Finland: into the wild
We are getting close to our goal: the North Cape! To get there, we first had to traverse the whole length of Finland, before we can cross into Norway. Which means:
Pine trees. Pine trees everywhere.
A word of caution; if 1800 km of pine trees as far as the eye can see sounds boring to you: stay away from Finland. Because man, there are so. many. pine trees. This whole country smells like those Wunderbaum car refresher things that you hang from your rear view mirror. Also; Finland is not flat. There are no mountains either, but the road goes up and down constantly, like a rollercoaster. That is kinda fun though, if you cycle fast enough on the downhill, you just might make it to the top of the next incline. And water. Finland is called the land of a thousand lakes, and although we didn’t count them, we think that’s grossly underestimated.
Our route
When planning our route through Finland, we first thought to go east and follow the EuroVelo 13 (the Iron Curtain trail). So we took the ferry to Helsinki with that in mind and with a stop in Lahti (birthplace of Julia’s teenage crush, the soccer player Jari Litmanen), we aimed for Joensuu. We stayed at a Warm Shower host there, and with his advice we changed plans. The EuroVelo mainly follows highways, and we were not keen on those, even though you are allowed to cycle on them in the North. So we freestyled our own way, picking only secondary roads. Quite a lot of them were dirt roads, but in Finland they are good enough to ride a bike on. This meant hardly any traffic. We did have to plan our groceries a bit more, as the distances between towns became bigger and the towns smaller. But we only had once a stretch were we had to carry 3 days worth of food (between Sodankylä and Inari). Water was not a problem, we mostly filled up at gas stations or filtered the water from rivers (in Lapland).
Wildcamping in Finland
In short: easy-peasy. Finland, like most Nordic countries, has the Right to Roam, meaning you can basically camp everywhere. And light a fire, as long as there is no fire hazard warning (which can be checked here). Even better; there are literally hundreds of shelters scattered around the country, mostly free to use. The most common one is the lean-to shelter, or laavu. Our favorite one was the Kota, or closed hut. Mostly they have firewood available, some have a compost toilet nearby, and they are located at stunning spots. We would plot our route for the next day just so we could sleep at one of these, by either checking maps.me, the app Tulikartta or the website laavu.org. Some of them are in the middle of nowhere, and only can be reached by foot (or skis, in winter), but we managed to find the ones close to roads.
Added bonus; Finland is covered not only by pine trees, but also blueberries are everywhere. So every morning we would start our day with oats with blueberries for breakfast.
Yeah, but what about the mosquitos?
The number question about traveling through Finland during summer: how bad are the mosquitos? We were also a bit worried and contacted Julia’s Finnish guide from her previous Lapland holiday. He sorta put our worries to rest; the mosquito season was coming to an end when we would be there. Besides, after 1000 bites you should be immune anyway. Thanks Joose…
To be fair, yes, there were mosquitos, but it wasn’t that bad. The only time we had some problems was at a Warm Shower host, who lived in a off-grid community (which also meant no warm shower, ironically, but we did have sauna!). It also meant they collect rain water. In lots of buckets with standing water, so it basically was mosquito heaven there. But that was one night, and we survived.
What was bad however, were the deer flies and midges. The first would crawl into your hair, and they are digging in, their flat bodies making it difficult to remove them. But our top annoying bug was the midge, toppling the horse flies in Poland from first place. The American name for them, no-see-ums, describes them well. They are tiny, get everywhere and their bites itch like hell. Our legs looked like we had the chicken pox, and we were forced into the tent as soon as we pitched it. Julia was lucky and brought a head net, which might not be the most fashion-forward choice, but it did help.
Reindeer!
The animals that were more excited about were the reindeer. In the north they also have the right to roam, and it wouldn’t be uncommon to have a reindeer family in the middle of the road. Because reindeer are not fazed by traffic, and almost seem to expect all cars to slow down for them. Even when you don’t see them, their presence will be noted by their tracks. And smell. Because they use the roads as their toilet, a bit like drunk tourists in the Amsterdam red light district. On several occasions we had a reindeer in front of our bikes, looking us dead in the eye, taking a leak. Nature is a beautiful thing.
We loved our time in Finland, as it’s a outdoor enthusiast’s dream. Apart from the midges, of course. Right now we are at a campsite in Karigasniemi, just before the Norwegian border. We enjoyed our first shower in 2.5 weeks, our clothing and bikes are clean and we are ready for the North Cape, which is only 300km away!
