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*** FINLAND 2012 - WEEKS 10~12 *** | |||
This week's
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Wild Flora of Finnish Lapland |
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There is a refreshing sense of nostalgic reminiscence in writing up this continuing retrospective account of our summer 2012 travels in Lapland in the depths of a gloomy British winter .... Before heading north towards Finland's northern
border and crossing into Arctic Norway, we diverted SW from Inari for a day's
walking in the Lemmenjoki National Park which covers a huge area of pristine
forest wilderness stretching across Northern Lapland towards NW Norway. 30 kms
Throughout Finnish Lapland we had seen such an unparalleled wealth of fascinating wild flora that we have published with this edition a separate gallery of our wild flora photographs: the Wild Flora of Finnish Lapland
The following morning we drove along to the
fishing village of Mortenses (Ceavccageadgi in Norrthern Sámi) where a
way-marked trail leads across the fjord-side headland past the remains of
prehistoric dwellings which have been excavated. This unique site contains evidence
of continuous human settlement from around 8~6,000 BC in the millennia following
the end of the Ice Age by nomadic hunter-gatherers right through to later Sámi
pastoralists-fishermen and the present day fishing village in the sheltered
nearby cove. Buffeted by the bitterly chill wind blowing along the fjord's grey
waters, we walked the trail around the bleakly chill headland among excavated
remains of dwellings,
We spent the afternoon a short distance east at Finmark's administrative centre, Vadsø which like other towns in Northern Norway
had been rebuilt
after WW2 following total destruction by retreating Germans. The result is a
rather blandly featureless centre and outskirts filled with light industry, modern
supermarkets and car showrooms. The TIC was manned by charactersome lad who
admitted to having learnt his faultless Americanese-English by watching TV
movies but gave us a detailed history of Vadsø, most particularly its location
as the 1920s staging point for polar exploration by airship. The Norwegian
explorer Roald Amundsen
(who beat Scott to the South Pole) and Italian military engineer Umberto Nobile
had set off in 1926 from Vadsø in the airship Norge and successfully flew
across the North Pole to reach Alaska. Rivalry between Amundsen and Nobile led
to an Italian follow-up Polar expedition 2 years later in the airship Italia
which crashed in Svalbard. Nobile was believed killed and Amundsen, to prove he
was the more capable explorer, launched a rescue expedition; his aircraft
crashed killing Amundsen who became a Norwegian national
Beyond Vadsø we began the 80km long and lonely
drive around Varanger Fjord's northern shoreline to Vardø (see map above); the
gusty northerly side wind buffeted our camper as we passed the tiny fishing
settlements of Salttjern, Krampenes and Komagvær, and near to isolated farms a
quaint road sign warned of the dual hazards of straying sheep and reindeer (see
left). The nature of the terrain again changed dramatically as we crossed into the
Arctic climate zone where annual average temperatures are less than 10°C. The
narrow exposed road wound around a series of broad bays where the wind drove
surf onto the flat foreshore; a parallel line of raised beach with its cliff
backdrop marked an ancient shoreline, and above this the dreary, treeless,
grey-green monotone of the Arctic tundra stretched away into the
Hamningberg had once been a thriving fishing
village, the only place to have been saved from devastation by German scorched
earth barbarism in 1944 by its very remoteness. As a working village however,
its death knell came in 1964 when the Norwegian government refused financial
help to enlarge the
Entering the pipe-like undersea tunnel entrance (see left), we crossed into Vardø town in search of the quay-side TIC just as Hurtigruten was departing, but after a brief circuit of the town, there seemed little to detain us here in this bleak and cheerless place with little shelter from the chilling Arctic wind. It was an easy decision therefore to return along the Fjord to more sheltered Vestre Jakobselv for our last night's camp in the Varanger area. After our journey to the outer limits, we settled back into the campsite on a dark and gloomy evening with a bitterly cold northerly wind and freezing rain buffeting our camper, thankful for the warmth of fan heater, reindeer stew supper and full thermals.
Before finally leaving Varanger, we returned through Vadsø to visit the small
peninsula of Ekkerøy with its fishing hamlet curving around the bay. At the far
end of the causeway we parked by the sheds and jetty of the former fish and
shrimp packing factory which now houses a small museum devoted to the fishing
industry which grew up in Eastern Finmark and 19th century Finnish/Kven
colonisation of the Kola/Petsamo Peninsula. Sponsored by the Imperial Russian
government, the settlers
We now returned westwards along the north shore of
Varanger Fjord which had been a sheltered home for us for several days in what
passed for summer in this severe environment. Today the south shore of the fjord
was scarcely visible in the misty rain clouds as we passed through Varangerbotn.
The E6/75 rose over dismally dark fell land where the low birch scrub all showed
the devastating damage caused by the Epirrita autumnata moth which
After all the wretchedly cold and wet weather of the last few days, the
following morning sun was bright enabling us to
breakfast outside; up here in the Arctic weather and temperature seemed so
critically dependent on wind direction and with the wind today in the south, the
air was unexpectedly warmer. Despite swarms of midges, we took a day in camp to catch up
with washing and
make use of the campsite's wi-fi.
