Lapland Impressions

Lapland is a realm of eight seasons, the midnight sun, and long winters. The setting of human life in Lapland is the immeasurable, breath-taking expanse of nature. It is no wonder, then, that Laplanders are steadfast and sensitive, reliable and relaxed.

Lapland is as far north as Central Greenland. However, the Golf Stream makes Lapland’s climate more moderate and offeras the area everything necessary for life. Over time, a progressive and safe, affluent society has developed in this most sparsely populated corner of Europe.

Photographer and non-fiction author Keijo Taskinen knows how to put the Lappish lifestyle into images and words.

Lapland Impressions is an intriguing journey from light to shadow, from the sea to the fells, from daily life to celebration.

ISBN 978-952-5969-40-5

www.kirjakaari.fi

9 789525 969405

Lapland Impressions

Lapland Impressions

Keijo Taskinen

LapLAND Impressions

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The Land of Eight Seasons Like an orchestra conductor, the rhythm of changing light sets the pace for life in Lapland, the mythical northernmost region of Finland. Light also has direct effects on human brain activity. Sleep is regulated by melatonin – the biological clock or the “darkness hormone” – which the human body produces the most at night and during the polar night.

Midwinter causes many northerners excess fatigue, or polar night depression.

However, only an hour of outdoor exercise a day is enough to keep it at bay. Respectively, the abundant light of the summer decreases the need for sleep: children play until midnight, and people do yard work until the early hours. It is evident that we are close to the North Pole. Lapland’s most striking characteristics are its eight seasons, northern lights, polar night and midnight sun. Life is a celebration of silence, sounds of nature, light and colour.

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In October, Lapland is veiled in pastel hues. Here and there, alpine bearberries glow in carmine, reminders of the autumn display of colour. It is refreshing to breathe the air of Lapland, the cleanest air in Europe. Sitting in silence by a wilderness lake, you can hear strands of ice stretching toward the opposite shore. Everything is ready for the arrival of the Winter King.

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The moon rules the rhythm of Lapland’s winter. With the waxing moon, light increases day by day, until the full moon creates a white gleam amidst the polar night. Sauna bathing is branded in the Finnish soul – there are more saunas than cars in Lapland. A moonlight sauna caresses the mind and body. The blue-tinted polar night of midwinter has always enchanted people. You can admire the atmospheric “blue moment” on the following page.

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Every other night, the aurora borealis, the northern lights, dance in the Lapland sky. For proper fireworks in the sky, you need a burst of particles from the sun.

Then wait a couple of days while the particles travel toward Earth at a thousand kilometres per second.

Then go to a dark place between eight p.m. and midnight and watch the sky. Enjoy the memorable display of light created by the particles crashing into the upper atmosphere.

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In late winter and early spring, the sun climbs higher, warming minds and the snow, and the nightly chill forms a hard crust on the surface of the snow, making the wilderness easily accessible by ski. More and more people enjoy the health effects of winter swimming. It lowers blood pressure, banishes stress, and raises the spirit.

It also improves the body’s cold tolerance and energy balance regulation.

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Spring melts the ice, and there is water, water, everywhere!

As the mighty rivers of Lapland break themselves free of ice, the shores are often brutally reshaped. Night frost may slow down the spring, but it cannot stop the new life and growth from springing forth.

Overleaf: In mid-May, touching encounters between newborn reindeer calves and their mothers are typical on patches free of snow.

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Armadas of migratory birds arrive in early summer to make Lapland their concert hall. The first to return are the whooper swans, whose trumpet sounds are heard in late March. But white-throated dippers, which winter in Lapland, are already nesting when the migratory birds arrive. Lapland’s bright nights begin in May. It will be dark the next time in August. The midnight sun and a partial solar eclipse – Lapland fondly enchants the nightly wanderer.

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Life rolls on at a fervent pace during the 24-hour summer light. Summer in Lapland is short. There are only a couple of months of warmth and greenness. The midsummer splendour is also wistful. Just when the bunchberries, Arctic brambles, and other plants are blooming, the migratory birds start leaving.

