America’s diversity of special, spectacular landscapes is really like no other country on earth. From the geysers of Yellowstone to to the Florida everglades; from the Grand Canyon to the coast of Maine; from the Blue Ridge Mountains to the black and white Cascades; from Alaska to the Ozarks; as one of our great American songs goes— from the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans white with foam--America is a geographical enigma in landscapes within one political border. I've seen a lot of it and have appreciated many natural wonders of my home country. I love exploring new landscapes.
Finland by comparison is relatively homogeneous, even though what they have a lot of is gorgeous, inspiring, peaceful.
Finland’s name for itself, “Suomi,” has uncertain origins. While “suo” means swamp in Finnish, and roughly one-quarter of Finnish land is swamp, no etymological evidence exists that the origin of Suomi as a word intends nor ever intended to paint Finland as “Swampy” by name. Let’s face it though, it’s suspect. Coincidence is hard to ignore despite lack of proof.
As only the 6th most swampy country in the world, though, and a quarter of the country being swampland, swamps don’t paint a full nor accurate picture of its wonderful landscape. If we want to get into origins and intent of a descriptive moniker for a nation, then “Järvimi”—to make a nonsensical, literal semantic word connection from suo to Suomi for the word "järvi," for lake—would be more viable. Finland is the most lake-laden nation on the planet, not sixth. To conjure up what makes Finland what it is physically, lakes take the cake.
When Finland offers a different physical sense of itself, it’s noticeable. North of the arctic circle, Finland changes noticeably from the lake country of the bottom two-thirds of its geographical space, to an arctic phenomenon few get to experience. I’ve been fortunate to see a lot of North America first hand, including some northern reaches, and Lapland is something totally new for me.
Taavi’s and Iita’s fall school break caught us somewhat unprepared. We didn’t have a specific plan for the week the kids would be free from school. Mimmu’s brother’s place in Luosto gave us a perfect quick getaway to explore a landscape the kids and I have never experienced.
Luosto is hyphenated with Pyhä in most marketing, another small, arctic ski-resort 30km deeper east into Lapland off the main highway between the cities of Rovaniemi and Sodänkylä. With winter still a few weeks on, we hit a lull in the tourism season, landed in Luosto in the dark of night, after nearly all its leaves hit the ground and probably just days before first snow. If we wanted a relatively safe isolation vacation, this is the perfect edge-of-humanity experience with enough civilization to stave off any abandonment anxiety. I realized as the trip went on, that the emptiness made Taavi a little, if not a lot uncomfortable. But our second evening there, he made a friend in town playing Pokémon Go in a “raid battle” (?) in a closed-gift-shop parking lot with a slightly older boy from Joensuu. That seemed to make Taavi feel more grounded in the world, but exhibited for me I'd like to get him in the wilderness more. I think making a slightly older friend in Finnish was a charge too. Most to all of his friends so far have been made in school. This was a different threshold he’d crossed. His spirits changed a little bit after that.
From Jyväskylä, we drove all day and into the night. A road construction detour spit us off the main four-lane not far out of Oulu, still with hours and kilometers of northern reaches to cover. We went to Siri for guidance. She sent us through a series of small backroads to Rovaniemi. Nearly 3 hours of backroads. Driving an 18-year-old, cramped Toyota Yaris we bought in September for a song, into the growing darkness on single-lane roads—literally, no lanes nor lane lines— heightened Mimmu’s and my awareness that maybe drifting off the beaten path in a jankier car than either of us have relied on since college, wasn’t perhaps the safest of parenting moves. The periodic sighting of reindeer, then a train of other cars and their head and tail lights in our mirrors and a FaceTime call with cousins in Duluth, soothed our sense of exposure as the lights of Rovaniemi lit up through the trees on the low cloud ceiling on the horizon. We got to the cabin in Luosto safe and sound approaching 10pm.
Our intent with the whole trip was to beat any crowds with a few days of off-peak hiking on the “tunturi”—the large treeless mountain-hills for which Finland’s Lapland is famous. We awoke to fog that gave slightly to clouds about 100 feet up. We thought we’d beat the lack of visibility by hiking into an amethyst mine in the Pyhä-Luosto National Park, only to strike out. It was closed Sunday and Monday. The snow-white reindeer eating moss and berries near our parked car, and the flight of two swans off of a nearby pond made the morning magical before the disappointment of a closed jewel mine. Taavi made the most of the disappointment by skipping all 2.5k back to the car, earning him the nickname “skipper” for the trip. We also went back Tuesday and found the world's best donuts at the log cabin that served as cafe and tour center for the mine, before taking home a handful of amethyst pebbles we "mined."
By afternoon we could see visibility improving slightly as the cloud ceiling nearly exposed the top of the Luosto ski tunturi. After a satisfying lunch of reindeer gravy, mashed potatoes, and lingonberries, we struck out for the top of Luosto.
We weren’t disappointed. A clear day would have exposed an expanse of earthy-toned wildness stretching “as far as the eye can see.” But that’s where the cliche description falls short. “As far as the eye can see” is relative to your setting and vantage point. On the Luosto tunturi, we stood essentially at the cloud ceiling—which is a unique place to stand, ever, and “for as far as the eye could see,” was a heck of a long way from that perspective. The ceiling created the perspective of distance in a way a clear sky couldn't have. I’ve seen Montana’s big sky. Montana had nothing on what sprawled out before us. A green, gray and brown carpet of boreal forest, arctic swamp meadows, buttes, and far-off tunturi’s, some lit up by far-off—I mean 50+ miles far-away—breaks in the clouds. It seemed like light shining from other planets spotlighting tunturis they most loved while leaving the rest of "us" effectively cloud-blocked in the dark. The low cloud ceiling actually accentuated the expanse of space in a way I’ve never experienced anywhere else I’ve been. It felt like I’ve never seen so far with my own eyes, a phenomenon backed up by how poorly my cell phone photos captured it all.
We did more of the same the next day in Pyhä, albeit with sorer legs, feet, and hips than the day before. At the top of Pyhä, we took a break in a cool little hut with a fireplace and free samples of Reykjavik-roast coffee. Paulig coffee company had turned the hut into a little marketing campaign for the relatively-new coffee roast. To our chagrin, we craved a fire in that fireplace more than coffee, which is hard to believe if you know us. Lots of Paulig Rekjavik coffee packets, not a match to be had... Still, we got the views like Luosto the day before, with a respite from the elements.
In a time which we’ve all needed to rely on perspective to keep things important to us meaningful, much like our overall intent to stay in Finland so far, our small trip to Finland’s most unique landscape was not a picture perfect postcard. The weather was a challenge, but in the end lent itself to a perspective that was unique and moving despite itself and our own wishes. A lesson for us in and from the weather near the top of the earth, that while we might not have gotten exactly what we wanted, mystifying beauty and expectation-changing perspective was found anyway, in ways and places we hadn’t expected nor anticipated.