Karasjok is home to the Norwegian Sámi Parliament, the Sámidiggi, and having
visited the Finnish equivalent in Inari, we wanted the chance to understand the
Leaving Karigasniemi, we had a long drive to return across the high fells on
Route 92 to Kaamanen where we had started 2 weeks ago; this time we should turn
north from there on Route 4 back to Utsjoki to complete our River Teno/Tana
borderlands circuit and camp at Nuorgam, Finland's most northerly point. Soon
after leaving Karigasniemi, we slowed to pass yet more reindeer ambling along
the main road (Photo 30 - Reindeer ambling along Route 92). Route 92
rises steeply out of the Teno valley and cuts a straight course across the high,
scrub-covered cheerless tundra fell-scape (Photo 31 - Route 92's straight course across scrub-covered tundra).
These high fells form the
We had now completed our circuit of Finland's northern borderlands and tomorrow would head north into Arctic Norway with our road leading ultimately to Nordkapp. But that's a story for our next edition in 3 weeks time; join us then. Next edition to be published in 3 weeks
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CAMPING
IN FINLAND and LAPLAND 2012 - Finnish Lapland, Kirkenes, Varanger Fjord and the River
Teno/Tana borderlands of Arctic Norway (Finmark)
:
along the Lemmenjoki valley with its distant vistas of high fell country, a
single-track lane brought us to the remote reindeer herding settlement of
Njurkulahti. From the parking area, a way-marked nature trail led alongside the
fenced area of the local Sámi Reindeer Association which grazes some 9,000
animals in the northern Lemmenjoki forests. Passing through delightful forests
where the pines were hung with bearded lichen on which the reindeer feed, the
path led steeply up onto a startlingly impressive esker-ridge the embankment
sides falling some 150 feet down to the river (Photo 1 - Glacial esker-ridge in Lemmenjoki National Park).
As we threaded our way along the narrow crest
of the esker, we startled a reindeer which rushed off into the forest.
Descending the far end of the ridge, the path circled back undulating past
kettle-holes formed where sediment had built up around huge melting blocks of
ice left by the retreating glaciers at the end of the last Ice Age. Valleys
sides were graced by tiny delicate Twin-flowers growing in profusion along the banks
of a dry stream bed (Photo 2 - Twin-flowers), and the return path passed
through a virgin forest of 400 year old pines. Dodging the reindeer along the
approach lane (see left), we returned to Inari to
continue our northward journey to Kaamanen. Here we were welcomed with smiling
hospitality at the Jokitörm Hostel-Camping by the couple who for 15 years have
kept this delightful campsite; it was established here on the banks of the Kaamasjoki by her father whose ingenious wood carvings still grace the site,
including a crocodile carved from the trunk of a dead pine tree. That evening,
after an apposite and filling supper of reindeer stew, we sat on the river bank
looking out across the fells with another unhampered view of the clear western
sky and the Midnight Sun. 
The
following morning, we turned north-east onto the narrow but well-surfaced Route
971 heading towards the Norwegian
border and the northernmost port of Kirkenes (see left). Passing alongside the
spreading Lake Inari, mile after lonely mile of empty pine and birch wilderness,
small lakes and barren boulder fields, we eventually approached the settlement
of Sevittijárvi. The village was founded in 1949 to relocate Skolt Sámi displaced when the Soviets forcibly annexed the mineral-rich Petsamo peninsula
after WW2. The Skolts had the choice of remaining in USSR in the Kola peninsula
where they had lived a semi-nomadic life-style for generations, fishing and
herding their reindeer, or being relocated to Finland; the majority chose to up and
move. But along with all the disruptive traumas of war, they faced prejudice from local Finnish Sámi seeming so alien with their
unintelligible Russian-sounding language. The Finnish government eventually
funded construction of homes, school and church at Sevittijárvi in this remote
corner on the shores of Lake Inari where they could rebuild their lives. Some
300 Skolt Sámi live there now although the population is aging as the younger
generation move away in search of work or more attractive city life; reindeer herding and lake fishing are still the predominant occupations. 
Reaching Sevittijárvi,
or Če'vetjäu'rr as it is written in Skolt Sámi (see left), we parked by the church to visit
the Perinnetalo Skolt Sámi museum, located in one of the original wooden housing
units built to re-house the Skolts in 1952. We were greeted by a delightful
local lady who talked with us with open frankness about the difficulties of life
here for the displaced families and the area's isolated remoteness and lack of
opportunities; the road from Inari which we had taken was only tarmaced in 1970
and a photo showed it as a rutted mud track before that. Many of the Skolts no
longer speak their native language and even fewer can write it, although Skolt
is now taught in the local school with encouragement to keep alive old
traditions. The museum's display panels told the tragically moving story of the
Skolts' enforced upheaval from their traditional homelands and resettlement
around Nellim and Sevittijárvi in NE Finland; displays of photos and memorabilia
illustrated traditional life-style following their
migrating reindeer herds and their winter Lapp villages. The Skolt Sámi had
originally been Christianised by Russian Orthodox monks, and they had brought
their Orthodox faith with them on being forcibly relocated in NE Finland. Just
along the lane was the Orthodox wooden church built with the new village in 1952 (Photo 3 - Orthodox church of St Triphon at Sevittijárvi).
