Lapland Study Trip (PART I)

Alrighty, sorry for the delay in the goings-on for the Lapland trip, but here ya’ll go and hope you enjoy! Oh, because the trip was so extensive, and because I want to put pictures up for ya’ll to see and enjoy I have decided to put the Lapland trip up in “PARTS.” Below is PART 1

Lapland Study Trip
27th – 28th March 2006
PART I

The population of Finland is 5.2 million, which is quite small. More than several cities in the US have well over 5.2 million people. Therefore with the lack of population, the land is sparsely populated, except for pockets of cities (e.g. Oulu, Helsinki, Turku etc.) If you haven’t notice, all of the cities I mentioned, as well as many of the cities that I could have gone on and listed, are located in the south of Finland (well Oulu, isn’t considered the south by Helsinki standards). So this sparsely populated country doesn’t get any better in Lapland. However, this is not a bad thing in the least. It is part of what makes Lapland, Lapland. Lapland was simply beautiful. Of course we also made it over to Norway and it was just a beautiful there. I believe what made me like it so much was the mere fact that I saw MOUNTAINS!! Hehe, yes, mountains caked in snow made me happy ;). Obviously, not exactly like the Smokey’s back home, I’m sure that if I had been from out west or had even been to the Rockies there would have been much more of a resemblance (at least snow wise).

Enough about the mountains, for they will come a bit later. I was not keen on going on this trip at all. In fact, I just plain didn’t have the desire, want, or need to go (reasons can be explained at another time if you so wish for me to tell). Nevertheless, I had much more fun than expected.

First destination: Rovaniemi. This is where Santa Clauses’ Village and the “arctic circle” are located. I had actually already visited the place back on the 28th of January with some of the exchange students (the pics of the Rovaniemi sign, me with Charlie the snowman, and the "arctic cirlce" are from that date). Once you’ve seen Santa Clauses’ Village, you’ve seen it, plain and simple.

Unless one goes back in high season and with kids, it isn’t worth one’s time to visit it again. I believe what made it even more boring was the fact that two of the guys came about 20 minutes after the agreed upon leaving time (this was to be a common trend with these two, and actually was a common trend with these two on the Ǻland trip; I will be nice and not name them by name).

Our next destination was at the Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory. http://www.sgo.fi/Overview/overview.php It was established in 1913 and has been part of Oulu University since August 1, 1997. Observations actually started in around 1882/83. Observations of what, you say? Mainly of the northern lights, but to be more specific "peform continuous measurements of magnetic field, magnetic pulsations, cosmic radio noise, upper atomosphere radio soundings, inonospheric tomography, seismic recordings and cosmic rays." (quoted exactly from their website, which is written above). The presenter was saying something about that is it so big and the signals so strong that it could pick up a stealth bomber (or other top secret or "stealthy" crafts governments don't want us to know about). Here is a picture of that HUGE, and I do mean HUGE satellite. Though the presentation on the Northern lights gave quite a bit of useful information and kept my attention. The presenter and presentation on the Sámi constellations was a different matter. You know when your head starts drooping and you start to fall asleep, but you know you aren’t suppose to therefore, you keep jerking your head back in realization that you are falling asleep? Well, that was happening to me and pretty much the rest of the group. Poor guy; I really don’t think that it was the language barrier or how the man pronounced his English words, but it was more the fact that it wasn’t a very good presentation, and he wasn’t a descent presenter. How so? First of all, whenever we would ask questions, he couldn’t fully answer them, couldn’t answer them at all, or in many instances he gave an answer to somebody’s question, but in reality didn’t answer the question at all leaving all of us wondering if he actually understood the question in the first place (he probably didn’t).

