I
have now lived in Inari, Lapland, in the far north of Finland, for
just over 6 weeks. In what is, all things considered, quite a short
amount of time, I have watched the landscape change a phenomenal
amount. I arrived during the ´ruska´, the finnish name for the
explosion of autumn colours on the trees. In what followed I saw an
incredible amount of rain and sun, and the leaves gradually begin to
fall from the trees. We then had a week in which everything around us
froze. Puddles began to ice over, a frost was on the ground, and
winter in the air. The weather forecast predicted ´a light dusting´
of snow to fall overnight. We woke up to about 20cm. Thick drifts of
snow lined the streets and the lake began to freeze. The entire
landscape will now be white until May, at which point it will finally
begin to thaw. Sometimes, if alot of snow has fallen that winter, it
doesn´t disappear until July.
The
changes of the seasons were stunning to watch for me, but it was even more
astounding for another volunteer who was here from Columbia. For her,
it is warm all year round. There are no seasons, apart from a
slightly rainier one, and a slightly drier one. The changes of the
landscape here, the trees and the lakes was one that was completely
incredible for her. She arrived in August, in temperatures of
27degrees. She then watched it change with me, to something of the
other extreme. It is beautiful.
Trust
an English(wo)man to talk about the weather...... So what am I actually doing
here?! Well it is pretty awesome, working with huskies and horses. I found out about it on www.workaway.info,
an incredible work exchange website in which people from all over the
world post up things that they need people to help them do. These
range from working on farms, being a babysitter, an au pair,
gardening, cleaning, working in a hotel, a guesthouse... pretty much
anything. All from people in some of the most beautiful and
incredible places in the world. You don´t get paid, but you get all
of your accommodation and meals for free, and you actually get an
insight into the local culture as you´re living or working with a
host family. It´s really nice to be able to stay in one place for a
little bit, and to be able to walk into the supermarket, or the pub,
and people to recognize you and say hello. You´re no longer treated
as a tourist, but as a local. You get to know the people who live
here, and what it is like to live in a place like this. Anybody who
is at a loose end, or wants to go travelling but doesn´t really have
much money, I would urge and urge and urge you to check out the
website, it is wonderful!The people I stay with own a guesthouse, a hostel, and a shop as well as the horse and husky farm, so there's so many things to get involved in. We (the volunteers) actually live in the hostel which is really cool, as we often have travellers coming through and staying there, so are contantly meeting some really interesting and funny people. I was considering hitching from Rovaniemi to here in Inari, as the bus was a stupid amount of money, but was kind of glad I didn't when a rather bedraggled German guy rocked up to the hostel and said that he had waited 10 hours for a lift! Which, whilst sounding ridiculous, is somewhat easy to believe, the roads around here are very empty and you can sometimes go hours without seeing a single car go by.
I'm currently working with two australian volunteers, a Columbian and a dutch girl, and we're due a French guy to turn up in a week or so's time. I'm lucky, as with some experience of horses and horse riding I was dubbed 'horse girl' and so I'm out at the farm working with the horses and dogs pretty much every day, rather than stuck manning the giftshop or cleaning rooms in the guesthouse! Horse girl has been given the task of training a 2 year old horse to be good to ride, which is kind of hilarious in many ways as whilst I can horse ride and have looked after horses I have never done anything like that before! But it means that I am fulfilling my childhood fantasies of being like the girls I read about in my many (many) horsey books and having my own horse going on adventues.....
There's so many stories and anicdotes and things I've done that there simply isn't space or time. We've had many campfires in the wilderness. We've rolled in the snow naked and then gone into the sauna. I went to the most northen point of mainland Europe and swam in the Arctic ocean. I watched a dog give birth to 9 beautiful puppies right in the middle of our living room floor.
Maybe pictures capture things best. Here's a few of my favourties.
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