Biathlon-ing....as a spectator

World Cup Biathlon.  "The Russians are here...and they have guns!" - Rick Mercer

So, it seems to be biathlon season around here.  The local biathlon stadium (Kontiolahti, 20km North of the city) has been pretty busy hosting events the past few weeks.  A week ago, April and I spent our Saturday representing 100% of the Canadian fan base at the sprint competition of Biathlon World Cup 8.  Actually, as far as we could tell, we were 2 of 3 Canadians there (2 cheering, 1 racer: Zina Kocher).  I should clarify here that this is not a championship race, rather a single set of races in the entire season of the IBU World Cup Circuit.  Most of the Canadian athletes were spending their weekend at a race in Canmore, Alberta, Canada...home for them!  I was surprised that there was even 1 athlete here in Kontiolahti...I would've made a flag had I known that we had a Canadian to cheer for!

When people gave up on driving and started to walk

Our trip ampumahiihtokeskustaan (to the biathlon centre...yes, it actually is all 1 word)) started with a looooong bus ride.  It was more than an hour to cover the 20km to the stadium from town.  Why?  Well, there was a traffic jam caused by a lack of parking space.  So, cars were parking on the side of the road, which was barely wide enough for 2 lanes of traffic.  At this point, there were parked cars in the righthand lane, people trying to drive closer to the stadium in the left lane, people trying to leave the stadium in the left lane, pedestrians everywhere, and police vans trying to make progress anywhere they could amidst all of this.  Given the amount of parking space and the carrying capacity of the access road, transportation should've been organized like the 2010 olympics with efficient mass-transit busses to the venues.  I can't imagine what would've happened if an emergency vehicle needed immediate access in or out of the stadium.  So, after we survived the craziness of getting there, the only thing we really had left to survive that day was the cold.  It wasn't that bad, maybe -16 or so.  The problem was that we were standing still for a few hours in the snow.  About an hour in, April and I agreed that our feet were probably cold, but we weren't quire sure because we couldn't feel them...but then it got painful.

some of the crowd along the course...notice how everyone looks a little cold?  People were jumping up and down and I'm not sure if it was excitement or simply a matter of survival

The races themselves were great.  We had grounds tickets, which meant that we got to stand along the race course at the range entrance.  We were late for the start of the men's due to the traffic mess, but we got to watch all of the women's.  The German Magdelena Neuner took gold, while the hometown sweetheart Kaisa Mäkäräinen took silver.  Zina Kocher (the sole Canadian) made a VERY respectable 12th place (out of more than 80), shooting 1-1 (that means 8/10 targets hit).  April and I did not attend the pursuit competition the following day, but I looked up the results.  Kaisa took gold, while Zina moved up to 9th.  Nice top 10 finish!  Looking forward, there are a whole lot more Canadians in town now for the IBU World Youth/Junior World Championships Biathlon that are happening this week.  I waved to a couple of guys in Biathlon Canada jackets on Friday while riding my bike to school...and got a blank stare in return.  I wonder if they thought I was a bit creepy?...naaw

Hey look! I found some Finns among the Russians!  Hyvää Suomea!  mmmm...makkarat!

While talking with locals, some confusion often comes up about the definition of biathlon.  In Finnish, it is simply ampumahiihto, or "shoot ski."  Really quite logical.  There is no ambiguity about what the two sports are like in the English "bilathlon."  What is it?  Running & biking....swimming & running....swimming & biking....skiing & ice swimming....??? you get the idea... Anyways, this is one of the Finnish language's few totally logical moments. Yes, I have once again returned to one of my favorite tirades...the Finnish Language.  I am still feeling totally stumped by it.  Occasionally I think I have something figured out and my confidence grows a little...but....then I try using the language and usually there is an exception....or it's not really used in spoken language (yes, spoken and written finnish can be considered different languages).  Please allow me to direct your attention to this website, which gives a simple overview of the word yksi, or one.  I continue to try, but I feel although any progress is discouragingly slow.

Me and a giant biathlon bear...or maybe it's a ampumahiihtokarhu...somehow "biathlon bears" just flows a bit better...