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In August, the days start getting shorter and the nights colder. At the end of the brief growing season, it is time for the harvest. The bogs and woodlands are yellow with cloudberries, those vitamin bombs that draw Laplanders of all ages into the wilderness.

Then the berry pickers seek out the aroma-rich treasure of the forests and fell heaths, the bilberry, or the European blueberry.

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The shortening autumn days dress Lapland in a brilliant show of colours. Bogs, deciduous forests, and fells are radiant in shades of yellow and red. The autumn colours signify that the plants are shifting into winter time. The annual cycle of light is always about the same. The autumn colours are at their best in the second week of September. Then the leaves fall and the colours fade. Winter is near.

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Work and Celebration

Lapland is an area larger than Portugal, but while there are over ten million Portuguese, there are only 184,000 Laplanders. Lapland is the most sparsely populated area in Europe, most of the region around two hundred times less dense than the average in Europe.

This doesn’t dishearten the persistent Laplanders: over time, diverse and modern sources of livelihood have risen in the remote land. In the tourist season, the population multiplies, and little fell villages turn into vibrant small towns.

Life in Lapland follows both natural and tourist seasons. Certain times call for hard work, but it is always done with a laid-back attitude. Lapland offers plenty of recreational opportunities from nature to culture and outdoor sports. Dwellers of Lapland live close to nature, which meets them as they step out of their doors and graces the views from their windows.

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Snowmobiling is a daily part of both private and business life in Lapland. In remote areas, there is at least one snowmobile in almost every yard. Snowmobile safaris are offered by many recreation program providers. Distances are long in the expansive land. For example, the road from Kilpisj채rvi to the nearest hospital in Rovaniemi is 430 kilometres long. Sparse traffic and majestic views make even a long trip feel short.

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There are 21 municipalities in Lapland, of which Kemi, Kemijärvi, Rovaniemi and Tornio are classified as cities. Over half of Lapland’s population lives in these cities, and the rest in villages and municipal centres. Communities are usually by waterways, so there are many beautiful bridge scenes. In the city centre of Rovaniemi, the old and new bridge – the Lumberjack’s Candle Bridge – are landmarks of the architecture of their times.

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Rovaniemi, the regional centre of Lapland, is the largest city in Europe measured in area. It lies at the confluence of the Kemi and Ounas Rivers, a traditional trading and market city with a population of 60,000. The cities of Kemi and Tornio on the shore of the Gulf of Bothnia, are among the most significant population centres of Lapland. Tornio is the oldest city of Lapland, established in 1621. Kemi, on the following page, is a traditional industrial city.

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Lapland’s children go to school in their home municipality. There is no need to travel far for continuing studies, either, as there are quality institutions of higher learning and vocational schools in Lapland, such as the University of Lapland and the Lapland University of Applied Sciences, both diverse expert organizations in sciences and arts. World class education ensures that Laplanders will stay on the international cutting edge of tourism and cultural know-how.

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Service occupations are the foundation of Lapland’s economy. Tourism has long traditions in Lapland. Fell tourism in its present-day form began in the 1930s, when skiers lodged in local homes. Gradually tourism grew in importance, and cottages and hotels were built. Today, Lapland is an international forerunner of tourism, offering individual experiences year round. And you’ll always get the best of service!

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Lapland is a pilgrimage attraction for those intrigued with the north. The exotic, clean, safe and accessible Arctic area, with its quality services, attracts tourists from all over the world. Every type of lodging is on offer. For example, there are many snow hotels furnished with beautiful snow and ice sculptures. Luxurious snow villages prove the Laplanders’ reputation of having a touch of creative madness.

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Lapland offers its inhabitants possibilities to live individual lives as part of a modern, affluent society. The daily life of Laplanders has its own, unique spirit. Well-functioning social and health services offer background support for the walk of life. Laplanders have grasped the significance of a quality, playful life so well, that their daily life has become an export product. People of all ages in over 40 countries play sports and exercise with equipment made in Lapland.

