the left) and Simo Äkäslompolo driving a “local taxi” in 1965.

A large group required many sleigh rides. All the visitors to the Kariniva Lodge and their baggage didn’t fit in a taxi-horse’s sleigh, so a reindeer was hired from the neighbouring house, Ristimella, to carry part of the baggage.

Kariniva guests heading home in 1955.

Those staying behind are seeing the others off.

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the first lodges

Tourism complemented the village livelihood in many ways. For example, building lodges and catering to guests were much needed sources of income.

Workmen Tuure Kangosjärvi (on the left), Eino Nuottila, and Heikki Äkäslompolo felling and sawing trees at Valkeajoki for the Kariniva Lodge. Heikki is holding a rip saw for making boards of the logs.

Lodges built by the tourists themselves made the village popular. The first one was the Kariniva Lodge (1939), then Nilipirtti (1941), the Stena Lodge (1947), Tammitieva (1948), Kruununmaja and Ylläsmaja (1949). More were built in the 1950’s, such as Ylläskartano, Tuulentupa, Pellas Lodge, Wihvelimaja, Röhkömukka, and Kuer­ kievari. Still today, the old lodges maintain the original Äkäslompolo spirit.

Skis on the wall of Tammitieva, built by people from Vaasa.

the first lodges

The Kariniva Lodge was built on the bank of the Äkäs River, initiated by Forest Officer Torsten Rancken. Some of the proud occupants at the opening: Jarl “Lale” Lindfors, Magnus Rancken, and Benny Schauman.

Bernard M. Lehtonen and Eino Westerback, friends from Helsinki, visited the new hotel on Pallas Fell on their first trip to Lapland in 1938.

The hotel reminded them too much of the Kämp Hotel in Helsinki. But the nature of Lapland enchanted them, so Harri and Eino decided to buy a shared cottage. They chose Nilivaara in Äkäslompolo. Since 1941, life at Nilipirtti has been recorded in the guestbook.

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The lives of the villagers and holidaymakers were intertwined. They shared joys and sorrows; chores and celebrations. This resulted in lasting friendships and family relations, which are the foundation and characteristic of tourism in Äkäslompolo.

“On 30 March, we had four skier-boys from the south in the small guest room, when my wife went into labour. If it was exciting for us in the sitting-room, it was even more so for the boys.

At 10:15 p.m., our daughter gave her first cry. Even the boys were relieved.

I entered the guest room at 10:30 and told them it was happily over. There they sat side by side, shocked, but still happy. Few people get to experience what they did. Those four boys became Eira Sylvia’s godparents. I’m sure they’ll always remember the Lapp mother’s lullaby whenever they think of that skiing holiday in Lapland, 1953.”

- Heino Kaulanen

“Us kids and the tourists got to know each other well. We practised business by servicing their skis and heating saunas for them for a small fee. We played some pranks, too. Once we threw snowballs at a respected senior industrialist. He turned, gave us a stern look, and shook his finger. We were stiff with fright. He said in his strong, deep voice, “Children, the most important thing in life is good behaviour.” The old man went on his way and didn’t look back, and the significance of good behaviour hit home once and for all!”

- Mauri Kuru

shared life

The coexistence of hosts and visitors was plain to see because tourists thought it was fun and practical to wear Lappish clothing. A regular guest of Kukaslompolo, Wava von Essen, going on a sleigh ride in 1939. She had Aino and Juho Palomaa over for a return visit in Helsinki.

Visitors often invited villagers over for evening visits. Arvid Äkäslompolo (on the left), Tuure Kaulanen, Sandra Äkäslompolo of Kenttä, Nili-Kusti Kangosjärvi, Amanda Äkäslompolo of Riihi, Hille Kaulanen, and Otto Äkäslompolo visiting the Stena Lodge. Gunnar Stenfors is seated beside Otto, half concealed behind his lady friend.

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full board

At first, the women of the farms also took part in the skiing courses.

This changed when they started getting serious about catering to the travellers. Many courses on hygiene and versatile cooking were organized in the village. Vegetables hadn’t been eaten much before, but now they were introduced to the menu.

Helvi Kuru making food for tourists at the Keski-Kaulanen farm.

Her daughter, Paula, amazed by a tourist’s magic trick.

full board

“We were here again, and we wolfed down pancakes and coffee.”

