Eastward bound

Finland is a country which shares one common property with the two other nordic countries, Sweden and Norway: it is long in south north direction, but relatively narrow from east to west. Coincidentally the 65 N parallel crosses Finland at its narrowest waist-line. From the waters of the Gulf of Bothnia (still frozen solid) to the Russian border the distance is a mere 195 km (120 miles). The distance is small but I think I'll start with low speed as there are also many interesting images available on that first leg on my journey.

Before I leave the my home turf, the rural parts of city of Oulu show a wide network of bike, ski and snowmobile tracks. The bike tracks are mostly for summer use, but the ski tracks have a double function during the summer months. They are used for trekking, jogging and cross country biking.

The above photo shows a nice little bridge built on a track causeway crossing the western end of the Lake Seluska in the newest parts of the city. The snow has melted and the lake water is high as seen by the flow on the front of the image. (Image by Kimmo Lahti).

The water is very close to all Finns. The city of Oulu has its own river (aptly called the River Oulu), on which the city was originally built hundreds of years ago. There are also a few smaller tributaries inland. The next significant river north of Oulu is called Kiiminginjoki and its upper stretches turn to south-east forming a nice recreational waterway (120 km inside the city limits) to paddlers and fishermen. Quite a few rapids make the river fully navigable only for the most experienced whitewater paddlers. However there is a fully documented route description for those who are interested.

The image above shows the serenity of the river Kiiminginjoki at the Ylivuotto village (Image by marko_). Still upstream the river turns again to east following neatly the 65th parallel. It forms a string of small lakes which have been suitable locations for small farms and today also for holiday cottages. An interesting testimony of old history is the following image which shows the remnants of an old water driven lumber mill (Image by Eero Paso).

The landscape around the 65th parallel in Finland is a mix of forest and farmland. Small villages of only a few houses each are scattered throughout the countryside and a tight network of small dirt roads connects them to outer world. Towards the eastern border the flat landscape turns hilly and at the same time also proportion of old, unmanaged forest increases. Along with that also other wildlife becomes more varied and more easterly in terms of individual species.

Several species of lichen covering a mossy rock in an old forest (Image by terhirepo).

Mineral sources are not very common in central Finland. There should be no reason for the apparent absence of mineral riches, but there are not many places where the bedrock is exposed for the prospectors to do their work. There has been however a few exceptions in the past as we see in the last photograph showing an abandoned quarzite quarry near the Lake Kianta and the community of Suomussalmi (Image by psp67).

Suomussalmi is the easternmost urban area approximately at 65 degrees North in Finland and not far from it is the Russian border, which we will cross in the next episode blog.