Finland Wilderness Training, Monday Day 2, part 1

It’s not quite light when I wake and so I turn over and settle down into what I have now made into a warm and comfortable little nest in my tiny wooden-clad cabin.  After a while I poke my nose over the top of the covers and notice the light still hasn’t changed.  Something tells me that I shouldn’t just be lying there in the warmth and I need to make a move and so I reach out a hand and locate my phone and draw it close to my face so that I can make out the time.  It’s half past eight in the morning.  And kit collection is at nine.  Sending up a brief prayer that says thank-you for last night’s instruction that told us to jettison our morning personal hygiene routine I stick on as many layers as I can find close to hand, brush my teeth, wonder for a moment if that’s actually allowed, pull on my hat and gloves and head out across the short space to the reception and dining room.  The light is soft and flat and the snow compacts and creaks in a very satisfactorily fashion beneath my feet.  It’s like walking across a landscape colour-washed in Farrow and Ball’s Mizzle. 

Breakfast due to my tardiness is quick though I am surprised by how much I manage to pack away as everyone else is already gathering up their things and heading down to the kit room.   Tagging onto the end of the line I stand as I am slowly loaded up with stuff that will, I hope, keep me warm and dry over the week.  Stepping back and eyeing me critically, our instructor for the day nods sagely and handed me my base, mid and shell layers.  Extra-large he says, smiling.

Extra-large? I do not intend to take this slur lying down though by now I am so loaded up that I am beginning to think I had stumbled into a Nordic version of Crackerjack though luckily minus the cabbage.  Along with the clothes we are supplied with boots, a rucksack, a thermos flask and a friendly but stern warning to remember to return everything before we leave but  I decide I’ll return everything now.  Extra-large my foot.  I am persuaded out of it though and later on, half-way across the frozen lake with an absolutely necessary four layers between me and the elements(this goes up to seven layers on the full-day dog sledding)  I am absolutely fine with going up two dress sizes on my photos.  Luckily I have pulled my hat down so low and my scarf up so high, that nobody would recognize me anyway.    

Down on the lake which is mostly frozen at this time of year, we get used to our snow shoes and have the sort of childish fun that only comes from having been brought up and living in a country that rarely has snow but when it does grinds everything to an absolute halt and quickly turns to the kind of gray hue that Farrow and Ball don’t stock.  Walking in snow shoes on the flat is easy, child’s play I would say, and even uphill is fairly straight forward as long as you give the snow a good old boot with the prongs at the front to get some kind of purchase.  But downhill is tricky and to test our new skills we are taken to what is a very steep and wooded slope and told to find our own way down.  This, I realize, is not going to be as easy as it looks.

I consider for a moment the best approach.  It is to take the steepest route with the most trees on the basis that if I slip or fall I will have something to grab onto, or, perhaps ricochet off to break my fall?  Or should I take the slightly less steep route with less foliage with which to stop my acceleration should I lose control?   Route two mights mean I get down quicker, but probably on my head.  Raising myself out of the state of procrastination I notice that everyone is nearly halfway down already.  What the hell, I think.  And step off the edge.

Thirty minutes later we are standing on top of a snow covered cliff, overlooking a mill on the River Friction.  At this point on the river the water never freezes and it is ink-black.  A continuous flow of semi-frozen ice slowly rotates around the eddy at the bank.  I wonder what it would feel like to be in there, in the dark freezing water.  This part of the Oulanka national park was one of the locations for the 2011 film called ‘Hanna’  which as well as a very talented young female protagonist called Saoirse Ronan also starred Cate Blanchett and Tom Hollander http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0993842/.  As I stand and look at the scene (see photo 8 on the Finland gallery) I feel the clean, pure air finding its way deep into my lungs.  I find a tree and leaning my back against it I slowly slip to the ground.  Closing my eyes I listen to the rushing of the water and feel I have been transported to a better, happier place.