- Guestbook note, November 1946

“The tourists had just survived a heavy depression, worse than we’d ever had, so they weren’t very demanding. Stena said, ‘They can’t go abroad, so they come here’.”

- Anja Kurkkio

/ tourists visiting

The wood-burning stove named Kotiliesi (Home Stove), made at a famous foundry in Pori, was surprisingly versatile, and perfect for cooking for a large group. On the left side, there are two fireboxes. Of the two ovens in the middle, the upper one is hotter. A boiler is on the right. On top is a range with hotplates. The iron stove also provides enough heat for large kitchens.

Sirkka Äkäslompolo (later Friman) at the Tano farm with her faithful stove.

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full board

Guests were accommodated in the best vacant spaces.

They slept in the sittingroom in the forefront, while the hosts squeezed into a little cranny behind the curtain in the back.

Ilta Kaulanen pouring evening tee.

Erkki Liuksiala entertaining people at Tammitieva as an Easter witch in 1954.

full board

/ tourists visiting

“Welcome, tired wayfarer, come inside our cottage.”

- Tyyre Kaulanen

Ski course participants slept on temporary beds that were taken apart after the season. Sometimes the atmosphere got too close. Heimo Äkäslompolo made beds at the Rantala farm. It happened that two adults occupied one, and it broke. They complained to Heimo, but he answered, “It wasn’t registered, but for one.”

The sports organization Suomen Latu brought large groups to Äkäslompolo. A group photo from the 1950’s.

The village had no evening programs for the tourists, so they organized their own parties at their lodging places. An almost mandatory number was the Lappish baptism for newcomers to Lapland. The ceremony consisted of mystical incantations, facepainting with coal, and potent tots resembling reindeer milk.

Colourful fancy dress parties were traditions at Tammitieva.

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skiing

skiing Keeping up with the Times

I

n their traditional lifestyle, Laplanders never went out in the wilderness for fun, so they were at first bewildered by the tourists skiing “for no good reason”. Cross-country competitions were familiar, but downhill skiing was an odd sport.

Downhill skiing originated in Telemark, Norway, in the 19th century, and arrived in Finland in the early 1900’s. Renowned artist Akseli Gallen-Kallela also followed his times and practised the sport in Austria in 1903. He summarized: “It took almost the whole day to get to the top, but only a few minutes to get down.” While there still was no proper Finnish name for slalom, words to the like of twist-hill, down-slope, and even serpentine skiing were used.

At first, women had to organize their own downhill skiing courses because in those days, people believed that it might endanger the physique, nervous system, and femininity of women. Äkäslompolo’s first women’s skiing course took place on the Kuer and Ylläs Fells. In 1936, there were already three courses with so many participants that they had to be divided into level groups. These courses were based at the Riihi farm until spring 1941. The first school skiing holidays took place in 1941, and a course was organized for children from Töölö, Helsinki.

After the war, in 1947, skiing courses were continued.

The skiing courses in Äkäslompolo were of top quality, given by our country’s foremost skiers, like Gunnar Stenfors and Rabbe Schauman.

For example, both gentlemen brought the latest tides of the sport from the skiing instructors’ refresher course in Storlien, Sweden, in 1936–37.

Cross-country skiing courses were arranged on the route Sirkka–Äkäslompolo–Pallas in spring 1939.

At first, people only skied to get to the fell. Skiers took turns opening the trail. The only forest stretches were the transitions from fell to fell.

After a hearty breakfast and making bagged lunches, tourists are heading out on a whole-day skiing trip. Seeing them off from Keski-Kaulanen, Helvi Kaulanen (later Kuru, wearing an apron) with her little brother Lauri.

Forestry students sun-bathing at Pyh채 Fell in spring 1937.

The day on skis culminated in the severalkilometre descent from the fell. The tips of the skis have a special design.

skiing

/ tourists visiting

Extreme sports in the olden times.

Gentlemen don’t compromise their style, even on the fell.

There have always been tricks to waxing skis: “The weather’s been both calm and stormy. We’ve waxed all wrong, too, but jesting and joking has kept us in high spirits to the end.”

- Guestbook note, 1954

Companies often arranged trips for their workers.

Wärtsilä factory workers at the Kurkkio farm in 1960.

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Over the years, some of the young villagers were also bitten by the ski bug. As leisure time increased and equipment developed, downhill skiing grew in popularity.