The iconostasis included the icon of the church's patron saint St Triphon whose
festival is celebrated by the Skolts in August (Photo 4 - Iconostasis at Sevittijárvi Orthodox church)
and the churchyard was filled with grave-mounds marked with 2-barred Orthodox
crosses and covered with richly growing lichen as if cultivated (Photo 5 - Lichen-covered Orthodox graves in Sevittijárvi churchyard).
We now understood the notice on the church gate asking visitors to close the
gate; reindeer would have a feast in here! Individual graves echoed the Skolts'
poignant history: born in Petsamo (now Russia) 1909, died in Ivalo 2004. Saddened
by the emotive experience of visiting Sevittijárvi and learning something of
lives and a whole culture disrupted by war, we drove on northwards amid this
magnificent boulder-strewn
lakeland landscape (Photo 6 - Lakeland landscape and reindeer at Jääjärvi),
passing another dual-language signpost at Jääjärvi with its curious Skolt equivalent
name Jiốŋŋjäu'rr (see left).
20 kms on and we reached Näätämö, the last
Finnish village before the Norwegian border, nothing more than a couple of
mini-markets and a filling station doing a brisk cross-border trade with
Norwegians seeking better prices than in their own country. As might be
expected in a Skolt Sámi settlement, a small herd of reindeer was browsing
around the car park (Photo 7 - Reindeer herd at Näätämö village). Facing
Norwegian food prices for the next 5 weeks, we also stocked up before leaving
Finland. Just beyond we paused briefly at the Finnish~Norwegian frontier,
nothing more than a reindeer-proof fence and cattle grid to prevent cross-border
reindeer transit, before we ourselves crossed into Finmark (see right). Across
the open border, the nature of the terrain changed with dramatic suddenness
becoming more open scrub-covered fell land with scarcely a tree in sight. The road followed the fast-flowing Neiden River and at the junction with the
main trans-Finmark Route E6, the wide river dropped with dramatic bravura over
the magnificent waterfalls of Skoltefossen (Photo 8 - Skoltefossen waterfalls at Neiden).
Our original plan had been to stay here at Neiden but finding no campsite, we
pressed on towards Kirkenes. Around the shores of the broad Neidenfjorden with
its sweeping vistas of high, rocky and bleakly treeless fells, even on a sunny
afternoon the landscape seemed so alien; we were already missing Finland's
enclosed pine forests. Over high headlands, we turned into Kirkenes Camping
Maggdalen, thankful that it was open after today's long drive. The owners were
welcoming but prices were over-inflated and the gravelled camping area bleakly
cheerless, overcrowded and over-noisy, so different from Finland's
peaceful campsites.
Grense Jaobselv. Across the Pasvikelva River which flows from
Inari Lake out to the Barents Sea and following road signs to Murmansk, we took
Route E105 towards the border-control point at Storskog/Boris Gleb, the only
land border crossing point between Norway and Russia 16kms from Kirkenes.
Road improvements were in progress to encourage increased cross-border trade
following closure of the iron ore mines on which Kirkenes' economy previously
had depended. Although pedestrian traffic was forbidden within the
border-crossing area, we were able to take our photos by the 'End of Schengen'
sign (Photo 9 - Norway's border-crossing into Russia at Boris Gleb).
Turning off onto the narrow and roughly tarmaced Route 886, we threaded our way
along the shores of Jarfjorden passing a surprising number of isolated
farmsteads and the school at Jarfjord village which serves these isolated
communities. From the appropriately named settlement of Vintervallen, the
onwards single-track lane, closed October~April and only accessible by
snow-mobile, crossed the final 30 kms of spectacularly wild fell-scape before
dropping down to the Jakobselv stream which forms the final border strip between
Norway and Russia. Here warning signs listed penalties for illicit photography
and the severity of border surveillance made it sound a forbidding place (see
right).
The final 10kms of now unsurfaced lane led alongside the stream
where the frontier was marked by regular border posts, yellow on the Norwegian
bank and red/green on the far Russian side. We pulled in by an
opposing pair of border posts, overlooked by a Russian watchtower on the
opposite hillside. Risking a surreptitious photo, we imagined high-powered
binoculars (or worse!) trained on us viewing suspiciously our intruding camera
lens (Photo 10 - Russian watchtower overlooking border-markers at Grense Jakobselv); it
was a truly eerie image, redolent of Cold War xenophobia. The lane continued
along a broad, flat valley hemmed in on both sides of the border by craggy cliffs to emerge by the coast at the tiny settlement of Grense Jakobselv where
the stream discharges into the Barents Sea. High on the fell-side above the
settlement stands the oddly
incongruous neo-Gothic King Oskar II's Chapel (see
left) built in 1869 as a non-aggressive deterrent for Russian vessels fishing illegally
in Norwegian waters. Nowadays a Russian watchtower above the beach surveys the border,
matched by a Norwegian NATO observation post high on the cliffs above the little
harbour, the 2 nations peering and radar-scanning each other with their
surveyance equipment in an atmosphere of mutual suspicion. Alongside the chapel
the small and peaceful graveyard contains Norwegian, Russian and Sámi burials
with both Lutheran and Orthodox headstones and crosses. The road ends at the
tiny fishing anchorage of Grense Jakobselv (Photo 11 - Grense Jakobselv with Russia on far side of bay). Under today's largely clear sky, the
Arctic Ocean looked an azure blue and deceptively peaceful, and viewed from the
stone jetty, the western sun sparkled across the sound silhouetting the outline
of craggy headlands (Photo 12 - Barents Sea from Grense Jakobselv fishing anchorage ).
