Week 6: Savonlinna to Heinävesi

June 16, 2003

The Finnish concept of “Wilderness” has been a constant source of confusion for me. When I say “Wilderness” I envision the following:
- Big. It takes days not hours, to cross on foot.
- Roadless. No motorized vehicles allowed.
- No permanent structures.
- Diverse. Encompassing many ecosystem and landscape types.
- No economic activities.
- Natural processes allowed to run thier course.
- Hunting, fishing, hiking, camping, research, photography, etc. is allowed.

But the Finnish word Erämaa, which is generally translated as “Wilderness”, denotes something different – and I’ve struggled to wrap my mind around it.Erämaa is more a type of “economic use zone” as far as I can tell.

At lease as far back as the time of Swedish rule, erämaa was a place beyond settlement, not privatly owned, or owned by the crown. It was a resource for hunting, timber, trapping and at times homesteading. A place kept in reserve in case of hard times. A storehouse of sorts and a frontier.

So, when a modern Finn tells me: “go over there, its a wonderful Wilderness”, I see, not Wilderness, but heavily roaded, heavily managed forests. Timber farms, gravel mines, and even occasionally farms or summer cottages. Wilderness seems to be a place you can live in or at least use.

“To me, Wilderness is a place. It is seperate and special. Set apart from the every day. You can’t live in or exploit Wilderness. I’ve been told this is an elitist Euro-American concept. But I disagree. Most cultures have a set aside place where one goes but does not live. GP Nabhan strongly showed this to be a common concept among Mexico’s indigenous people and my Native American friends also say they have a concept of “Wilderness” as something special and set aside.

But even the Finnish Wilderness Act doesn’t create or protect Wilderness as I think of it. Roads can be built, domestic reindeer grazed, snowmobiles and ATVs used, timber harvested, etc. People can even live there!

Nouxio National Park is often labled as “Wilderness”. But it is small, extremely heavily roaded, made up of disconnected parcels, full of houses, etc. I love to go there, it is beautiful, but to me it is an urban park, not Wilderness.

I have wondered if this cultural vision of Wilderness has implications for protecting biodiversity (particularly in southern Finland when most of the biodiversity occures). In S. Finlan, protected areas are painfully small. Plots of 1, 13, 30, etc. hectares are common. Areas are dots, or long and thin and most are hemmed in by roads and disconnected from other protected areas. A simple understanding of conservation biology and population dynamics will tell you that, for the most part, these areas are worthless when it comes to protecting biodiversity. Even Nouxio, Evo, and Kolovesi National Park, so heavily roaded and fragmented as they are, serve little value in the protection of biodiversity and endangered species.

“One Finn said simply “There is no Wilderness left in Finland.” Another said “of course there is not Wilderness in Finland. There hasn’t been for 9,000 years. We’ve always lived here. There is no Wilderness in Finland because all of Finland is home.”

Comments?

June 16
Judging by the slew of emails I am getting, there seems to be some confusion generated by my website.

1. This website is intended as a personal travelogue about my walk for friends, family and people who are interested in such things. It is for people to see some of what I see through photos and to experience some of what I experience and feel through my writing – and even that is limited. I never have more than 30-60 minutes/week to type my update (hence some typos). It is meant to be about me and my trip. The discussions and “interviews” I conduct along the way and the information I gather I intend to publish in 2005. That is somewhat seperate from the website.

2. I am not a bumbling idealist looking for the “promised land” here in Finland. I don’t think Finland is Utopia and I don’t think the Finns are the “noble savage” with some secret knowledge about nature. I am not looking for “truth”. I simply want to see how different people live with and in nature. And I want to learn as much as I can about my wife’s country. And….I want to be outside.

3. Please look at what I am doing as ART and not NOT as science or anthropology. Anthough my training is in science and anthropology, I am an artist at heart. A writer. As a change, I’m trying to explore my surroundings through that channel. I want to do something different.

Sorry for the confusion.

Posted in Travelogue