Sisters from Äkäslompolo, Irma Kaulanen (on the left) and Sirkka Friman in their classy skiing clothes. They have secured their hats on with scarves. The standing-dead pine in the picture was Sirkka’s favourite tree, which she climbed whenever she went skiing on Ylläs tracks.

skiing

The first “ski bistro” of Ylläs was dug into the snowdrifts of Varkaankuru. After a blizzard, it had to be found and dug out. Kauko Komulainen opened the first official ski café on the Ylläs slope in spring 1953. But perhaps he was ahead of his time, since skiers still got their day’s provisions from their lodging places. Consequently, Kauko’s café was open for only one spring. The next year, Paavo Komulainen started a slope café made of hardboard at the bottom of Varkaankuru, which served for a few years. The time wasn’t ripe for ski bistros until 1968, when Kotamaja was opened.

Kauko’s brother Antti Komulainen posing by the Varkaanjänkä café.

The Finnish Forest and Park Service started setting ski tracks around Ylläs by machine in the mid 1970’s. Kalervo Uuttu and Ahti Tolonen were ski track pioneers from the village. The officials hoped that the groomed tracks would keep skiers from getting lost, and also from burning dead standing pines to make their camp-fires. The father of the idea was Forest Officer Yrjö Hämäläinen, who felt that the state should promote tourism in Lapland, but still protect the environment. Ahti, riding the snowmobile, and Yrjö, sitting on the tracksetter, were a familiar sight around Ylläs for years. Not everyone was happy, though. Once when they were setting a track, they were met by Chief Director Eirik Arnkil, who said, “Well, well, here comes the very inspector with the district forester himself as the tracksetter weight. Don’t forest officers have anything more important to do?”

Yrjö Hämäläinen, a forerunner in the diverse use of forests (on the left), and District Supervisor Ahti Tolonen taking a break at a ski track crossing.

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skiing

The first ski lift was built on Ylläs Fell in 1957, marking a new era for downhill skiing. The lift was 300 metres long, ascending 80 metres. It was powered by a Volkswagen engine, and fuel cans were carried up from the village to the lift. It was on stateowned land, so it was inaugurated by District Superintendent Matti Korkala of the Finnish Forest and Park Service.

The opening day line-up.

Using the lift was tricky. Skiers needed a special belt and a rope with a wooden bar at one end and a steel bar at the other. They held the wooden bar attached to the belt, and there was a notch in the steel bar so it could be hitched to the cable. At the top, they had to yank themselves free of the cable. There were 120 lift belts in use, rented for one day.

Aatos Kaulanen preparing to help a skier attach her lift belt. Both have gaiters, or “snow-stoppers”, around their ankles.

skiing

Sometimes skiers made an unsuccessful start and fell onto the lift track. People rushed to help, because it was hard for a fallen skier to detach the bar from the cable. If they couldn’t get the bar off, the lift was stopped. The lift operator at the top couldn’t see the entire track, which was a problem, because a fallen skier might be dragged a long way before being seen. Sometimes unlucky skiers even crashed through one or more lift support trestles before the lift was stopped.

Hille Kaulanen rushing to the rescue of a skier in distress.

The lift wasn’t profitable, so the municipality of Kolari shut it down already in 1963, and for the next five years, people climbed Ylläs Fell using good old muscle power. Then, along with the road and electricity, which came to the village in 1968, a new lift was built on the slope rising from Äkäslompolo. The idea came from Jorma Raudasvirta, who established the company Yllästunturi Oy to run the lift. Not lacking a spirit of entrepreneurship, the partners mortgaged their homes to finance it. An old lumber camp lodge was transported from Manna Lake to serve as a ski café, and so the ski resort was ready.

In spring 1968, the roadside was full of skiers’ cars almost all the way to the village.

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services improve

Stiina Ulrika Välimaa (née Äkäslompolo) established the Humina store in 1958. It operated in the old Humina-Hotelli for three years, after which it was moved to the new building along with the family. The Välimaa family kept the store until 1988.

services improve

/ tourists visiting

Tourism had a massive impact on the development of Äkäslompolo.

The new livelihood increased the population and created new services and jobs. The revitalizing effect was seen, for example, in the fact that at one time, the little village had three stores.