From the flat rocks of the eastward facing coastline, the sun also lit the broad
sandy beaches by the mouth of the Jakobselv stream which marked the border, and
some distance out in the Barents Sea white Beluga whales bobbed up from the
ocean. Closer at hand among the turf of the shoreline we found beautiful
specimens of Arctic Grass of Parnassus flowers (Photo 13 - Arctic Grass of Parnassus). We had
been so fortunate to enjoy the Arctic setting of the Barents Sea shoreline in
the far borderlands outpost of Grense Jakobselv in such calm weather.
35 ports
on the 6 day voyage around the Norwegian coast. Not only is the Hurtigruten (literally 'Express
Journey') a popular tourist cruise on this magnificent route,
more significantly it has for more than a century provided an essential
year-round delivery lifeline of both freight, essential supplies, mail and
passengers, linking all the isolated coastal communities at which it calls as we
were to witness later in our Arctic Norway travels; sea access is simply so much
more practicable than the extended journey by road to the distant settlements
around Norway's northern coast. You can hop from port to port: prices
are not cheap, but bicycles travel free. Visit the 
The
Sør-Varanger region with the ice-free port of Kirkenes as its main town was
jointly occupied by Norway and Russia until 1926 when the current borders
between these 2 countries and Finland were agreed. In 1906 iron ore had been
discovered at nearby Bjørnvatn, and Kirkenes grew wealthy from the extraction and smelting of iron by the A/S Sydvaranger Company, supplying steel for
munitions in WW1. Early in WW2 the Germans fortified Kirkenes to seize the iron
ore mines and the ice-free port with its strategic position close to Murmansk
through which the Allies were supplying USSR with war materials. Over
100,000 German troops garrisoned the town
which became the target of constant
Russian bombing raids; after Malta, Kirkenes was the most heavily bombed place
in WW2 with over 320 air raids. The civilian population took shelter in bunkers
under the town and in mine tunnels. The German attempt to invade USSR from the
north to capture Murmansk stalled in the Arctic winter of 1941 leading to an
exhausting war of attrition with 1000s killed in the freezing temperatures. In
October 1944 the Red Army 'liberated' what was left of the town after the
retreating Germans had torched any buildings not already destroyed by Soviet
bombing. Rebuilt after the war with US Marshall Plan aid, Kirkenes continued to
supply iron and steel to much of Europe, growing prosperous again until the
mines became economically unviable and closed in 1996 threatening the future of
this remote and once prosperous community which is now trying to re-establish
its economy through cross-border trade with post-communist Russia.
On a bright sunny morning, Kirkenes seemed a
surrealistically lively little town and we walked along its main street. At the
central square we found the library to consult their free internet for the
weather forecast; a monument in the centre of the square commemorated the town's
womenfolk's efforts to survive wartime bombing (see left). Beyond the Andersgrotta
wartime air raid shelter, now open as a tourist attraction, a more grotesque
memorial statue recalled the Red Army's October 1944 liberation of Kirkenes.
Positioned at the highest point of the town overlooking the port, the military
statue's plinth was decorated with a wreathe in the red-white-blue colours of
the Russian Federation (see right). From here at the crest of the hill, we watched today's
south-bound Hurtigruten depart from Kirkenes port to begin its long voyage back
around the Norwegian coast to Bergen. Back down through the town, we called in
at Kirkenes' trim modern Lutheran church built in 1959 to replace that destroyed
in WW2 (Photo 15 - Kirkenes' 1959 Lutheran Church). By the lake on the
outskirts of the town, we had to visit Kirkenes' major attraction the Sør-Varanger
Grenseland (Borderland) Museum which is dedicated to the history of the region,
its iron-ore mining industry and its people. The main exhibition gives emphasis
to the impact wartime bombing, with multi-lingual texts describing local
peoples' moving recollections of the horrific events. The centrepiece was a
Soviet Ilyushin 'Sturmovik ground attack fighter-bomber, the terrifying aircraft
which had led the Soviet attacks on German-occupied Kirkenes. This particular
plane had crash-landed in a nearby lake, was recovered in the 1980s and presented by
the Russian restorers to the museum (Photo 16 - Soviet Ilyushin Sturmovik fighter-bomber at Kirkenes Borderlands Museum).
Upstairs the exhibition on the Sydvaranger mining industry around which Kirkenes'
economy had flourished was haphazardly arranged with no English commentary, with
the disappointing result that we learnt little of this key aspect of the
town's history. Before leaving Kirkenes, we returned to the dockland area where
modern supermarkets had developed on land formerly occupied by demolished mining
industry buildings; this was our first experience of food shopping since
entering Norway, and after 3 months' familiarity with Finnish, it meant
relearning food terms and brand names.
