On our last day in Norway we paid a visit to the Sami Parliament in Karasjok.
The Sami are an indigenous people who’ve lived a semi-nomadic life across the northern parts of Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Russia (also known as Lapland) for centuries. The parliament was established in 1989 to give the Norwegian Sami a voice, and it now works closely with the Norwegian government on issues that affect Lapland. The impressive new parliament building was opened in 2000, and is shaped like a traditional Sami lavvo hut, much like a North American tepee.
After 5 amazing weeks in Norway, we finally crossed the border into Suomi. Yes, it’s one of the most expensive countries on the planet, but it also has to be one of the most beautiful. We loved it so much that we picked up a hitchhiker...
Rather than blue suede shoes, Michael’s actually wearing Blu-Tac shoes which help him cling to our dashboard! He joins Colin, who we picked up in Portugal earlier this year...
We were surprised at how quickly the landscape changed when we crossed into Finland. The fjords and mountains were replaced almost immediately by mile after mile of trees and lakes.
Our first stop was Inari, where we took a 3 hour walk to the Wilderness Church. We did the walk at high speed as the second you stood still, 20 mosquitoes would land on your face! So we only stopped en route to have a look at some Finnish camping cabins.
Anyone can turn up and use these cabins, and they’re completely free! The best one we saw consisted of a main cabin with table, chairs and a fireplace, a covered outdoor fire pit, an earth closet, and a little wooden sauna conveniently located by the lake for the all important cold plunge!
We really wish we’d known about them beforehand as it would have been great to stay there- watching the sun not go down.... with a face full of mosquitoes!!
The Wilderness Church has been a Sami meeting place for years, but the current church was built in 1752 and is completely made of wood. It’s a lovely spot and we were lucky to have the place to ourselves. After hours you can simply let yourself in, have a good look round, climb the tower and ring the bell!
We then spent a day at a great campsite in Sodankyla where we finally managed to book our trip to St Petersburg in Russia (you can read all about that in the next post). We’d only heard that this trip was possible a few days earlier. Adam and Sophie of europebycamper.com had just done the trip and couldn’t rate it highly enough on their blog, so we felt we had to give it a shot.
Our main difficulty was finding kennels for Charlie as most were fully booked because of the summer season. But after several hours of searching, we finally found one and got it booked.
This meant the race was now on to get down to Helsinki to catch our ferry. Fortunately there’s not a great deal to see in northern Finland, apart from those trees and lakes! There aren’t many settlements either, so we managed to plough south pretty quickly.
On their retreat from northern Finland and Norway in 1945 the Nazi’s burned every town and village to the ground. Their scorched earth policy was intended to hinder the Russians who moved in on their retreat. But the rebuilding has made these towns rather bland places with few historic or interesting buildings.
The wild camping in Finland, as in Norway, is fantastic. We stayed at a number of spots by rivers and lakes along the way, so our swimming-obsessed dog was happy at the end of a long drive. We even managed a dip ourselves!
One spot near Vikajarvi was at the start of a 3 hour nature trail through the forest, which passed an observation tower. You can climb this for some great views of... well... trees and lakes!
We crossed back over the Arctic Circle just north of Rovaniemi at Santa’s Office! Yes, this is where the great bearded one lives, and you can drop in and see him any day of the year (bar one of course, when he’s a little bit busy!). The complex of shops is a bit tacky, but it’s all good fun. We chickened out of seeing the man himself, but we had a little sit down in his office!
We only managed a quick dash around Oulu. It seemed like a nice place and we would have stayed longer if we’d had the time. But with Russia calling, we had to push on.
A couple of days later we had another quick dash, around Tampere – making a special detour to visit Moominvalley! This museum houses original Moomin books, paintings and drawings by the author Tove Jansson.
On our final night before arriving in Helsinki we were ‘moved on’ in the little town of Hameenlinna. We’ve only ever been ‘moved on’ 3 times before. It’s a bit of a pain, but it’s just one of those things when you wild camp. At least ‘The Apprentice’ had just finished. On the previous occasion we were halfway through the season finale of ‘Glee’ so weren’t best pleased to be interrupted!!
We moved at quite a pace through Finland, from start to Finnish (!) We covered over 1600 kilometres in just a week between Nordkapp and Helsinki and would like to have spent more time exploring if we’d had the chance. We’re pleased we managed to get out and do a couple of walks though... through all those trees and lakes!
In the next episode; we pound the pavements of St Petersburg and experience service with a snarl - Russian style!!
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