Jouni Kaulanen opened the first store in Äkäslompolo on 23 March 1950. In the early years, the most-selling articles were sweets, which hadn’t been available for years because of the wars. The selection was gradually expanded. It was mainly financed by bill of exchange, with interest rates as high as 22%. Finally, wholesaler Eino Aho Oy arranged a proper loan for Jouni, and the store grew. Jouni was also responsible for provisioning and fuel for the Luosu lumber camp. At the camp, there were 150 men, 30 horses, and around twenty tractors for which Jouni hand-pumped fuel in the freezing cold by night. Actually, the store was always open, so Jouni was a genuine 24/7 storekeeper well before modern times! Sometimes customers would find him asleep behind his counter, exhausted by his long workdays.

The Torne Valley Retail Co-operative was founded in the bakery building of the Riihi farm in 1950. From 1952 on, Kauko Kyrö was the storekeeper. Kerosene was stored in barrels in the yard.

Bright kerosene lamps quickly replaced all other types of lights.

The stack of bread boxes on the right reveals that the farm women no longer baked the way they used to.

In the mid 1950’s, the retail co-operative moved across the street. Its name was also changed to E-liike (E-Store). Its third building rose in 1964 at the main road intersection. It was operating under the name E-Eväskori (EPicnic Basket) when it was finally shut down in 1991. Amanda Äkäslompolo seeing a tourist off on the bus to Tornio, which left from the store.

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toward a new era

In February 1974, the village stepped into a new era as the 22-room Äkäs-Hotelli was built by Jorma Raudasvirta. Some villagers were also stockholders in the new hotel.

The new wonder, the hotel restaurant’s licence to serve alcohol, turned out to be more important than accommodation.

In no time, the hotel’s boisterous nightlife created the legend of Pirtukirkko (the Spirits Church), which was fostered by both tourists and villagers. At the restaurant, villagers learned the “ways of the world”.

Friendships and love stories were born on the dance floor. Most of the hotel’s employees were migrants who brought new life to the village. Quite literally, because many of them came to stay.

As a boundary marker between the old and new lifestyles, the Äkäs-Hotelli is an appropriate place to end this book about the tiny, remote village in the course of time.

The customers of the first hotels and restaurants included celebrities from near and far. Legends were born: “They always kept tenderloin in stock at the restaurant of Hotelli Äkäskero for Reidar Särestöniemi. While Reidar and his party always had plate-sized steak tartare, to the astonishment of the Central European guests, his big dog Pikkusielu (Petty Soul) would eat nothing but tenderloin. Reidar’s menu was the same at the Äkäs-Hotelli Restaurant as well.

- Helena Ollila (née Ristimella).

“In January 1945, as we carried our belongings to the Riihi farm by sleigh, we only had a small wooden box, half full.

That was everything we owned. We still have that box. I hope it lasts long after us as a reminder that the poor can also be happy, because we were truly happy back then.”

- Heino Kaulanen

Nili-Kusti Kangosjärvi in his yard at Nilivaara with tourist Pällinen.

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Literature

Defenders of the Independence of Finland

Alatalo, Maila: Elämän eväät Äkäslompolosta. Alatalon käsityö Ky 1995

01.

Jakola = Einari Gardin (fell 4.3.1940), Jaako Gardin, and Pauli Gardin.

Pauli and Jaako were released from service on 1.9.1943, when it was found that they were Swedish citizens.

02.

Kenttä = Aapo Äkäslompolo and Johannes (Hannes) Äkäslompolo.

03.

Keski-Kaulanen = Jouni Kaulanen, Markus (Markku) Kaulanen, and Martti Kaulanen (wounded 14.12.1939, 10.3.1940, and 9.11.1941).

04.

Kämppäemännän käsikirja (näköispainos vuodelta1948).

Suomen uittoperinneyhdistys ry 2006.

Konikumpu = Pauli Äkäslompolo (fell 8.9.1941), son-in-law Erkki Juho Mäkitalo (personnel replacement centre, wounded in the hand by a grenade in 1944).

05.

Kurula = Väinö Kivijärvi (fell 9.7.1944).

Manninen, Ilmari: Pohjan pitkiltä periltä. WSOY 1936

06.

Lehto = Father Hille Kaulanen and sons Heino Kaulanen and Toivo Kaulanen, and son-in-law Vertti Kurkkio.

07.

Möyhölä =Antti Äkäslompolo and Heimo Äkäslompolo.