Before
setting off from Kirkenes on the next stage of our journey, we wanted
to make a foray into the Pasvik valley, the curious narrow salient of Norway
which projects southwards wedged between Finland and Russia. The narrow Route
885 was busy with quarry trucks hauling waste rock from the endless spoil-heaps
which still surround the former mining town of Bjørnvatn for shipping away as
road building aggregate. There was little to see of the former iron ore mines
except the spoil heaps and rusting machinery. The poorly surfaced lane continued
along the Pasvik valley alongside the River Pasvikelv which forms the border
with Russia. After some 50kms through increasingly Finland-like pine forests we
reached the turning for Høyde 96, a prominent hill which had during the Cold War
been the site of a NATO watch-tower for monitoring the neighbouring USSR. From
this lookout point, we gazed through binoculars with a mixture of fascination
and abhorrence across the forests and border-river at the distant bleak Russian
mineral mining town of Nikel. This area was the Petsamo peninsula, forcibly
annexed from Finland by the Soviets after WW2 to exploit the mineral deposits;
it was from this region that the Skolt Sámi had been displaced. Through binoculars we
could make out row upon row of dismal tower blocks and smelting works whose
chimneys belched out dense pollutant which hung as a smog over this remote town,
connected to mother Russia by a single railway line (Photo 17 - Soviet mineral-smelting town of Nikel).
Finally leaving the Kirkenes region, we returned
westwards past Neiden, making good progress along the main Route E6 across
scrub-covered empty hills with wide vistas to the south and west across the vast
distances of bleak and cheerless fell-scape. Keeping pace with the
Kirkenes~Varangerbotn service bus which stopped at each isolated farmstead, we
passed along the southern shore of the Varanger Fjorden inlet, looking out
over the wide body of water to the distant north shore where we should camp
tonight. The road rounded the far end of the fjord to reach the surprisingly
large and scattered settlement of Varangerbotn where the Co-op mini-market and
filling station clustered around the milestone road junction where the E6 joined
the main east~west E75 road (Photo 18 - Meeting of roads at Varangerbotn looking along Varangerfjorden).
Setting off along the fjord's north shore, we passed a number of red-painted
wooden dwellings scattered along the shoreline many flying the Sámi flag as on
the masthead of this edition. This was a truly glorious view looking along the
fjord to the villages of Nyborg and Nesseby where the white church stood
prominently on the spit of land (see left). The road hugged the shoreline with
the jagged fellside rocks rising to the left, and westward the afternoon sun
amid dramatic clouds sparkling along the waters of the fjord. After 30 kms we
passed the fjord-side wooden fish-drying frames on the approach to the large
village of Vestre Jakobselv set at the mouth of the Jakobselv River which drains
much of the bleak vidda fell-land of northern Varanger. Just beyond the modern
church (built post-war to replace yet another victim
of German barbarism), a side lane led along to the welcoming campsite which is
popular with Finns here to fish salmon in the local river.
The helpful hospitality, reasonable prices, free washing/drying machine and wi-fi
very much commend the campsite.
Vestre
Jakobselv has a sizeable fishing harbour enclosed by a mole
where the river's estuary flows into the fjord (Photo 19 - Fishing harbour at Vestre Jakobselv).
Here the local fishing fleet was moored and an old wooden boat propped up on the
harbour side (see right). But of greater interest were the wooden net-drying
frames and huge wooden fish-hanging racks stretched out along the shoreline (see
left). Although most of the catch is now taken to Vadsø for freezing, in the
spring time torske (cod) and sarthe are still hung on the racks to dry in the
sun and wind in the traditional manner; we recalled hearing dried fish hanging
on such racks clattering in the wind in Iceland many years ago.
stone-tools manufacturing sites, sacrificial stones,
chamber-tombs and reconstructed Sámi fishermen's turf dwellings. But of
equal interest was the array of Arctic wild flora which covered the
hillside:
flourishing clumps of insectivorous Butterwort with their beautiful mauve
flowers (see left), tiny twin-flowers, Northern Grass of Parnassus, Arctic
Harebells, Juniper scrub its berries still unripe, and our first sightings of
Cloudberry fruits with the unripe newly forming red berries (see right); how we
were looking forward to August to taste the ripe orange berries of this unique
northern fruit.
martyr-hero. The TIC
lad also told us the history of 19th immigration to Finmark of Finnish settlers
fleeing starvation at home; many of Vadsø's population trace their ancestry to
19th Kven immigrants as the Finns were called. The only point of interest in the
modern town of Vadsø was the I
nnvandrer memorial to Kven immigrant settlers and
that was inaccessible due to road works. We therefore walked down to the fishing
harbour (see left) before crossing to the offshore island where the Hurtigruten
calls each day southbound from Kirkenes to see the surviving mast (luft-skipsmasta)
to which the Polar exploration airships were moored (see right). On an isolated
headland across the coastal grassland, the 35m high airship mast still stands
like a modern oilrig and as we stood examining the memorial plaque recording the
historical flights, a modern-day plane emerged from the murky cloud to land at
Vadsø's airfield up on the hill.
bleak interior.
Darkly ominous cloud made the vidda tundra plateau look cold and forbidding.
