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i Tammi i ■/1 r m S. - m !■ ■■—:m m m • -• •. V ■ yo LAPLAND • 1 A (\\v, IN COLOUR -■ I ,4| ‘ LAPLAND in Colour Text by MIKKO KILPI TAMMI • HELSINKI I Second revised edition Photographs: Rolf Gronblom 32; Hannu Hautala 19; Helge Heinonen 39, 40, 43; Pekka Hiltunen 35; Mauno Kervinen 42; Pentti Launiainen 25; Reino Lounimo 17, 18, 20—24, 26, 27, 29—31, 33, 34, 36, 38; Aulis Nyqvist 44; Kalevi Pekkonen 48; Matti Poutvaara 45; Teuvo Suominen 47; Varisuomi 28, 37, 41, 46. Translated from the Finnish by Kingsley Hart and The English Centre (g) by Tammi, Helsinki 1974 ISBN 951-30-2906-9 Printed in Finland Helsinki 1974, KK:n kirjapaino Lapland, the northern part of Fennoscandia, cuts across the borders of four nations — Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Soviet Union. The Norwegians call Lapland Finnmark. In Norwegian ’’Finn” does not mean what it does in English; it refers to the Lapps instead. The Swedes generally use the term Norrbotten, and Soviet Lapland is closed to tourists with the exception of the road leading from the Finnish border to Murmansk. Thus Lapland has gradually come to mean mainly Finnish Lapland. But the concept is still geographically vague. It sometimes means the eight or even the ten northernmost parishes in Finland although it could also mean the entire province of Lapland. Many simplify matters by calling all of Finland north of the Arctic Circle Lapland. But regardless of where you draw the southern boundary, the word ’’Lapland” evokes a single response in residents of the south. Lapland means the fells, the midnight sun, the wintry northern lights and reindeer-herding Lapps. Although these images are played up in tourist promotion stressing the exotic nature of the north, they are not distortions. They are all part of Lapland even if the snow mobiles have almost entirely replaced the reindeer team and the Lapps themselves account for only 6—7 % of the population of their own area. The tourist can certainly catch sight of reindeer as far south as Rovaniemi and with good luck he might even see a Lapp in national costume walking the streets of the provincial capital. But the fells are still a long way off. When driving towards the north, the traveller may see a few peaks in the distance above the unending turquoise sea of coniferous forest, but he will only get some idea of the continuous fell- 5 country after he has driven two hundred and fifty miles north of Rovaniemi to where the road rises to Kaunispaa, and the fells of Saariselka can be seen to the east, in all their grandeur. In western Lapland, only the Pallas fells convey any idea of the real Lapp country, and even from Pallas it is a long way to the northwestern arm of Lapland, which is the most rugged part of Finland. The largest part of Finnish Lapland is forested, being pine-covered wasteland and hills. Only the districts of Enontekio and Utsjoki are real fell districts. Apart from this, more extensive homogeneous fell country is to be found only in the Inari district (the Muotka and Marasto fells), in the eastern parts of Sodan- kyla (the Saariselka area mentioned above), and in the Kittila, Kolari, and Muonio districts (the Pallas fells). People coming from the relative flatness of southern Finland cannot fail to be impressed by the towering grandeur of the fells. On the other hand, they may disappoint the tourist accustomed to the mountain ranges of central Europe. The height of the fells is by comparison modest, mostly between 1 300 and 2 000 feet above sea level, and their contours are smooth and their slopes gentle without precipitous peaks. But this is because the Finnish fells are probably the remains of what was the oldest mountain range in the world, and they have acquired their present form over a period of hundreds of thousands of years. Only the fells in the northwestern arm of the country near the border with Norway and Sweden have peaks higher than 3 250 feet. The calm, undulating shapes of the fells and their arctic flora have a strange attraction of their own, at its most intense during the sunny days of late winter, by the light of the midnight sun, or in the unbelievable splendour of the colours of autumn. Further south blue-grey evergreens leave their own mark on the lonely summits of the occasional fell. The landscape in southern Lapland has paid a high price to industry in the 6 post-war years. The Kemijoki river, the mightiest watercourse in the country, has been harnessed to produce electricity. For this reason large dams were built at Lokka and Porttipahka on the Kitinen, a tributary of the Kemijoki. The water inundated vast tracts of grazing land for reindeer and even villages. A dispute is still raging over the construction of the third reservoir, the Kemihaara, at Pelkosenniemi. Lapland’s forest resources have paid a heavy toll to meet the needs of the growing wood processing industry. This is true where large stands of timber have been cut, particularly in eastern Lapland, around Salla and Savukoski, where reforestation has been slow. The result is depressing to the tourist. The construction of dams on the Kemijoki has destroyed salmon fishing, to the considerable annoyance of both the local population and fish- crazy tourists. Only the Tenojoki, the river forming part of the border between Finland and Norway, still yields the Arctic salmon, and even then for a high daily fee and when special restrictions are observed. Once in a while a salmon wanders into the upper reaches of the Naatamojoki river on the Finnish side of the border and there is also hope that salmon will return to the Tornionjoki river, the border between Finland and Sweden, now that timber floating has been discontinued and the towns at the mouth of the river, Tornio in Finland and Haparanda on the Swedish side, have begun to treat their sewage. Elsewhere — wherever fishing is allowed for those who have obtained a special permit — the fisherman has to content himself with lake-trout, salmon-trout, grayling and whitefish, and even these are getting so scarce that many eager Finnish tourists to Lapland nowadays go to Norway for their fishing trips. But for diose for whom the size of the catch is not the most important thing, the salmon streams of Lapland offer unforgettable experiences: the peace and quiet of the wilderness and the beauty of the sparkling waters of the lakes. Even if the yield from fishing has diminished, reindeer herding has become 7 more rationalized and more profitable throughout the whole province of Lap- land. It is estimated that there are about 200 000 reindeer at the moment, but it is impossible to know the exact figure, for the reindeer is a wild rather than a tame animal. Its completely wild ancestors still roamed in large herds at the end of the last century in the forests and fells of eastern Lapland, but died out owing to excessive hunting in the eighteen-eighties; the local inhabitants maintain that it was the Lapps moving with their herds from Enontekio to the fells of Saariselka who drove the wild reindeer away. In order to control the herds, reindeer fences have been placed along the frontiers of the country, and Lapland has been divided up between syndicates, which organize reindeer herding. The animals roam at liberty for the greater part of the year in the forests and fells, but in the winter they are rounded up into corrals with the help of reindeer dogs, man power and domesticated reindeer; nowadays, snow mobiles are also used. In these corrals each reindeer owner can recognize his own animals by means of markings on their ears; he then decides which animals he is going to sell, which he is going to slaughter, and which he is going to return to the grazing grounds to supplement the herd. At the round-up, the calves still with their mothers have their ears marked; of the young male reindeer, those not required for breeding purposes are castrated. Nowadays, castration is performed with special forceps, and the old method of ’’biting” is no longer used, except in special cases. The round-ups — the most impor tant take place before and after the New Year — are dramatic and bloody shows with a great deal of noise and bustle and colourful Lapp costumes. Most of the corrals are rather remote, but on the road leading to the north western arm of Finland and at Vuomaselka, Sodankyla, even tourists can, with a minimum of inconvenience, manage to witness a round-up — the ’’blood- harvest” of a reindeer owner, preceded by hard work, sometimes weeks spent 8