Our third and final destination for our first day on the Lapland trip was Inari. We stayed at in an area called Vasatokka where we were accommodated with cottages. Since there were more girls (10 of us, not including Sanna – the main coordinator of the trip –), we were located in the largest cottage with a loft, huge bathroom, large eating/living area, but extremely small kitchen (which was not large enough for ten girls to cook and eat lunch in an hour’s time). I found it quite odd to have such an extravagant cottage with tons of space, but have a kitchen that only had two very small stove burners and a teeny-tiny oven (which none of us used). Even though we had hardly arrived and placed our things in the cottages, we had a “lecture.” None of us were remotely eager to have an hour of Aslak lecture time on our agenda for that night. Much to our surprise (and delight), however, a Sámi woman was to be the “lecturer.” The lady’s daughter (mid teens or so) was with her, but didn’t say much until show and tell time. This was the most interesting part of the whole lecture. I still can’t believe the daughter made most of the items pictured. – Here is the Picture :) –

To start the 28th, we obviously ate breakfast (or some of us did), but then we headed to the SIIDA museum in Inari. Here is what the Sámi Museum has to say about itself: “The purpose of the Sámi Museum is to document the spiritual and material cultural heritage of the Finnish Sámi in its collections, and to display this tradition in SIIDA’s exhibitions. The museum aims to make SIIDA a living center of Sámi culture, and to strengthen thereby the identity and cultural self-esteem of the Sámi.” (http://www.siida.fi/english/siida/en_saamelaismuseo.html) I must say that they have done an exceptional job at fulfilling their purpose. The Sámi Museum, extensive and colorful, had a wide variety of rooms to display Sámi history and culture. One room in the museum especially grabbed my attention. That part is in a large square type room with an extremely high ceiling. They used the space quite effectively. For the typical adults it could probably keep them entertained for at least an hour and a 4 year old entertained for at least 20 mins (there was one there so that's how I know ;) ha-ha). What especially caught my attention was the rather impressive display on the walls; they had taken pictures of the same place through all of the different seasons in Lapland. Which are quite a few if you add in ones such as pre-summer, late winter, etc. (I don’t remember the exact names). They had several other exhibits, but I really couldn't tell you in proper detail what they were about ;). Thus, I think you all should come to Finland (Inari) to find out for yourselves. I leave you in suspense! Bru ha-ha!

After museum, we went to the Paadar Sámi reindeer herding family farm and rode on sleighs pulled by reindeer. (ADDED pictures) It was quite the event to say the least. All of the Sámi people we met were so friendly and inviting. They sang a Sámi tune with a drum, had us trying to lasso deer antlers -- practice antlers though, no real reindeer involved, that may have been disastrous.

It was quite fun to sit on a sleigh and have a reindeer pull yhou. I was a little scared since we didn't exactly have what you would call reins.

Josh was the only student to rope the reindeer antlers. YEA, Josh! ;) He is originally from Texas, lived in Boone, NC, so maybe thats why he's good at ropin'!

The next two pics are from the inside of the hut that you see behind Josh. You could either have tea or coffee (obviously I chose tea), as well as a little

biscuit/cookie thing.

Then we went to another Sámi reindeer farm, but we talked with a lady, Kaija Paltto, who made felt products: purses, vests, hats, things that hang on walls, etc. The wall decorations were rather extravagant and REALLY expensive, one huge felt wall decoration was 2500 and another 1200 euros. I know that these pieces of work take an extremely long time to make, but still that's a lot of money, that I don't have (or rather don't have to spend on felt wall decorations). Here is a pic of one of the pieces (note the student's faces, you can tell they are really enjoying the presentation, ha-ha).

I went sledding for the first time in about 7 years! (Actually I forgot that I had been sledding once before this point but that was on Laskianentiistai, and we only got to go down the hill once. Also, it wasn’t nearly as fun or exciting). I forgot sledding could be so much fun. I was laughing so hard I was about to cry! My face was completely wet from all of the snow that flew up in it. This hill was two hills in one! First,you go down the steepest part with no lights what so ever (so you are hoping you don't run in to a tree); then you get airborne when you hit the hump that lands you on the road that cars drive on, because we were going so fast we didn't stop there and we went over another bump and flew down another hill until we ended up covered in snow, as the pic will show.

Now for the final part of the the 2nd day of the trip . . . I guess you could call it the CLIMAX of the trip. So, as if we couldn't get our fill of snow . . . later on that night, all us 11 girls fit ourselves into a tiny sauna and decided that we would be adventurous and daring -- yes I can't believe I did this act I am about to tell you . . . we rolled in the snow in the buff! Ha-ha, it was the funniest thing ever! Not only did we run out in the cold to the snow, but we also had to jump over a small wooden railing to even get to the snow! Thankfully it was dark, but I am sure if there had been any one watching they would have been laughing for weeks after ;) Oh and don't be counting on any pictures for this one. too bad ;) ha-ha.