And it gets darker...

Fields and Farmhouse near Kuopio

So, my to do list is growing...and I'm procrastinating.  Apparently not much has changed since my undergrad...or highschool....or life inbetween.  That being said, blogging is on my list and I am currently accomplishing it.  Learning Finnish will never be off my to do list while I am here, unless by some strange event I start speaking it.  And some things just aren't getting done (room cleaning).  Oh well, here's my next (and slightly late) blog update!

Mmm...Thanksgiving dinner in the making! €8 for a pumpkin!

Since returning from Lapland, not a whole lot has happened.  A few hours of class every day, running around town, riding my bike through the cold fog, homework, and oh yes...social events.  Since I'm studying abroad, it would be irresponsible of me not to partake in social gatherings.  About a week and a half ago, April and I made a Thanksgiving dinner to share with some Finnish Friends.  It was amazing.  Last week, all the forestry students in Joensuu held a "Suomi Parti" at the local yacht club's house near the water.  "Yacht Club" makes it sound like a classy event...ummm, sure.  Dress code: anything finnish, blue and white, ridiculous, comfortable, or any of the above in any combination.  Welcome drink: vodka shot with a slice of cold hotdog on the rim, which was drizzled with hot sinappi (mustard).  Dancing was not ballroom: check out an example of the Fine Finnish Tunes that were played.  And, of course, there was a sauna.  :-)

A very colourful, slightly abandoned farmhouse

However, what was much more interesting was hunting this past weekend.  My friend Aku invited me to his home where he grew up, about 130km West of Joensuu.  I took the bus out on Friday night, we spent Saturday in the forest and came back yesterday, Sunday.  I would like to describe Saturday as the ultimate Suomi Saturday, the only thing it was missing was excessive quantities of coffee (I don't drink it).  It started with a light breakfast before sunrise, followed by a few practice rounds.

We then spent the morning trying to flush jänikset (rabbits) from the bush and into the field (preferably) where we would then (theoretically) take our shot.  It never happened, we didn't see a rabbit all day.  I did, however, run into 3 moose, but, alas we were not moose hunting.  Just before lunch, Aku tried his whistle for pyy (hazel grouse).  Success!  One came to the call and Aku got it with a clean shot.  Nice.  We made a fire (nuotio) for lunch and roasted sausages (makkara).  Oh yes, and had a celebratory beer.  After a leisurely lunch we continued to look for pyy.  We had lots of success calling them in, but they all stayed out of sight.  And they got really quiet when a hawk cruised the forest.  We also ran into a fourth moose. Very cool.  I don't think I've seen that many moose in the bush in a day in Canada.  I have seen a lot more moose in a day, but from the road, which doesn't count.  Dusk started to settle in (it was 16:30) and so we headed back for the day.

mmm....pyy for dinner this week!

There was home-made moose soup waiting for us at home, which was fantastic!  We heated the sauna up (of course) and each took a turn basking in the heat.  Finally we wrapped up the day by heading into the town of Kuopio and having a few drinks.  Definitely a fantastic metsäterapia päivää, or forest therapy day.  That was something I made up - it's not actually a thing, though it should be.  A great break from school and general daily life in Joensuu!

Fields, birch and Norway spruce.  The only thing missing from this photo is a lake...it's just to the right about 0.5km

My Fun Finnish Fact for the week is about a product that is involved in many aspects of life in Finland and has been for centuries: terva.  Tar.  In addition to what we may consider "standard" uses, in Finland it is also used in medicine, saunas, food, alcohol...skin creme...candy...Really.  Seriously.  Don't believe me?  Wikipedia will confirm. After all, "if sauna, viina, and terva don't help, the disease is surely fatal."  This past weekend I enjoyed tar in a licorice-flavored candy and as a sauna water additive.  It was...interesting.  Kind of a smokey flavour and smell...but not like wood smoke and not like burning plastic.  Apparently, the EU is trying to ban it claiming that tar is carcinogenic.  Guess what the Finn's reaction is?  Of course: the crazy Europeans don't know what they're talking about - Why are we involved with those guys anyways?  It makes me laugh a little...or at least smile to myself.

They certainly grow large carrots here!!

I've been really bad about photos recently.  I haven't gone on that many exciting adventures in the past couple of weeks and I never remember to bring my camera into town with me.  I'll spend a day and take some more photos around Joensuu before the snow flies!

North of 66° 36'

Herd crossing!

I think we have now past the point of no return on autumn weather here in Joensuu; there will be no more summer-like days occasionally to get our hopes up about a glimpse of temperatures near 10°C. Nope, it is now well into October weather where the temperatures drift between 0° and 7° with daily rain showers and possible frost.  The Finnish word for October is Lokakuu, which translates roughly to "mire moon."  All of the months end in kuu (moon), but the beginning of each month has a descriptive (or irrelevant) name for the month; October (Loka) happens to be mud, mire, or a semi-frozen dirty sleet mixture.  Nice.

Believe it or not, this is the light at noon in Ivalo.  The sun probably doesn't get more than 15 degrees above the horizon already, combined with clouds and rain make for a dark day!