08.

Nilivaara = Eelis Vilhelm Kangosjärvi (wounded 13.12.1939), Einari Henrik Kangosjärvi, Kaarle (Kalle) Kustaa Kangosjärvi (wounded 8.2.1940) and Tuure Aukusti Kangosjärvi..

09.

Riihi = Armas Friman (fell 19.12.1939), Lauri Ristimella.

10.

Ristimella = Ilmo Ristimella (wounded 22.8.1941 and 12.11.1942), Oiva Ristimella, Pontus Ristimella (wounded 17.8.1941) and Osvald (Valtti) Ristimella

11.

Tano = Kauno Äkäslompolo (died in field hospital 13.11.1943).

Jaako, Kaisa: Kolarin asutuskehitys autonomian aikana.

Oulun yliopiston Pro gradu 1994 Jaako, Pentti: Suomussalmelta Ihantalaan; kolarilaisten sotatie 1939–1945. Kolarin seurakunta ja Kolarin kunta 1992 Kaulanen, Kari (toim.): Lehon torpan tarinoita Hille ja Saima Kaulasen lasten ja lastenlasten kertomina. Tornionlaakson Kustannus Oy 2011 Kortesalmi, J. Juhani: Poronhoidon synty ja kehitys Suomessa. SKS 2008

Oksanen, Hilkka (toim.): Saariputhaan juurila. Väylä-Yhtiöt 2008 Paulaharju, Samuli: Lapin muisteluksia. WSOY 1962 Paulaharju, Samuli: Vanhaa Lappia ja Perä-Pohjaa. SKS 3. painos 2010 Peura, Kaija ja Paavo: Joppareita, tullihurttia ja rajakyyliä.

Medi-Väylä Oy 2004 Rasmussen, Siv: ...Vellikaara Vettasia... Muonion ja Äkäslompolon alueen saamen historia. Muonion kunta 2008

Sponsors Destination Lapland Jounin Kauppa The Municipality of Kolari Seita Holiday Resort Mailan Putiikki Metsähallitus (Finnish Forest and Park Service) /Kellokas Ylläshumina The Äkäslompolo Family Society

In addition, from Kuoppa, Hannukainen, and Luosu in Äkäslompolo: 12. Hannukainen/Kuoppa/Äkäsjoki: Einari Emanuel Friman (wounded 4.1.1940 and 9.11.1941) Eino Alvari Friman (fell 16.3.1944), Juhani Olavi Friman (fell/lost in action 24.6.1944), Lauri Kustaa Friman (wounded 22.6.1944), Osmo Sigvart Friman/Raittimo (wounded 2.2.1940), Svante Alarik Friman (wounded and taken prisoner of war 14.12.1939), Usko Friman, Väinö Lennard (Lenna) Friman, Usko Ferdinand Komulainen, Väinö Johannes Leppälä (from the lumber camp), Johan Ernst Utterström, and Yrjö Arvid Utterström.

13. Luosu: Aarne Johannes Kihlanki, Eeli Johannes Kihlanki (fell 12.7.1944), Eino Jalmari Lompolojärvi, Kaarle Kustaa Lompolojärvi, Lenna Johannes Lompolojärvi (wounded 7.8.1944), Osmo Jalo Lompolojärvi, Veikko Samuel Lompolojärvi, Reino Jalmari Äkäslompolo (wounded 15.2.1940 and died in hospital 21.2.1940).

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Photographs Number = page number, B = bottom, T = top, M = middle, L = left, R = right Alatalo, Maila Friman, Sirkka Fotolia.com Friman, Emmi and Tatu Gardin, Aimo Gunst, Robert Kangosjärvi, Matti Kaulanen, Aatos Kaulanen, Heikki Kaulanen, Ilta Kaulanen, Lauri Kaulanen, Veikko Kurkkio, Markku Kuru, Mauri Kuru, Mauri; Kuru, Sirpa

Kyrö, Liisa

Lapin Kansa/archive Lehtonen, Yrjö M. Niskakoski, Kalervo Nurmela-Antikainen, Marjukka Palomaa, Samuli and Raija Peltonen, Pauli and the Äkäslompolo Family Society

