| Finnish
Lapland |
| In The
Artic Circle |
| By Richard Robinson |
| December
2004
(This article
is based on one that first appeared in The Sunday Telegraph)
They say that
the Finns, equally comfortable in both Finnish and Swedish idioms, tend
to employ neither if they can help it. “Silent in two languages”
is how the playwright, Bertold Brecht, described them. He should
know, having spent some time here, but my brief sortie into the Arctic
Circle of Finnish Lapland revealed a rather more garrulous side to the
Finnish nature.
Take Hannun
Ajokhaat, for example. |
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Inside
the tepee, the firelight flickers on his crinkled features, the cadence
of his voice rises and falls like the low howl of the arctic wind on the
tundra. His eyes roll, his mitted hands trace fabulous images in the smokey
gloom. Old Hannun, veteran reindeer herder, is a born story teller.
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The story itself
is a mystery to the assembled group, none of us being versed in Finnish,
but it matters little. Squatting in a semicircle about the camp fire, our
faces aglow in the firelight, nodding foolishly to his words, we are captivated
by his eloquence. Intoning still, Hannun begins to whittle on a splinter
of kindling wood, paring neat curls of shavings to create a kiehinen, a
traditional Lap firelighter. It is a minor work of art. |
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| Flipping it
over, the joke is on the other side, where earlier he had written his name,
address and telephone number. It’s his business card, he says, handing
it to one of the prettier girls, who accepts it with inordinate delight.
“Congratulations”, quips a voice from the shadows of the tepee.
“You’re engaged!”.
Before we
leave this primitive hearth, where blackened kettles stand on squared
rocks placed about the fire, much as they would have been 200 years before,
a cell phone trills. We all look at each other for the culprit, but it
is Hannun himself who grins sheepishly, fishing the mobile from the depths
of his reindeer skins.
It was reindeers
that we came here for, in the first place. Before our tepee experience,
we had been treated to a sleigh ride, a quick circuit through the snowy
fir wood, two at a time in a fur-lined leather-bottomed sleigh, thumping
through the drifts, drawn by a furiously galloping reindeer. |
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| I was the
first in there, and the reindeer was in frisky mood, possibly having spent
long hours tethered. He tore through the trees in an unstoppable gallop
until, finally tiring, he still had to be wrestled to a halt by the waiting
Hannun.
Up here
in the Arctic Circle you tend to gravitate to groups. The tepee group
began in the village, at the Yllas-Pailakat rental store, where we all
climbed in to our padded snow suits, boots and crash helmets before setting
off on a snowmobile safari, looking like spacemen on gleaming shuttlecraft.
Over the Fells of Yllas we sped, among the snow-laden boughs of the fir
wood and across frozen lakes before stopping for lunch - Cream of Reindeer
soup and dark Finnish bread - at a stove-heated lodge.
Then our
jovial guide, Ari, showed us how to bore holes in the ice of the lake using
a steel auger. Then how to lower a hook and line into the icy water,
and to wait patiently for a perch or pike to bite, while reclining on a
reindeer skin. Swaddled against the minus-ten temperature in a world of
brilliant white and blue, a steely sun hovering above the horizon, it was
a sublime way to spend and hour after lunch, before snowmobiling back to
our hotel in Akaslompolo. |
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| Akaslompolo
– it’s a funny-sounding name, even in Finnish, or so they told me in Helsinki.
City dwellers are cracked up by it. “Akaslompolo – its so funny!”,
they would chortle. Akaslompolo is one of several scattered settlements
geared up for a whole range of winter sports, and for summer walking, cycling
and canoeing. In addition, they specialize in seasonal Santa specials (this
is where the Father Christmas comes from, after all) and, somewhat
inexplicably, jazz festivals. Akaslompolo and its neighbouring villages
lie in the Fells of Finnish Lapland, in the area known as Yllas where,
in winter, the snow is absolutely guaranteed.
Not just
any old snow but dry, crystalline stuff that squeaks underfoot and
does not turn to slush in your boots. Like the speedy reindeer (who
scooped it into his gaping maw while still galloping) I sampled some
Lapland snow. |
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| It was like
a mouthful of frozen fur, and barely damp when melted.
When the
Arctic night falls, the people of Akaslompolo congregate in the wood panelled
bar of Pub Humina, drink Koff beer and sing karaoke. Seven nights of the
winter week, it’s the only show in town, so far as I can see.
Aspiring singers (there is an endless procession of crooners) fill
out a slip and wait for their number to come up. Crowded, noisy, a little
smokey, it has something of the feel of a frontier saloon. I hope to meet
Father Christmas off duty – after all, what does he do all year? Perhaps
he is one of those bearded figures, a bit dishevelled, slumped at the bar,
complaining about work. There are several who would fit the bill.
In Akaslompolo
there is always something to do. Today I joined a group to go snow
shoeing among the hills and trees, to the steep and wooded places that
skiers could not reach. Without our racket-like footwear we would have
sunk to our waists in the soft snow, something which several of our group
managed anyway. Our guide on this occasion was Mika, who revealed, while
barbecuing sausages for us on an open fire, that his hobby was surfing.
“My crazy
friend”, he explained, “took out a subscription with Surfing World.
I think we are the only subscribers this far north. You don’t get many
big waves on the Baltic sea” I nodded saying yes, it’s a long way from
Waikiki, then I mentioned to him that I had very much enjoyed the visit
to Hannun’s reindeer ranch.
“Did you
get the fast reindeer?” he asked. “The brown one? That reindeer,
he’s crazy. Knows only one thing, how to run. They can’t trust him on the
long circuit, he doesn’t stop running.”
Slicing through
the snow behind a team of panting, straining, yelping huskies - that’s
great fun, also. So is cross-country skiing, once you have grasped the
knack of it. (a winter sports first timer, I personally found the snow
shoes easier). There are 20 Kilometres of downhill ski runs available
nearby; there is swimming in frozen lakes and there are moonlight safaris.
Then there are the Northern Lights.
The quickest
way to empty a bar in the Arctic Circle is to rush in there a little before
midnight and shout “AURORA BOREALIS!” Any Japanese in the
crowd will lead the charge for the exit. Most people simply want to witness
this unique natural phenomenon but, like the ancient Finns before them,
the modern Japanese believe that a sighting of the aurora borealis
is a sure-fire aphrodisiac. I too would like to see the flickering lights
in the Arctic sky, but sadly it is not to be. As the cry goes up, the crowd
rushes for the exit and the door slams shut on the the tail end of the
stampede. A few flakes of Arctic snow swirl silently in the doorway.
My number has just come up on the karaoke and I am left yodelling Heartbreak
Hotel to a near-empty bar while a vacant-looking bartender wipes glasses
and a hunched, off-duty Santa gazes fixedly into his beer.
If traveling
from Britain, an excellent company with which to arrange all your Finland
needs is Inntravel, +1653 629010, www.inntravel.co.uk
The following
articles are Richard's previous articles for the magazine:
Richard Robinson
is a UK-based travel writer, specialising in Andalucía in southern
Spain. For information, walks, accommodation etc. in Priego de Córdoba
and the Sierra Subbetica, visit his website: www.rural-andalucia.co.uk/ |
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