My Northern Home

Okey okey, the title is exaggerating. I didn't post here a thousand pictures. I posted twelve. So no worries, this is not that long post. These pictures are from our first adventure with the sun, after the long polar night had ended. So obviously, unconsciously, all my pictures from this adventure are about the sun and the light. Meeting the sun again. After so many sunless (and in this winter case, grey cloudy days) Feels amazing. It's like seeing your dear friend after a long time.  You realize how much you have mist it. So you are just standing in the cold winter air and felling the sun rays dancing warmly on your skin. You start to smile. Feeling a moment of extreme happiness. Many people ask me, how can I live here in the north, where there is no sun in winter time. And I always tell them, that the polar night is my favorite time of the year. This might have something to do with my grim northern heritage ...

I often here that I'm a cool person, because I'm always so happy and energetic That it is nice to read my happy writings. That it is nice to be around me, because I have good things happening to me. I appreciate this feedback and I'm truly happy, if I can share joy and happiness to people around me. If they can get energy from me and my being. But it is not the whole truth. There is also bad, sad and stressful moments in my life. I don't like to talk about them, as I don't want to burden people around me. I don't want to hear them saying again "What is wrong with you, where is the Pirita who is always so happy?" It makes me feel even more bad. It takes away the space for me to feel my feelings. It lays expectations on me, which I can not fulfill in that moment. Why do I then write about this now? Not because I want to. But because I feel it is important. Because I want to say out loud, what happened in December. W...

I'm super great full for the crazy friends in my life. My life would be so much more duller without them. And after all, the best side-kick for an adventure is a person, who says "Yes, it's a good idea to walk over 4 km in dark forest after full working day!" "Let's do it!" So about 9.30 pm we started walking with snowshoes from Perhe-Luosto parking area towards unknown. Our goal was to reach the Yli-Luosto wilderness hut for the night. 4 km of walking. Piece of cake! We just follow the forest side between the swamp and the fell and will arrive to the hut about in two hours. The weather was really mild, only little bit below zero. The snow was deep and sinking to knee beside our snowshoes. Our whole world was the size of our headlamp spotlight. The "forest" was newly cut and the trees small and bushy. So there was only bad choices to go. We were sweating and cursing and changing t...

I was going to write about my holiday adventures in central Finland. But then came The Big Snowfall and powdered everything. The snowfall still continues outside my window as I'm writing this. So, obviously, we headed for a snowy adventure instead. The destination for this time was Luostotunturi (or Luosto fell). I'm working in the ski resort located there, so I'm not quite easily driving there when it's my day off. The idea came from my friend and he also offered to drive. So why not. And the day was totally worth it. At first we walked by foot, as the snowshoe trail was so used, that you didn't actually need snowshoes on it. But after a while we decided to leave the trail and headed to the unknown. There was surprisingly a lot of snow in the forest. And also surprise rocks just couple centimeters under the snow surface, ready to scratch you knee. The forest itself was calm and quiet. Snow covering...

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 ...