Beyond the large fishing village of Kiberg, the road swung north for the final
12 kms
towards Vardø passing the hill of Domen with its jagged rock pinnacles
overlooking the cold, grey Barents Sea. Despite the heavily overcast weather
conditions, we decided to attempt the 40km lane around the NE coast to the tiny
semi-abandoned former fishing settlement of Hamningberg unsure of the state of
the road. Uncertainly we
set off, passing the vegbom which closes the road from October~April during
winter snow. Beyond this point the lane narrowed to less than a single vehicle's
width but with tarmaced surface, lined and gravelled edges and frequent passing
places, dropping down to a broad sweeping bay. Beyond here the narrow ribbon of
tarmac threaded its way through a series of headlands, each a chaos of jagged
upright pillars of upended rock strata, rounding tight corners through this
lunar landscape (see left below). This tundra-scape presented a geological text
book come to life with raised beaches from earlier aeons of coastline as the
landmass uplifted relieved of the weight of ice from the Ice Age glaciers'
retreat. Gullies in the grim, black, north-facing tundra cliffs still showed
large areas of last winter's snow. Uncertainly we threaded our way through this
hell-scape of jagged rocks, and rounding another bay where wind-driven surf
lashed onto the beach, we crossed the final stretch of tundra to approach the
lane's end at Hamningberg; here the final obstacle - a small herd of
reindeer blocking our way (Photo 20 - Reindeer blocking the lane approaching Hamningberg).
harbour for larger fishing boats. The village was abandoned
and its picturesque wooden cottages now serve only as holiday homes. Kitted up
fully against
the chill wind, we walked over towards the settlement as more
reindeer scampered by. The
red-painted cottages looked homely in this
wild, isolated environment, more so with the familiar sight of a baby's buggy
parked outside (Photo 21 - Former fishing village of Hamningberg). As we
stood looking out across the bay, where breakers were driven onto the rocky
shoreline by the wind from the grey Barents Sea (see right), an Arctic Fox in its summer ginger
markings wandered cheekily along the beach (Photo 22 - Arctic Fox at Hamningberg).
Clearly today's summer residents at Hamningberg are not a God-fearing bunch
since the old wooden church was well barred and bolted (see left). We walked
back along through the village to begin the drive back to Vardø, and as usual
what had been a slow and uncertain drive out, with experience seemed less
foreboding on the return journey. We wound slowly around the jagged rocky
headlands, picking up speed where we had a clear view of the narrow lane ahead
against the spectacular backdrop of black tundra cliffs and surf-washed bays (Photo 23 - Narrow lane around rocky headlands Hamningberg~Vardø).
Within an hour we were back at the turning for Vardø, a town which makes up for
its lack of interest by investing itself with a host of superlatives: Norway's
oldest and most easterly town, the first to be awarded municipal status in 1789.
Largely destroyed in WW2, Vardø was redeveloped in the 1950s across 2 offshore
islands connected to the main land by Northern Europe's first undersea tunnel.
The Hurtigruten calls at Vardø on its northbound voyage to Kirkenes, which must
be the highlight of day for this weather-beaten little fishing port with its
end-of-world feel. Between times, nothing much else seems to happen apart from a
handful of tourists who make the long drive here mainly to see the Vardøhus
Festning, the town's mid-18th century toy-town fortress. Even the Vardø Museum
is long closed. Another more infamous aspect of Vardø's history however was the
17th century penchant for burning old ladies on the pretext of involvement in
witchcraft: at a time
when
the practice of herbal medicine and fortune-telling in isolated communities
became a target for church-inspired scape-goating in the extreme outposts of
Finmark, some 80 women were burnt alive in Vardø for allegedly communing with
the devil in their coven on Domen Hill. The current Queen of Norway recently
unveiled an apologetic memorial for these acts of supreme barbarism.
initially thrived on farming and fishing in this
Arctic
wilderness. The new port of Murmansk was founded in 1915 connected by railway to
the body of Russia, but the settlers came under increased restrictions after the
1917 communist revolution; many Finnish colonists emigrated to USA, and after
WW2 USSR forcibly annexed Petsamo cutting off Finnish access to the ice-free
port on the Barents Sea. This admirable little museum at Ekkerøy, welcoming and
free-entry, gives an insightful history of this obscure and little known region
of Petsamo and is well worth a visit. But this was not our main reason for
coming out to Ekkerøy. A muddy side lane led to a parking area and a path out to
Ekkerøy's Nature Reserve on the south cliff; during the March~August breeding
season, some 30,000 pairs of Kittiwakes nest on the cliff ledges (Photo 24 - Kittiwakes nesting on cliff face at Ekkerøy). The birds
leave in August after the new young are reared to spend the winter months living
on the open sea. In driving rain, we plodged out below the cliffs where the
eroded rock strata provided broad ledges for the Kittiwakes to nest. The entire
cliff face was covered with nests and this year's young birds perching on the
ledges sheltering from the driving wind and rain (see left), and 1000s more
adult birds swirled around bringing back beaks full of fish to the nests, taking
off again in swirling flocks with their screeching cries (see right). From the shore below, we had a
perfect ringside view of this magnificent spectacle.
