the last five days i’ve been spending at lake inari, near to ivalo, as you might have already seen. unfortunately, it was cloudy most of the time. but most of the time it was dry, and never too cold. (i never wore a jacket.) the area is just beautiful, especially if it is so colorful during ruska.

if you’re interested in staying there, here is the mökki’s booking page. this one has tap water, though it contains a lot of iron and many people do not like the taste. (i didn’t mind it too much, though.) the sauna is wood-driven, as in the first mökki.

while staying near to ivalo, the first night was really, really beautiful. some kind of fog, illuminated by the full moon, and aurorae dancing on the sky. just incredible.

more (daylight) photos will follow later. and in case you didn’t notice, i updated part two and added a few more photos from the trip from kuusamo to ivalo.

today, i drove from anttola/mikkeli up to kuusamo. the views i got reminded me a lot of the yukon. this time of autumn where everything is so colorful is called ruska; i hope i’ll also experience that while staying near to ivalo.

this night there is a solar storm going on (as one can watch right now here), resulting in probable aurora sightenings. unfortunatley, there are clouds on the sky… but maybe i’m more lucky during the next days?

here are a few more impressions from the next day, when i continued to ivalo:

i spent the last days in the finnish lakeland, near mikkeli. far away from the rest of the world (more precisely: 9 km to the next village), at a lake. with electricity, though, but without running water. but who needs a shower if you have a whole lake! the water wasn’t exactly warm anymore, but it was warm enough to spend a lot of time inside. if it is too cold, there’s a sauna next to the cottage, wood-operated of course. there’s also a rowing boat, to explore the tiny part of the huge lake (or shall i say, system of lakes?) near enough. also, during this time of the year, the place was essentially bug free. i maybe got one or two bites during one week, without using any repellant. here are a few impressions.

in case you’re interested, the website of the cottage owner can be found here. i had one of the punainen mökit (“red cottages”).

(the birds on the water are probably whooper swans.)

yesterday, the german television showed the 6th part of their wildes skandinavien documentary series, this time about finnland. thankfully, someone recorded it and uploaded it to youtube:

(unfortunately, the video was removed from youtube…)

(the documentary is in german. and it seems that it was already running on arte.) the series also has movies about wilderness in denmark, norway, sweden, iceland, and greenland (all available on youtube), and there is also a “making of”. thanks to my parents for telling me about this!

moreover, the swiss television runs a documentary series about the arctic circle. you can watch and/or download all currently available episodes here (currently there are four). thanks to anmut for telling me about this!

yesterday i was told by t. that there is a direct flight from zürich to calgary, offered by edelweiss air. (they fly to calgary each friday, return each monday.) today i checked their website and found out that they also offer flights to vancouver, anchorage, whitehorse, and also two scandinavian destinations, umea (in sweden) and kittilä (in finland), as well as keflavik airport on iceland. most of these flights are only offered during special seasons, though.
so maybe i have to try them out :-)

here’s my project 52 shot for the tenth week. the topic was

fernweh.

this topic could be so easy if archive photos would be allowed. like in the last year, i visited many stunning places which i’d love to see again right now:

the photos were taken near vikajärvi, haines junction, keno and mayo, and yellowknife (from left to right, top to bottom). the message of these photos is plain and simple: i’d like to be far, far more north! somewhere near the arctic circle, or even north of it.

unfortunately, i couldn’t make it north. instead, i went south, and up by train, to recover a photography combining two aspects of northern travel: snow and railways.

technical details: 1/1000s, f/8, 32mm, iso 200.

(this photo is in fact older than the topic. originally i wanted to near to that place again, to take more photos, also for use for project 52. unfortunately, i was too busy and too sick to do this.)

here’s a small “tutorial” on how to make a snow angel:

when you’re done, you can try to leave it without damaging it, get yourself photographed in it, or just have fun in it:

believe me, it’s fun :-)

helsinki.

after the stay in rovaniemi, we took the train back to helsinki and stayed a few days there as well. besides a concert of moonsorrow and korpiklaani, we visited some churches: the uspenski cathedral, the helsingin tuomiokirkko, as well as the temppeliaukio church. we were extremely happy to visit the temppeliaukio church when it was almost empty, which is apparently very unusual.

frozen harbor.

even though it was raining and the snow was melting, there was a lot of ice left in the harbor and rivers. here is a small impression of its beauty:

and here are some more pictures from the harbor area:

the sibelius monument.

we also visited the sibelius monument, a beautiful piece of modern art dedicated to the finnish composer jean sibelius. enjoy some impressions:

in march, we did a trip to finland, mostly to lappland.

riding a train up to rovaniemi.

starting in helsinki, we took a train up to rovaniemi. then, we took a bus to vikajärvi, a small municipal around 30 km north-east of rovaniemi.

staying in vikajärvi.

we stayed in a cottage right next to lake vikajärvi:

we had a lot of very soft, powdery snow there. enjoy some pictures of the cottage and its surroundings:

a night in vikajärvi.

here are some night photos, shot from the cottage to the outside. during daylight time, we never saw any animal, except birds somewhere in the sky. during night, we didn’t saw any animal as well, but we heard treacherous crackle from the surrounding woods and saw tracks of smaller and larger animals in the morning. for these reasons, we never really left the cottage during night.

we also had a good view on the moon:

a short visit to rovaniemi.

after a long stay in the cottage, we spend a few days in rovaniemi. we visited the artikum. the historic train is situated next to the railway station, and the last strange photo is from the lamp in our hotel room.