In other non-biathlon news, last Saturday we drove down (130km South) to LUSTO, the Finnish Forestry museum.  It was really interesting (ok, so I have a biased opinion because I like both forests and Finland).  There was a display of machinery (new and old), wood science-y stuff, forest industry history, forest management techniques, intricate dioramas, a tree made of chainsaws, the forests' role in Finnish culture, and of course lots of information on the pioneers of finnish forestry.  Wow, those were a bunch of tough, stubborn men and women.  Oh yes, and they had a simulator, which we may have spent a few turns on felling and bucking imaginary pine trees.  nice!  I think one of the biggest testaments to Finnish culture in this museum was not intended to be a cultural display.  They have a whole room called the "Silence Room" dedicated solely to the solitude and lack of noise in a tranquil forest. Seriously.  It is one of the things I appreciate most about working in the forest, but to have a whole museum display on it...well, that's just Finnish!

skating disco...interestante!

It feels like spring is finally coming.  We have surpassed 9 hours of daylight and we have almost achieved above 0 temperatures.  But, it does continue to snow.  Last week, wait...no...2 weeks ago there was an "ice disco" and live concert at Ilosaari (happy island) which is a venue on an island in the river in town.  They cleared the snow off a section of river and we skated on the natural ice...it was full of holes of unknown origin that occasionally would swallow your foot whole causing you to crash.  One of the more...um...interesting?... parts of the evening was attending my first rap concert ever...in Finnish.  Did I understand anything? Well, I heard the word viina a few times...

Kontiolahti biathlon stadium today at World Youth/Juniors during zero

Anyways, I'm looking forward to some spring ice fishing soon!

Frigid Finnish Follies

Yet another beautiful finnish sunrise!!

So it's been a bit chilly this past week...today is the first day over -20, which is a bit of a relief.  This weekend it didn't really get above -27, but it was sunny!!  Now it's windy, but the temperature went up 15 degrees overnight so it feels warm...at -14.  After riding my bike around a bit today (to and from school), I have decided that -30, sunny, and calm is without a doubt much warmer than -15, cloudy, and windy.  I was certainly cursing the weather under my breath as I tried to pedal my bicycle up the bridge "hill" on my way home from school.  My sweet little uni-gear bike gets very stiff and hard to pedal when the weather is below -10; I wouldn't be able to tell you one specific reason why, but it probably doesn't help that the tires are always flat.  I have been pumping up the tires almost every day to try to retain some sort of tire pressure, but I think the tires/rims/valves don't take kindly to being hauled between +20 (bike room) and -25 twice a day.  In addition to my bike being a little stubborn, there was a stiff headwind coming right down the bridge at me, bringing with it clouds of ice shards that pelt any exposed skin; this is exacerbated when a truck or bus passes you.  The wind also causes those ice shards to form drifts on the bike lane/sidewalk that are more than happy to suck you in as you try to grunt your way up the hill.  In the end it's usually a battle that leaves you with numb fingers, nose, and cheeks, but an absolutely sweaty layer of long johns. But...it gets you there!

Hoar on the lake

Last weekend I went to a hockey game in Joensuu where the local team (Jokipojat, literally "river boys") was playing another team from south of here (I can't remember the name, but I do remember that the train stops there).  It provided everything you hope for in a hockey game...clean goals, sneaky goals, a hometeam comeback, a fight, overtime, and finally a shootout that Jokipojat won the game with.  There were of course a few differences between this hockey game and others I have watched.  The most noticeable difference was that one player on each team had a golden helmet...like super-shiny-bling-gold. Apparently this is worn by the points leader on each team.  It certainly draws your attention when they're on the ice.  Another difference I noticed was that there was a lot more playing time in the game....lots of passing, lots of skating, and very few penalties or other reasons to stop the game and drop the puck back in.  Speaking of penalties, fighting is straight-up illegal in this league and the two players who took part in the brief fight (about 1 swing each before the refs came in) were both expelled for the remainder of the game.  Another thing that doesn't happen is drinking: beer is not sold or consumed (legitimately at least) in the hockey stadium and I saw no trace of it while I was there.  It was neat to go to the game and I look forward to maybe watching another game while I am here!