defoliates huge areas of Lapland birch trees leaving them blackened as if by
fire. Over
the
watershed, we began the descent to the valley of the broad River Tana (Teno in
Finnish) which flows northward into the Barents Sea; for over 250kms it forms Finland's northern border with Norway between Karasjok and Nuorgam
and our plans
were to spend the next week exploring this border area. Beyond Skippagurra, we
crossed the Tana on the wide suspension bridge at Tana Bru and turned back
south-westwards on the river's north bank along the line of the border. Along
this stretch, the river flowed sluggishly over sand banks, not looking at all
like the salmon river of its reputation. 10kms further, beyond a pleasant
riverside campsite, the river narrows at a sharp bend forming the white-water Storfossen rapids. In pouring rain we pulled in to photograph the river from a
vantage point through rain-spattered camera lens (see left). The road continued
westwards along the Norwegian side of the border for some 30kms through farming
country backed by dark wooded fells to reach the only bridge across the Teno
along this stretch crossing to the Finnish side at Utsjoki. The wide suspension
bridge (see right), only built in 1993, links Utsjoki to Norway transforming
what was once a dead-end village at the northern tip of Finland's Route 4 into a
cross-border shopping centre for Norwegians seeking better prices for fuel and
food at Utsjoki's mini-markets/filling stations just across the bridge beyond
the customs post. Losing an hour with the time zone change crossing back into
Finland, we switched back to euros from Norwegian kroner, and took the
opportunity to stock up with provisions before finding Utsjoki Lapinkylä
Camping. Utsjoki campsite's peaceful fell-land setting and heated facilities
partly made up for its unwelcoming reception, expensive prices and lack of
wi-fi, but it was another chill evening camped here at the very top of Finland.
The
following morning, we continued westwards along the River Teno this time on
Route 970 on
the southern, Finnish side of the border. The view along the wide
river towards the distant scrub-covered fells was magnificent still with
significant amounts of snow, but again this morning obscured by misty rain (see
let).
Lappish fishing boats sped upstream against the current, and fishing cabins
lined the river's bank. The valley widened
with pastureland covering the flatter valley bottom as we approached the Finnish
border village of Karigasniemi, clearly a major service centre for the outlying
farms. Reaching the road junction with Route 92 coming up from Kaamanen, we
turned north to re-cross the Norwegian border regaining the 
hour
lost yesterday. In gloomy drizzle, we drove the 16kms alongside the meandering
tributary river to reach Karasjok, where roads radiated out from the village
centre north eventually to Nordkapp, NE along the Tana's north bank back towards
Tana Bru, and SW to Kautokeino, all places we should experience later. At such a
major cross-roads, Karasjok is an inevitable tourist trap where at the
TIC-cum-over-priced-tourist-boutique, the glamorously dressed dolly-birds in
pseudo Sámi costumes knew little about Karasjok and could answer few of our questions. It seems
one of life's unfathomable laws that TIC staff generally reflect the demands
of their regular clientele: at Karasjok, tourists swarming from their
buses expected nothing and got even less by way of information. The campsite at Karasjok has been kept by the Halonen
family since 1963 and the beautifully cropped turf of the flat camping area
overlooking the river valley shows the care that has been lavished on it. Each
evening during summer, a wood fire is lit in the huge Lavvu Sámi tent for guests
to sit around on reindeer skin-covered benches. We grilled our supper sausages
on sharpened birch branches over the fire, reminiscing with a group of Czechs
who were also camping there, as smoke from the fire drifted upwards through the
hole in the Lavvu tent's roof (Photo 25 - Grilling supper in Karasjok Camping's Lavvu Sámi tent).
degree of devolved self-government which the Sámi enjoyed in Norway. The origins
of the Sámidiggi go back to the 1970s when the Norwegian State Parliament, the Storting, resolved to build a dam on the Alta-Kautokeino River which would flood
the valley inundating the settlement of Masi and traditional Sámi lands. This
provoked widespread environmentalist
protests and aroused the Sámi to take
collective action to protect their interests. Following prolonged protests
and civil disobedience, a legal decision ruled in favour of the dam but in
modified scale. The important result however was an awakening of Sámi awareness
of their unique status as an indigenous people. A Sámi Rights Commission led to
an act of the State Parliament to establish the Sámidiggi which opened in 1989.
The Norwegian Sámi Parliament has no legislative powers but has the statutory
right to be consulted by the Storting on any matter affecting the Sámi people;
its authority is limited to matters relating to Sámi culture, language,
education, health and social matters, and environmental protection. The State
Parliament makes an annual financial award from which the Sámidiggi decides
its priorities for budgetary expenditure. There are 39 members elected from the 7
constituencies covering the whole of Norway for a 4 year term. Eligibility for
voting rights is open to those who declare themselves Sámi with Sámi as their
native language or with Sámi parentage. At present there are just under 14,000
registered on the Norwegian electoral role.
The Sámidiggi was opened by Norway's King Harold V in 2000 with a semi-circular
building housing the national Sámi library and parliamentary administration, and
alongside the Lavvu-shaped amphitheatre where plenary sessions are held 5 times
each year (Photo 26 - Norwegian Sámi Parliament (Sámidiggi)). The chamber is backed by a large etched metal engraving representing the
concentric circles of a Lappi encampment (Photo 27 - Plenary chamber of the Sámi Parliament). The young Sámi guide, a student at
Bergen University, answered our questions with admirable frankness about
relations between the State Parliament and the purely consultative Sámidiggi.