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Lapland offers an abundance of recreational opportunities. Local clubs offer acting, handicrafts, music and singing, various forms of exercise, winter sports and ball games. Courses are arranged to nourish the soul and body. For those with the need for speed, exciting reindeer races are organized even in the centre of Rovaniemi. The world record for a kilometre is 1.13!

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Laplanders have a close relationship with nature. The attitude can be seen in celebrations and highlights of life. Many cultural events are organized outdoors.

One of the most impressive natural performance venues is Aittakuru at Pyh채 Fell. The acoustics of the amphitheatre are beyond compare. Midsummer night is celebrated with bonfires and dancing in the glimmering midnight sun.

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Laplanders celebrate Christmas quietly with the family.

The Finnish word for Christmas, joulu, is ancient Scandinavian, meaning 12 days of festivities. Santa Claus is the most famous Laplander. The mysterious whitebearded gift-giver lives on Korva Fell in Eastern Lapland.

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Surrounded by Nature

People started to inhabit Lapland immediately after the latest ice age, around 11,000 years ago. For thousands of years, an abundance of fish and game attracted hunters to the northern “end of the earth.” The era of the Sámi began. The Sámi were not interested in ownership. They were nomads, their wilderness homes marked by paths to their traps, hunting grounds and worship sites. Gradually Finnish settlements spread from the south, and the Sámi withdrew to the north. Through time, the Laplanders have been active in the outdoors, hunting, fishing, herding reindeer, harvesting marsh hay and distilling tar. Traditional lifestyles and means of livelihood have changed into modern Lappish life. Northern life has many levels: the past meets the present; people meet nature. One feature of life will always remain: the hearts of Laplanders beat to the rhythm of nature.

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The Sรกmi are the only aboriginal people of the Nordic countries. They have several dialects, and in Finnish Lapland alone, they speak three different languages. Their means of livelihood are mostly connected with nature. Reindeer husbandry, fishing and farming are still valued. Love knows no boundaries, and the population groups of Lapland have mixed through the ages. Traditional Sรกmi clothing reveals where someone comes from.

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In Lapland, population centres have always formed by waterways. Good fishing grounds ensured a livelihood. Rivers were also important routes of travel and commerce. Nowadays the Tornio and Teno rivers are salmon fishers’ paradises. The first roads followed the waterways, and rivers were crossed by cable ferry.

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Ski tracks appeared in Lapland’s wilderness around 5,000 years ago. Today, there are all kinds of skis from long and wide forest skis for deep snow to light trail skis for trails and crusted snow in the spring. Domesticating the reindeer changed Lapland completely. In good weather, a reindeer could pull a sledge over one hundred kilometres a day. They were also used to transport goods.

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Hunting was Lapland’s most important lifestyle for centuries. Fowl was hunted with traps, bows and firearms.

One way to make trap wires was to spin horse tail hair between the palm of the hand and the thigh. Traditional trap hunting of willow grouse is still practiced in Northern Lapland. Finnish Spitz have been the partners of the northern hunters over the ages. In addition to fowl, hunters pursue moose, hare, bears and waterfowl.

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For thousands of years, the wild reindeer was the most important game animal of Lapland. By the 1800s, all Laplanderss had shifted from hunting to reindeer husbandry. Reindeer are useful livestock that produce healthy meat and fat, milk, skins, bones and antlers.

The important winter reindeer round-ups attract visitors from near and far. In the olden times, the round-ups were week-long fair-type events.

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Fishing used to be a lifeline. People could resort to fish whenever their hunting luck failed or frost destroyed a crop. The most important tool was the net, which is still used to catch grayling, trout, whitefish, perch and pike. Salmon has always been the most important natural resource of people living by the Teno River. The oldest written records of fishing on Teno are from the 1500s. The mighty, clearwatered Teno is still a pilgrimage attraction for many sports fishers.