Last weekend (well...Thursday to Monday) I was off on exciting adventures in Lapland (Lappi), North of the Arctic Circle.  After class on Thursday, three of us (John, his wife Emily, and I) and all our gear crammed into a tiny little Nissan Micra equipped with studded tires and headed off into the wilderness...well...sort of.  I would call it wilderness by any European standard, but we were never more than an hour from civilization.

The arctic circle and me...in Finland

The first night we rented a little cabin with its own sauna and electric heating (hooray!).  Whenever you ask if a cabin or residence is equipped with a sauna you are usually met with dumbfounded look...of course!  Every small cabin or residence is equipped with at least one sauna.  Probably more.  We woke up to a hard frost on Friday morning, which was spectacular, but a little cold - my first real sub-zero temperatures so far.

Feather-like ice crystals on the lake at sunrise (8:30am)

The skies were clear and the air was crisp as we headed out into the arctic fells (hills) for our second night in a more remote hut in a National Park.  It was an 11km hike in over gentle terrain to the day-hut that we had decided to overnight in.  The lady at the information counter discouraged us from trying to spend the night in a day hut...no sleeping spaces, others may be there, you are only really supposed to overnight in these huts if it is an emergency, you should bring a tent....However, she assured us that it was equipped with a cookstove, a woodstove, and it would provide adequate shelter if required.  So we went for it.  The hike was spectacular, the weather was fantastic, the trail was well-marked, and we were surrounded by reindeer, ptarmigans and lemmings the entire way.  We found the SMALL (10m square?) cabin (with 3 perfect built-in benches for sleeping) on the edge of a small lake without incidence and started up an outdoor fire to make dinner.  As we were finishing dinner, two people came up the trail, obviously intent on spending the night in the cabin as well.  Ok. 5 people total, the cabin is small, but it will be do-able.  Then, another 3 came up the trail, now we had a total of 8 people to accommodate in 1 small cabin...it was...cozy? It turns out it was a group of 5 international students from Joensuu (2 from Russia, 3 from Czech Republic) who were planning on camping in the park for 4 nights, but were so frozen on their first night that they re-routed to spend the weekend in huts.  It was easy to see why they froze in their tents on the first night that easily reached -5...they were equipped with jeans, t-shirts, sweaters, and summer sleeping bags.  Some had raingear, I'm not sure if others did.  I have no doubt that I was wearing more wool at one time than they all had combined.  The raingear certainly would've been handy the next morning.  We woke up to -2 and horizontal freezing rain.  ugh.  Fortunately it stopped before we set out, but it was just enough to glaze all of the rocks, boardwalks and bridges along the path to an absolutely lethal degree!

Cabin we stayed at in the park

After skating out of the park, we drove further North to the town of Inari where we were to spend the next 2 nights in a well-equipped, but off-the-grid cabin.  Sauna (of course), wood stove, outhouse, water from the nearby river, and a rowboat.  From this base we carried out our activities for the next couple of days: the local (excellent) museum on the arctic and Sámi culture, a wilderness church, and walks on nearby trails.

Sphag and such.  A pretty typical scene in Lapland....forest...lake...swamp

On the way home we stopped in Rovaniemi to attend a few mandatory tourist attractions.  The arctic circle line was the first on my priority list.  The Marttiini knife company was first on John's priority list. Fantastic.  Now...here's the fun fact: contrary to popular belief, Santa does not reside at the North Pole. Instead, Santa lives on the Arctic Circle in Rovaniemi.  It's true, I saw him with my own eyes.  Don't believe me?  I had my photo taken with him...but I can't show you because I don't have the photo...because it cost €20 at a minimum to get a copy of this photo.  I could've had a €60 poster printed.  I guess Santa has to pay his elves somehow!  The Santa village itself was a little creepy when we were there:  a large commercial setup (akin to Disney without the rides), in cold dense fog, with Christmas music drifting between the nearly abandoned buildings.  Apparently it's not Santa's busy season yet!

The wildnerness church.  They still hold midsummer services and weddings.  4.5km hike each way or a boat ride and 2.5km hike.  It certainly is scenic!

Overall, an amazing trip that was some of what I expected and more.  Some surprises for me:
- There are trees and forests all the way up past the Arctic Circle.  I was expecting tundra at some point, but never encountered it.  That being said, the tree line was about 50m above the valley bottoms and any small hill ("fell") was treeless.
-  I was hoping to see a reindeer and was surprised by their abundance.  On the road, on the mountains, in the forest, by the cabin.  They were like the UVic bunnies of the boreal.
-  Lemmings, lemmings everywhere!
- None of the buildings are very old and they're mostly constructed of wood.  Most towns and infrastructure were burnt in WWII with the retreat of Germany from Lapland in what is known as Lapland's war.
-  Some of the Reindeer management techniques as follows...

What are they doing in figure I.  ???

Ohh...that doesn't make sense....

Anyways...That was about all of the excitement in my weekend.  If you ever have the opportunity to...
1) come to Finland (preferrably while I am still here)
2) visit Lapland (the summer may be a little better, but apparently winter is spectacular too...if you don't mind aurora borealis as your main source of light....

check out the photo blog if you want more pictures!
Fun Finnish Fact: eggs come in sets of 10, not 12

Snowmobile parking outside the Lapland Shop, Inari