Again we had the privileged opportunity to discuss openly and to understand more
about
the contentious issues for the Norwegian Sámi - fishing rights, mineral
rights and the environmental impact of mining. Interestingly there are the
beginnings of a nationalistic backlash against what is seen as the over-extended
powers given to the so-called indigenous peoples of Norway.
Before
leaving Karasjok, we called in at the Co-op supermarket for a provisions
stock-up and queued at the check-out behind a local lady wearing Sámi costume
and red bonnet. Just across the Karasjoki bridge, the old church at Karasjok had
been the only building left standing in October 1944 by the German scorched earth
destruction, and now stands proudly in its large open churchyard with a war
memorial recording the names of WW2 dead from the town. Leaving Karasjok, we
re-crossed into Finland for a night's camp in the border village of Karigasniemi.
Camping Tenorinne is set on terraced ledges above the border river, here called
the Inarijoki before the confluence with the Karasjoki flowing in from Norway,
when the merged rivers become the Tana/Teno which we had been following this
week. This is another wonderfully hospitable campsite which has been kept by the
Lehtosalo family since 1966 and again their hard work showed: one of the finest
campsites we had stayed at in the whole of Finland with very reasonable charges,
a beautiful location, laundry, free site-wide wi-fi, and a homely kitchen-cum-common with terrace
looking out across the river towards the setting sun over the wooded hills of
Norway (see right). What more could you ask for (Photo 28 - Evening barbecue at ).
After supper, we walked down to the river, where twin-flowers grew in profusion
by the embankment steps, to photograph the evening sun and fisherman standing
the river casting their lines (Photo 29 - Evening sun over River Teno/Tana).
watershed
between the Teno and Utsjoki river drainage areas and part way across we passed
the isolated small campsite of Muotkan Ruoktu set by a fast-running watercourse,
clearly a popular fishing spot. The road descended steeply to the junction at
Kaamanen where we paused to pay our respects at the Lapland War Memorial which
takes the form of a battle-scarred piece of armour-plating (see left). The
Finnish inscription commemorates the heroic contribution of the Finnish light
infantry battalions who advanced 400kms from the south on foot to drive the
Germans from Lapland; the English translation reads: the battles of the light
infantrymen in the wilds of Lapland were brought to an end in Kaamanen, Inari,
at the end of October 1944 - 774 killed, 262 missing, 2,904 wounded We
turned northwards on Route 4 for the 90km drive across the tundra plateau
towards Utsjoki; with a good road and little traffic, we made good progress
across the endless empty tundra fell-scape which stretched away largely treeless
to distant horizons. Part way across we reached the series of elongated lakes of
the Utsjoki river system which flowed northwards cutting through a steeply sided
and densely wooded valley before merging with the Teno at Utsjoki village where
we had camped a week ago. Just before the village, the road passes the Utsjoki
Church Hut area on the shores of Lake Mantojärvi. The original wooden church of
St Ulrika had been built here in 1700, and replaced in 1850 by the present
church set high on the hillside overlooking the lake. Sámis travelled from
far-flung communities to Utsjoki for market days, tax collection and to attend
church, often arriving a day earlier needing somewhere to stay. A collection of
wooden log-cabins accumulated on the shore of the lake as accommodation for
church-goers from distant settlements; families built their own huts which were
in use until the 1940s. 13 of the huts have been preserved along the lake shore
opposite the church and are now maintained by a cooperative and by Utsjoki
municipality (see right). If you are passing this way, pause briefly to see this
surviving aspect of Lapland's social history.
After another call at Utsjoki's supermarket for
food and fuel, we turned eastward for the final section of our Teno/Tana circuit
along the Finnish bank of the river on Route 970 to Nuorgam. This road gave more
open views of the wide and sand-banked Teno than from the northern bank which we
had driven a week ago. Nuorgam spread along the south bank of the river is the
most northerly village in Finland with the majority of the 200 inhabitants
being Sámi. At the far end of the village, an insignificant monument marks the Finland~Norway borderline and the EU's northernmost point, at latitude 70° 05'
N, longitude 27° 58' E (Photo 32 - EU's northernmost point at Nuorgam).
For us, this was a significant point: we had now travelled from Hanko in the
farthest south of Finland to Nuorgam in the farthest north, a journey of
3,000kms, and here we were closer to the North Pole than to London. Having
enjoyed such an excellent campsite at Hanko in the south, we were looking
forward to staying tonight a similarly memorable campsite; it was, but for the
wrong reason! We were greeted at Nuorgam Lomakeskus Camping with the most surly,
sour-faced and offensively off-hand non-welcome ever encountered in 45 years of
camping; and to add insult to injury, this rudeness was matched by the most
expensive prices in Finland and unprecedentedly, no discount for our
Scandinavian Camping Card. The setting on the Teno's riverbank looking across to
the fells on Norway on the far bank was delightful (see left), but the owner's
uncouth manners made this a place to be avoided at all costs - take note. 