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Rustic farming culture was established along the fertile riversides of Southern Lapland already in the Iron Age, and it spread to the remote areas in the 1700s. Although urbanization has silenced many Lapp villages, the countryside is still alive. People farm and raise cattle from Rovaniemi to the remote corners of Lapland. The northernmost farms of the European Union are in Utsjoki.

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Forestry began a new era in Lapland in the late 1800s.

Roads and stores were built, and even a railroad was laid out in the 1920s. Green gold employed tens of thousands of loggers. Over time, countless loggers’ lodges were built all around the vast wilderness of Lapland. The fine tradition lives on: there are over 450 lodges now available for hikers to use.

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The gold fields of the Ivalo River made the headlines in the 1870s. The gold rush turned Lapland upside down. Hopeful seekers of riches roamed everywhere, all around Lapland. Gold digging is still a significant secondary occupation and tourist attraction.

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From the Sea to the Fells

A glance at a globe reveals that Lapland is far north, at around the same latitude as Central Alaska. However, the nature of Lapland is more diverse than anywhere else this far north. There are farmlands in river valleys, vast evergreen forests, and Arctic flora growing on the fell highlands. This biodiversity is due to the Golf stream, which adds several degrees to Lapland’s average temperature.

The bedrock of Lapland is ancient and stable. Most of the fells were formed by orogeny around 1.8 billion years ago.

The fells are the remains of a mountain range once as majestic as the Alps, filed down by time. On the other hand, the soil of Lapland is young. Most of it was formed in the later stages of the last ice age around 115,000–10,000 years ago.

When the ice sheet melted, the flora began to develop into its present form.

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The northern part of the Baltic Sea, the Gulf of Bothnia, is almost salt free. Its biota is made up almost exclusively of fresh-water species. Another unique feature of the Gulf of Bothnia is rapid land uplift: the ground once pressed down by the kilometre-thick ice sheet is still rising almost a centimetre every year. This creates an original, continuously changing shoreline.

Fishing and seafaring are the area’s traditional industries.

Without ice-breakers, the Gulf of Bothnia’s ports would be shut down for the winter.

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In Lapland, there are plenty of fresh-water springs feeding clean rivers and lakes abundant with fish.

Lapland’s largest lake is the awesome Inarijärvi, the third-largest lake in Finland. There are over 300 islands in Inarijärvi, the most famous of which is the rugged Ukonsaari, an ancient Sámi worship site.

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Lapland is a land of flowing waters. The mightiest river flowing into the Arctic Ocean is Teno, and into the Baltic Sea, the Kemi River and the Tornio River, Europe’s longest free-flowing river (510 km).

Lapland’s smaller waters are also beautiful: crystalclear ponds and abundant springs much cleaner than bottled water. Finland’s largest spring is Sulaoja in Utsjoki, which spews out 35,000 cubic metres of water every day.

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Evergreen forests have their very own scents and unique air. Air quality is significant because the plant and fungi species of old evergreen forests need a moist microclimate. Lapland has forests of all kinds: barren pine swamps, whispering spruce groves, and ancient pine heaths. The fells rise from amidst the world’s largest unbroken birch forest zone, which spreads from Southern Norway to the Kola Peninsula.

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Western Capercaillie, or Wood Grouse, battle it out in an aggressive, impressive mating display, trying to win over the hens.

An eaglet growing in its nest has a long and perilous journey before it becomes like its parents, a bold king of the sky.

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Norway lemmings aren’t social animals. These colourful moss-eaters even migrate independently. In the fall, one third of a bear’s weight is fat.

Bears are able to hibernate due to their thick layer of fat, and their ability to slow down their vital functions.

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Wetlands are typical scenes in Lapland. One of the most beautiful of them is the zone of string bogs cutting across Central Lapland. The lush fens are the most diverse types of wetlands. The surface of treeless bogs is soaking wet white moss, of which there certainly is no shortage! Half of the world’s biomass is either living moss or peat formed of decaying moss. A spring-flooded string bog waiting for cranes, geese and waders to return. Hare’s tail cottongrass glowing in the midnight sun.

