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LANDSCAPE, WATER AND PEOPLE
The landscape. Finland is a very Northern country reaching some 1300 km from Helsinki up the Polar circuit. Finland has a long seacoast, reaching over 1300 km from Virolahti at the Russian border up to the City of Tornio, at the Swedish border. Inland is infested with some 56 000 lakes larger than one hectare, and there is besides larger rivers usually smaller streams between most lakes. Making use of those thousands lakes and rivers and streams you can practically paddle from one end of the country to the other, following the ancient waterways, and even the smallest streams you can navigate during the spring season. Biggest number of lakes you will find in the eastern part of the country. In fact, Finland has more lakes than any other country in Europe, and Finland is thus a paradise country for canoeing and boating.
Very typical mid-night view at summer time in Finland. Photo: N.N
Finland is also a home of about 95 000 islands, a huge archipelago stretching along the sea coast. The inner archipelago, islands covered with forest, follows the coast while the outer part, the bare rocky islands reach some 5 to 10 from the mainland. Between those islands there are sheltered waters to follow in bad and good weather; when there is a good weather, you can paddle or sail following the outer chain of islands. The biggest number of sea island you will find at the SW coast stretching towards the Aland islands - a semi autonomous island-region between Finland and Sweden. The largest lakes have also many islands, and you may have a difficulty to navigate between them, even maps are good, since all look same.
The seaside and lakes, in the south and Helsinki, are covered by ice from December until end of April. In the fat north over the Polar Circle ice is hard still until early June and starts to pack again in September. Thus canoeing and sailing season starts in Finland in beginning of May and ends maybe in October-November for most of us, with high season form from June to September.
The map of Finland is very helpful to get image of the country. Some distance calculations could be done here.
Finland has a population about 5.2 million people scattered over a large land area (330.000 km2). Most people live in the south at or near the seacoast, where you have the major cities. Finland has one big metropolitan area around Helsinki with about one million people. All older smaller towns or villages or larger cities are along good waterways. Waterways where important here before Finland got good roads, since during the summer season you could navigate to the market with boats and during the winter time with a horse and a sledge, or float 'green gold' (logs) along those same routes. About 75 % of land area is covered by forest, and you find it all over the country, except in northern hilly and arctic Lapland. Where the people live, an important part of our landscape is agriculture, and some 450.000 summer cottages nested mostly along coast and lakes.
Finnish Canoe Relay is starting in Lohja 2005. Photo: Jorma Honkala.
An expression of our tradition, life and geography is the popularity of boating culture, connected today to the life in cities, or more often to the summer cottages and free time weekend life. All boats included, there should be in Finland some 450 000 boats (estimate), of which some 50 000 sailing boats; most of boats are small boats for rowing & fishing. The exact number of canoes and kayaks is unknown (smaller motor boats, sailboats, rowing boat and canoes are not officially registered), but may be close to 100.000 canoe & kayaks - describing the total number of our occasional paddlers.
But looking at the big number of lakes (60 000), the long seashore (1 300 km) and the number of islands (56 000), the Finnish waters are still very peaceful – in average 1 ½ canoe or kayak for every lake. Most dense and noisy traffic you will find around Helsinki and around few larger cities. When you go further, 5 to 10 km past those places, you are nearly alone in the nature, maybe paddling past some empty summer cottage. The high season in cottage life is short, starting at the Midsummer in June and ending in the end of July, when the holidays are over and people are back at work.
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