My Northern Home

Pyhä-Nattanen or Nattaset is a place that has been on my to-do list for a long time. Now, finally, with a little push from my friend, we went to explore the fells. It is impossible to not have heard about the place, as in Some looks like everybody has been there. This was obviously for me a reason to go there at off-season, as I don't want to be there with everybody else. First time I came across with the place in Samuli Paulaharju's book about Sompio wilderness area history (Sompio, 1939) . He is writing that Sompio is an area between two Pyhä. I knew the southern Pyhä as I had lived there for four years, but I was curious about this other Pyhä. What is it? Where is it? So we hopped in my car and started to drive north from Sodankylä. We knew that the place should be some kilometers away, but still in Sodankylä commune. As we drive more and more north and 100 km and a bit more than one

The summer of 2018 was super hot and dry in Scandinavia. Only in Finland there was several wildfires every week. I followed the situation in the news, but never end up too close. On top of the fells I could smell to smoke when the wind was right. Last week I had a privilege to visit one of the burned forest areas of the last year. This place is in Sodankylä and my friends family owns the burned land. Have you ever been in a burned forest? I have never been in one. And for me the experience was magical. Surely, I can't even imagine the tragic side of it. My friend with all the other village men were here together trying to stop the fire to spread. If there had been some argue between the neighbors, they were all put a side for these days when everybody worked together. My other friend, who works in local volunteer fire department, told me that he was so tired after the summer, being 24/7 watering and monitoring the burning are

For a long time I hated running. I hated when I had to push my limits. I hated it for feeling being lousy at some thing. I also hated the feeling when adrenaline makes your blood run around your wains. The feeling of the adrenaline rush reminded me too closely the physical feeling of fear. I hated it so much, I started to cry, so that people would leave me alone and not ask me to do more. I hated it so much, that I got asthma and hyperventilation and bad knees. Ok, the asthma and bad knees were always there coming, but I also took them as my favorite excuses.  But sometimes I ran. It was one way to beat myself. When I had really high self loath, I went for running, so I could run the bad feeling away. And it helped. The exercise made my body feel better and I felt better when I could, by running ,punish myself for being so lousy person. I ran so far and so fast I could until the asthma kicked in. Which wasn’t too far, few hundred meters max.