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Preserving the unique nature of Lapland is ensured with seven national parks and nature reserves, as well as 12 wilderness areas. The Lemmenjoki, Urho Kekkonen, and Pallas-Yll채s Fell National Parks are the largest in Finland. In Finnish national parks, everyone is free to take a relaxed one-day stroll or a week-long hike. Nature reserves are open attractions with access restricted to marked paths.

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Central and Northern Lapland are dominated by fells. All of Finland’s over kilometre-high peaks are in Kilpisjärvi, in the far reaches of Fell Lapland. The fells are not mountains, but still they strum the strings of the soul:

Before your very eyes, the fell touches the sky.

Keep walking; soon you, too, can touch the clouds. Ten thousand steps on the peak of the fell. Settle down. Undress from your daily life.

Wear the clouds; put the wilderness on your feet. Wrap yourself in the blanket of the fell.

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Agriculture and reindeer husbandry have been modernized. Scythes are no longer swung on meadows; cattle no longer graze in the rough. The change has endangered traditional landscapes and several species, pearls of the countryside. Luckily, in recent years, people have awakened to preserve traditional landscapes. Charming cultural landscapes can be found again all over Lapland.

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Lapland is the realm of the midnight sun, rushing white waters, endless wilderness, a brief summer and a long winter. The background of human life in Lapland is the immeasurable, breath-taking expanse of nature.

Laplanders are tolerant and have a relaxed attitude toward life. No wonder visitors easily catch the Lapland fever – its only cure is to revisit the land of the fells – and then visit again.

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Lapland in a nutshell: Area: 100,367 km2

(30.5% of Finland’s land area)

Population: 183,000 Population density:

2.0/km2 (EU average 116/km2)

Regional centre:

Rovaniemi (population 60,000)

Most important industry:

Services (70 %)

Cold record:

-51.5 °C (Kittilä, Pokka 28.1.1999)

Snow record:

190 cm (Enontekiö, Kilpisjärvi 19.4.1997)

Average temperature in January, Central Lapland, Sodankylä (1981-2010):

-13.5 °C

Average temperature in July in Sodankylä (1981–2010):

+14.5 °C

Average number of days over +25 °C per year in Sodankylä (1981-2010):

6

Average number of days below 0 °C per year in Sodankylä (1981-2010):

219

There is snow on the ground an average of 210 days per year.

Symbol animal: reindeer Symbol plant: globeflower Symbol bird: bluethroat 111

Lapland Impressions © Kirjakaari, Jyväskylä 2014

Photographs Keijo Taskinen Cover: Miika Sirkiä / AV-Lappi Miika Sirkiä / AV-Lappi p. 2 Timo Veijalainen / AV-Lappi p. 10, 43, 78-79 Harri Nurminen © Leuku p. 16, 59, 66 Petri Jauhiainen © Vastavalo p. 7 Mikko Karjalainen © Vastavalo p. 54 Keijo Penttinen p. 1, 8-9, 19, 21, 27, 28-29, 63, 65, 68, 76, 86, 89, 91, 100, 103, 104 Marko Junttila p. 41, 44-45, 48, 50-51, 62, 108-109 Paavo Hamunen p. 4, 25 (right), 31, 34-35, 55, 69, 94-95 (background), 102 Jouni Laaksomies p. 26, 32, 36-37, 42, 49, 67, 74-75, 85, 90, 101 Juha Kauppinen p. 58, 64 Lappset Group Oy / Antti Kurola p. 46-47 Text Keijo Taskinen

Publisher Kirjakaari

Graphic design and layout Kati Lähdemäki, Kirjakaari

ISBN 978-952-5969-40-5

English translation Aki Myyrä, Molehill Communications Printed by Saarijärven Offset Oy, Saarijärvi 2014 112