Sunset at Siilinjärvi

Last week there was a skiing "race" that I took part in at school.  I use the term race loosely because it wasn't exactly serious in nature.  The basic idea was that students (or instructors, or whoever) would form teams (I'm not sure if there was a team membership limit) and then have 12 hours to complete as many loops of a 1.6km track as they could in any ski style they chose.  This is where the interesting bit came in...some teams were a bit more serious (such as the team "spandex") and stuck purely to skate-skiing and sleek attire.  Other teams were more casual (whatever skis or skill were welcome), and other teams went to the effort of constructing their own modes of transportation for completing the circuit.  These included ski-thrones, group skis, tandem skis, mono-skis and...well, that's about it.  Many people took to wearing costumes, which ranged from a "Traditional Finn" look (Marttiini, rucksack, black leather 3-pin boots, hand knitted attire or old-school army issue attire) to spandex (in standard colours and styles) to fluorescent funfur capes to Moomin characters.  Generally there were no scanty costumes as it was -25 while the sun was up (7/12 hours).

Summer cottage (kesämökki) all bundled up for the winter

Overall our team had 10 skiers of varying levels (second time on skis to former racers) on whatever skis they could get ahold of.  Personally, I'm not Finn, but I have spent a fair amount of time in my life on skis, but nothing quite like the skis I was equipped with this time.  They were a free loan and free is good...right? well, until you looked at the bases.  It looked like someone had gone scree-skiing in them...ugh.  Not to mention they were classic skis (some people may know what I have to say about classic skiing in general)...and WAXABLE classic skis. not that I'm complaining...they were free, right?  Well...I do have kick wax, but it was -7 to -12 wax and the air temp was -25, so my kick wax situation was questionable. Anyways, I donned my sweet green unisuit (thank you Emily!) and some hot pink long johns (actually that was just the top layer...there were more below that) and set out for the 2 hours of skiing I had promised to complete.  If I learned nothing else in Biathlon, it was how to look ridiculously fashionable in choosing fine skiing attire. I wish I had a photo.  Around...and Around...and Around....And around the 1.6km loop.  I managed to get 6 loops done before I wore off all of the kick-wax and was left with my fine technique to get me around the course. In total, I managed to complete 10 laps (16 km) in 2 hours on my sweet, free skis.  I am pretty proud of myself for accomplishing that, however, I have to admit I felt some pretty strong envy when people in nice, properly-waxed skate skis would just effortlessly glide by...  

I love going to a school where we can have ski races within 50m of our faculty!

lakeside reeds

In other news...I'm in some classes that I'm enjoying...Advanced Remote Sensing and Forest Zoology.  Remote sensing is pretty cool, but it makes me feel like a pretty huge geek...which may just be true.  Forest Zoology should actually be called "Forest Pests: Insects and other arborivores."  Ok, so I made that word up, but it is fitting.  And Insects....well, they're pretty interesting and important little creatures, plus they're everywhere!  So, I look forward to doing more with both of these topics.

Frozen forests

...Aaand a few Fun Finnish Facts:
- they don't seem to use salt on their roads or highways (or anywhere really) to melt ice.  Just gravel is added for additional traction.
- roadsigns are listed in reverse order from those in Canada (i.e. the farthest destination is at the top of the sign and the closest is at the bottom)
- the Canadian Beaver, Kanadanmajava (Castor canadensis) is an invasive alien species here.  It is hunted and can be used for making beaver sausages and other tasty processed meat products. mmmm...no I haven't tried eating it. don't laugh. (that link really is an interesting article if you bother to translate the Finnish)

ice fishing hole (for putting nets under the ice). 2 holes are created several metres apart and the net is strung from one hole across to the other under the ice.  the fisherman then goes inside where it is dry and warm (probably even a sauna) and collects the net's contents the next day (or so).  A superior form of ice fishing in my humble human opinion

coooow paaaarsnip!!    ...of sorts