Weeks 13 and 14: Oulu, Kemi, Tornio, Pello
August 13, 2003
GOOD NEWS! One of my stories has been accepted for publication in a compilation. The publisher is Travelers Tales (www.travelerstales.com), the book name is something like: “The Hayenas Laughed at Me and Now I Know Why” and the story is “Egypt, Day One“. Look for it in early 2004.
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It’s now become clear that I won’t be able to make the end in 16 weeks. I need an extra 10 days to two weeks to finish this off. So, the end date will now be sometime around September 15.
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August 13
“”There is nothing of Acerbi that remains, and, anyway, Lapland is more modern than New York City.” It was a warning.
In Oulu came word that an Italian writer was travelling ahead of me, tracing the same route I intended to follow to Muonio. I sent a note ahead, requesting a meeting and an exchange of perceptions. He refused, with an oblique, Calvino-ish reply (do all Italian writers actually intend to be coquetish?) and left me with the warning.
In 1799, Giuseppi Acerbi departed Oulu in the company of the Swedish colonel, Adolf Skjödebrand. Acerbi was a handsome, young Italian with wild, curly hair and a wry grin. He spoke 6 languages, including Latin, and had been educated in both the sciences and the arts. Thier goal was Nordcapp, the northernmost point in Europe. They travelled to Tornio by sledge and boat. There, Acerbi found a German clergyman with whom he could speak Latin and who was familiar with local botany. They spent the summer climbing the Tornio and Muonio rivers to arrive at Nordcapp in early autumn.
Skjöldebrand sketched dramatic landscapes and ethnographic details. He also compiled a report to the government about the region (later, considered a regional expert, he participated in the border negotiations after the disasterous 1808-09 war with Russia). Acerbi recorded the geology, botany, natural history, geography (in his book, he seemed to question the calculations of the Maupertuis expedition), culture, food, dress and music of the Finns and Samis. He deplored the sauna (and the Sami) but was enchanted by the Finnish women (rightly so!) and never passed up the opportunity to enter the woman’s sauna – fully clothed – to record temperature extremes in the name of science.
In Helsinki, at the National Library, I found an origional, 1802 copy of his book. His style was at once lucid and severe. He was witty, cocky and above all, observant. And he was funny. Charming even.
Acerbi’s descriptions of the wild, wide, Tornio river valley (along with Skjöldebrand’s prints, which I also found) were the reason I chose to cross Finland at the center and follow the western route northward.
But the Italian writer was correct. Nothing remains of Acerbi’s river. Imaginations rarely match up with the real thing. Fifteen years ago, in Morocco, an Australian, horribly disappointed to find Arabs in jeans and polo shirts, said “whatever you imagine of a place – you’re wrong.” How true.
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In Kemi, my Swiss benefactors joined me for a week. Leaving Kemi was a problem: there was no where to walk. For over an hour we endured the nerve-wracking roar of tractor trailers, logging trucks, motorcycles, cars and RVs. We walked single file as fast as we could. It wasn’t pleasant but they had been forwarned. We came to a bridge that was under construction. The asfault was fresh and hot, a steam roller moved back and forth with a bleary-eyed teenager at the healm and the cars fell into a single line.
We joined the fray; there was no other option.
Safe on the other side, we trudged through a shopping center parking lot, cars sales, a plumbing store, RV sales, a wood lot – and finally onto a bike path leading to Tornio. It didn’t get better until five days later, north of Avasaksa. The highway nearly domintates the river and the growling, polluting, obnoxious traffic never ends. The campgrounds were louder than a street-side cafe in Helsinki and there was no where to walk but on the road. It was comparable to Interstate 25 (in Colorado) between Colorado Springs and Denver.
And, why not? It’s not my river valley and my disappointment was caused by myexpectation of something different. Still, be in Colorado, New Mexico or Finland, I consistently fail to understand why people accept – and even encourage – the destruction of beauty and peace in favour of ugly, violent highways. They are so prevelant in our lives now, that we don’t even remark on how horrible and damaging they actually are. It’s like contracting a slow-growing cancer, then ignoring it. Sometimes I feel like a terrible anachronism.
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In Tornio, we ate breakfast in a clean, well-lighted place, but the city itself was dirty. The river was wide and the land flat. In the blue of the haze and the clouds, it was difficult to distinguish between the sea, the river and the land.
The land slowly rose as we went north and, little by little, the river narrowed. At Kukkola rapids the river dropped 13.8m in 3,500m and men with long nets stood out on planks of wood that hovered over the whitewater. They took trout, salmon, char and whitefish. We could wave to the tourists on the Swedish side.
I was wrong about having more light. The nights are becoming longer and on August 6 I could see Venus from the Erkheikki sauna about midnight. In Kemi the temperature had been +30C. By Karunki it was +15 and at night it dropped to +5C. A heavy dew formed on my tent, my shoes and my pack.
By Yli-Tornio there were hills. The valley was lush. The hay had been cut and bundled into massive, white plastic rolls. There were houses all along the Swedish side and cell phone towers on nearly every hill. The clouds were low, puffy and white against a purple storm; sunlight touched the green hill tops.
On August 9, we walked east along the highway from Avasaksa to climb a large hill. There were no walking trails until nearly the top. The hill is well-known for its fabulous views – and they are fantastic – so it’s been designated as a “Nature Protection Area”. But, protected from what, I wonder: there is a wide paved road to the top, a huge vacation village, a ski-slope, a cafe, a theater, two parking lots, observation tower, museum and cell phone tower. What, I wondered, is there left to protect?
Barbara and Regula left from Avasaksa. A woman told me that an elderly man was about a week ahead of me, walking to Nordcapp with a pushcart for his things. By the Arctic Circle it had warmed again to +24C. The Finns were sweltering in the heat, the Germans wore shorts and t-shirts and the Italians thought it a bit chilly. I was sweating and sunburned and swam in the river. Yes, the Arctic Circle.
I’ve about a month left and thank God there will be hills. I’ve had it with flat. Physically I am fine, but my mind is growing weary. I’m looking forward to the Finnish Line.
Posted in Travelogue
