Tornio - Ivalo, we pass the Arctic Circle near Rovaniemi
First the road takes us to Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland. After a somewhat cloudy day yesterday, the sky is getting clearer today and we see lots of sun. This town was destroyed by the Germans in 1944 and when we walk through it, it is obvious that almost all buildings are quite new and modern.
Just north of Rovaniemi we pass the arctic circle, degenerated into a touristic attraction park. We only spend a few minutes to take the necessary touristic pictures.
According to this sign with distances, it is only 1972 kilometres to Amsterdam in a straight line; we have driven almost 4000 kilometres until now. What have we done wrong? From the Santa Claus post office you can send a postcard with a special Santa Claus stamp, but we never send postcards!
From the polar circle we drive on to Sodankylä and the sceneries are becoming prettier and more impressive. There is a lot of alternation, more than we have seen in Finland until now.
At Sodankylä we visit the oldest church of the Samen in Lapland. The wooden building dates back to the end of the 17th century, but close to it a newer stone church has been build.
In this village there is also a famous statue, called the Samen with his reindeer. After the nuclear accident at Tsjernobyl a lot of the reindeer had to be killed and the Samen were threatened in maintaining their way of life, depending as many of them were (and are) of reindeer breeding. By mail we are later informed this was the case in Sweden, not in Finland.
Tourists like ourselves, who are eager to buy their cheap goods and want to have a picture of ourselves with 'wild' reindeer. We run into this flock accidently, they were on an intersection on a road with much traffic. But we would have arranged a setting like this, if we had been Samen, just to lure tourists into the shops nearby.
Even the reindeer use the crosswalk, well educated as they are!We run into reindeer 10 times today, from a single one to this group of almost 30 reindeer! One of them makes Teije try out the anti-break system of our car; he doesn't notice a reindeer standing on the road and smoke comes from the tires when we continue our way. So we drive on in a slower pace than the permitted 90 km. an hour...
Along the well passable road to Ivalo, Teije has to take once more a side road and we take it from Kakslauttanen. Along this unpaved road we see trailers everywhere and even a wooden public toilet (shich really needs some cleaning). On the picture to the left one can see how the trunks have been hollowed to fit them into each other.
Also, there are wooden sculptures on very desolate spots, sometimes accompanied by mailboxes, probably some sort of nameplates. The Finnish Samen are well-known for their beautiful works of wood engraving.
Teije doesn't know when to stop when it comes to driving into side roads and takes another one. But after a few kilometres we can't go further because of the bad condition of the road. At least we can take a nice picture. And we see a lot more reindeer. But at this point we decide to stop taking pictures of every reindeer we meet.
So we drive back to the E75 and to the campsite at Ivalo where we have a nice cabin, next to a beautiful lake.
After a walk around the campingsite, where also this original wooden wigwam stands, we return to our cabin and try to stay awake, but at twelve we are so tired that we have to sleep, while outside the sun is shining; it looks as if it is 4 in the afternoon.
© Teije and Elisabeth 2000 - 2012
Travel through Europe and Africa
with Elisabeth and Teije