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In Which I Reach Finland In A State Of Some Confusion

July 30, 2006 by Mike

Inari, Finnish Lapland

Route: Jokkmokk - - - Inari

A freezing night -- far to cold to get out of the sleeping bag to put on the clothes that would have warmed me up. And I should have guessed: clear sky during the day = sunny. Clear sky at night = brrrrrrrrcold... even when the sun doesn't quite set.

At least the sky stayed clear for another perfect day's riding. There are three routes north from Jokkmokk:
(i) northwest to Kiruna, into Norway and round the coast
(ii) northest to Kittila, east to Sodankyla, then straight up to Ivalo
(iii) to Kittila, then cutting north along the back road to Inari

I asked three people and got three different suggestions,

I asked three different people and got the same three different suggestions.

I chose the straightest road: to Inari, along the backroad. Which is shorthand for rutted, potholed, gravelly nightmare. [nb Real Bikers please note: the bike's wrong, the set-up's wrong, the tyres're wrong and yes, I admit, the rider is wrongest of all. But I'm built for tarmac, and never pretended otherwise.]

[I later realised the map upon which I made this decision shows snowmobile tracks, not roads. But they all go to broadly the same place so no harm done.]

So here I am, not enjoying the road, when suddenly, at a place called Pokka which looks like a town on the map but consists of three farms and a bus stop (!) the gravel becomes the purest, ilkiest tarmac, brand new, and I'm away, zoomy zoom, across the roof of a wilderness area that reminds me (and would remind my family, who know it, but nobody else) of Kjolen. Sparse and high and achingly beautiful. I may have broken the speed limit ever-so-slightly.

To Inari by 10pm (broad daylight). In what passes for the rough end of town, but also the glitzy metropolitan downtown area, and the local suburban bar (there was a neon sign saying "Open") I demolish a cheeseburger in the Inari Hotel. (It was a bit late to try the elk steak. What if they give you nightmares? Like, errr, the cheese in my cheeseburger?)

Two goths wandered past in broad daylight - an unusual aoccurance but what can a black-clad, black hair-dyed, pasty-skinned denizen of the night do when the sun's out 24 hours a day?

I passed the time of night with Artur, a Finnish biker up here for the off-roading. Believe me, Artur will never go hungry so long as the world needs a young Boris Yeltsin lookalike.

"I'm here for the sand roads. For me, the best. The loggers build them, use them once and pooof! gone. They leave them there -- for me!"

I've seen these roads threading off the main roads everywhere. Rutted, loose sand. My idea of a living hell, though in fairness Artur's KTM is designed just for them. (And they would be perfect for anyone reading this who fancies a bit of offroad, as us bikers say.)

Artur is a little cagey when I point out that Russia is just 30 miles east of us and there must be logging and other backroads all over the place. He mutters something about "checkpoints on all the main roads" and checks to see who is listening. (Two goths, who don't appear to be taking notes.)

Truth is, there must be miles of undeclared and undetectable tracks into Russia, always have been and always will be. The people who live here -- the farmers, loggers, freaks and smugglers -- will know them better than any wet-behind-the-ears conscript on a Russian border patrol.

"Everyone else in Finland looks on the people here like a different race," says Artur, changing the subject and seemingly referring to the Saami, but to the general hardiness of the people here.

"There are communities of one, two, three farms out there, 50 0r 60 miles from the nearest asphalt. Further from the nearest school. Reindeer farmers. But the kids all go to school every day -- and back home every night."

Does Father Christmas know about this? It's happening in his name. What's he doing about it? Hmmm?

Beside the Seaside

In Which I Reach Finland In A State Of Some Confusion

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