17TL, 17TM 17BR, 22B, 28M, 54BM, 55TL, 65TR, 76, 95T, 143 146T 28R, 41R, 54TL, 59TR 13L, 17TR, 30TL, 50B, 57TL, 66L 63BL 32, 54BL, 57BR, 96T, 121, 157 29, 31BR, 34T, 37TR, 45BL, 49T, 51B, 57TR, 59TL, 89,101, 104, 150, 151T, 152B, 153T 75 88TL, 125, 144T 17BL, 30BL, 31TR, 65TL, 83T, 88R, 93 30R, 119T 16, 37BR, 38, 50M, 110, 131B, 149BR Foreword, top Cover photo, 18BR, 19BL, 19BR, 27, 28L, 31TL, 31BL, 48BR, 54BR, 56BR, 65B, 113R, 114B, 142R, 146B, 147, 148T, 148B, 149TL, 149TR 12, 34BL, 34BR, 37L, 45BR, 47T, 50T, 51TL, 51TR, 73, 97T, 106T, 109T, 112L, 112R, 114T, 115B, 122, 142TL, 155L 54TR 53BR 60, 67, 102, 109B, 124, 132, 139B 55TR 39T, 72B, 88BL, 95B 130, 145T, 145B, 149BL, 150T, 151B, 152T, 153B, 154T

Qvist, Meeri; Luopakka, Saara 35, 36L, 55BL, 64T, 66M, 131T, 136B Rancken, Torsten 14L, 18TR, 21, 25, 134, 135T, 138T Rancken, Torsten / the Western Uusimaa Regional Museum, Back cover, 10, 19T, 24, 39B, 40, 41L, 44, 62M, 70, 94, 97B, 113L, 115T, 116B, 118R, 127, 129, 133, 136T, 137, 139T, 141, 153B Reku, Oiva 154B Ristimella, Anja 36R, 57BL, 59BR Ristimella, Anne 48TR Saarinen UA 15TR, 63TR, 74, 78L, 78R, 79, 86R, 87 Siilasvuo family collections 62B SKS 23, 83B, 105L Stenfors, Gunnar 54BM, 90, 128, 141L Tammitieva 135B, 138B, 144B Tapojärvi, Orvokki and Heino 43, 45T, 46BR, 49B, 53TR, 56T, 61, 64B (4 pcs.), 77T, 77B, 155R Taskinen, Keijo Foreword, bottom, 6, 8, 14TR, 14BR, 20, 22T, 42, 46BL, 68, 71R, 80, 81, 92, 99, 100, 107R, 108, 116T, 126, 140, 142BL The Finnish Forest Museum 7, 15L, 48L, 72T, 91,103, 119B, 148M The Finnish Museum of Photography 33L (Vesa Mäkinen) The Forestry Museum of Lapland 111, 118L, 120T, 120B, 123 The Hunting Museum of Finland 15M (Aapo-Matti Salmi) The National Board of Antiquities 9, 13R, 18TL, 46TR, 47B, 53L, 62T, 69, 71BL, 84, 106B, 107L, 156T The Sports Museum of Finland 18BL The Särestöniemi Museum 63BR, 66R, 156B Uuttu, Kirsti 33R, 55BR, 85, 86L, 98, 117 Vastavalo.fi 82 Äkäslompolo, Elsa; Äkäslompolo Kirsi 15B, 26, 52, 56BL, 58, 59BL, 63TL, 71T, 96B, 105R

Vocabulary “Over there the women piled hay on a suti with their rakes, but I made nökkös. They actually laughed at that word. Here we talked about buildings when we made hay drying stack constructions; in Muusa they made roikonens. If we left hay on the field over the winter, we put them on a saura, but over there they made suovas.”

- Anja Kurkkio

Talking the Talk The Torne Valley dialect is very distinct from other Finnish dialects. For example, it emphasizes the letter “h”, adding it to various words redundantly. Due to the many

phases of settlement, the dialect has features from Häme, South-Western Finland, Karelia, and even Savo.

The closeness of the border and the period of evacuation have brought Swedish words to the vocabulary. In particular, interaction with the Sami has brought plenty of Sami words into location names and reindeer herding vocabulary. Unlike other villages close to the border, the language of Äkäslompolo has taken much influence from the Ounas River dialect, which speaks of close interaction with Kittilä. Our old families did not marry across the Väylä, but across the highlands. Our dialect has also retained many of the old words from the time when Finnish and Estonian had not yet separated.