Skiing the Torne — Headwaters

There—

A beginning

A jagged line

Of earth pining for sky

Granite range

Rolling off the forest

Heavenbound and Earthheld

A cloudcradle

Ever so slowly

Tumbling down

In blue ice and sand

Carried by skyfall

That floods all

White

Skiing from Nikkaluokta, looking up at the black granite cliffs and the wind waves of snow and ice that cross the nearly vertical faces lining the valley, I was fixated. Something inside of me felt at once exhilarated and unrestrained, the kilometers melted into the snow beneath my skis, numbers and language felt to mean nothing, effervescent reminders of how I learned to understand the world only one of an infinity of ways. The mountains breathed fresh air into my lungs and set my mind afire.

The first day I made it early to Kebnekaise Fjëllstation, a beautiful mountain lodge built into a fold of mountain birch just below Kebnekaise Mountain, the tallest peak in Sweden, just breaching 2,000 meters. Looking at the lodge from a distance, I was surprised that it hadn’t been carried off by an avalanche, but the birch grove suggested that this might be a safe(er) place. Kebnekaise was the first STF establishment where I stayed. STF is the Swedish Tourism Federation, and they maintain the huts and stations along Kungsleden as it is a popular ski and trekking route. People flock from all over the world in March to ski the good conditions and spend some time in the immensity, letting their minds and bodies expand through the open air and the newly long days.
I considered leaving Kebnekaise to continue to the next hut when in walked Örjan Pekka, the editor of the Haparanda Bladet newspaper who I met the day I started. Örjan and his friend Berth Widmark, a mechanic and retired firefighter, had driven snowmobiles from Kalix (just west of Haparanda) north, and we happened to arrive here at the same time. Örjan introduced me to Nisse Andersson who was at the Fjëllstation working as electrician. Not a bad day on the job. We got to talking and hit it off, sharing a love for skiing and travel.

In the evening when Nisse, Berth, and Örjan went for dinner, I was sitting with a young guy named Matti Rapila Andersson, a photographer and skier who was also up for work. Matti got to stay 11 days in the mountains, the lucky dog. Both feeling high on life, we got to talking. He showed me his photographs and told me stories about from where they came. One of an island of forest in the Moroccan desert burst from the page, an ode to the force of life in hostile environments. It can be seen here in his collection (t)here is (ho)me: http://www.rapila.se/there-is-home/. Our conversation rambled through nature, work, and whatever emerged. After dinner the men returned and we talked and had beers until late at night. There I was in the afternoon expecting a quiet early night in, and instead I was welcomed by a party!
The generosity and kindred spirits of these people left me feeling so good. I am no loner in the way of thought, there are so many people on the life-train I’m riding, and I am always grateful to meet them, to invigorate the senses and the intellect with stories and debate, and then to carry on, new lessons breaching my consciousness.

In the morning, after a delicious breakfast thanks to Nisse, I was off. Skiing on, I thought if the himalaya, over four times the size of these scandinavian titans. No matter about size, here the peaks rise right off the atlantic coast and the grace of mountains swimming in snow from floor to summit is overwhelming to me, an earthbound amoeba on plastic planks towing my life in a sled.
The morning brought me up and over a small pass with beautiful blue ice that glinted when the mountain mist parted for the sun. This blue on the crest of the pass is the headwaters of Kalix River, meandering arm-in-arm with Torne to the sea, but at the moment in a winter stasis.
In the afternoon I took a shortcut over a low ridge that promised some fresh powder on the downslope. At Kebnekaise I was made aware that avalanche danger was high because of warm days in February and high winds making solid crusts that can break and slide. Staying low and on southwestern slopes was best, but I could see a few places where slides had happened. Nonetheless I made it over the ridge and descended into a wonderland of a valley, rimmed by the kebnekaise massif on one side and a long wall of mountains with rolls of cliff dropping to valley bottom.
The turns going down felt the height of living, as though I was enveloped in the immensity of granite and snow upon which the friction that had caused my legs such expenditure of effort no longer had the power to keep me in place. Skiing downhill is as close as I’ve ever been to flying on my own two legs, and too fleeting it is. As I came to a stop in the rolling flats, I laughed at myself for skiing a 500km approach to make these sweet turns. It was all worth it.

The next three days are a blur of white, rolling billows of mountain snow, saunas and evening conversations with tourists, meeting the kind people who mind the mountain huts, and a sensory experience of walking on winter that submersed my mind in a peace of enormity.
The mid-section between Nikkaluokta and Abisko is a complete desert in winter. Between the pass from Kebnekaise through the awe inspiring expanse around Sälka hut and until Alesjaure, over 50km of skiing, I didn’t see any plants, nor animals, even birds. Yet life never felt so ripe with essence as in an environment such as this: the high peaks, ceaseless desert—just like the rolling ocean.

As I approached Abisko National Park from Alesjaure, I could sense closure on the horizon. The knowing that this ski trip was nearly over sat very well with me. A brief reflection helped me see that what Nan Shepherd referred to as a “geopoetic quest” had just unfolded before my ski tips, and the lessons were at once present and deepening, but inexplicable to my rational mind. There was not time for extraversion in those mountains, the peaks are not concerned with my journey, but realizing my privilege to be there, I understood that I could introvert myself into the belly of the peaks.
In a narrow valley between Gárddenvárri and Šiellanjunni, beautiful Sámi-named peaks, I dug into a snow ridge to build a home for myself for the night. The exercise was not as quick as I imagined, and after four hours of steady digging, and soaking myself to the bone to recreate the blueprint I had in mind, I had a wonky but functional snow cave where I could intern myself into the mountain for the night, but not before catching some turns.
To dry off, I skied up the nice powder blanket of the lee-slope and caught some telemark turns in the powder, looking down the valley towards Abisko and the gnarled birch forest. Up there it became apparent to me that I was was really truly standing on the headwaters, that the stream flowing below the heaps of snow in this little valley soon connects to Kamjåjakka, then becomes Ábeskojávri—Abisko Lake, then Abiskojåkka—the Abisko River, a principle headwater tributary of Torne that meets the river’s flow in the great depths of Torne Trask.

Returning to my cave, dry and happy after my ski, I cooked up some dinner. Moments after digging in, a helicopter nearly shaved my head, and flew out of sight over the windridge, but the deafening sound told me it was landing. Like a nervous rat I scurried up the wind ridge to ensure that my house didn’t cave in, and the heli was just a hundred feet away. Then I looked up and saw some dots flying down Šiellanjunni—heli skiers.

As the flew off waving to me eating my dinner, I was flabbergasted at this wild world. Feeling full I crawled into my cave and sealed the door and with it, sealed out the noise of the world. The quiet of that cave resounded and a fugue of mountain winter entered my consciousness, a symphony of a wilded mind—here I was, sleeping in the river, submerged.

This journey has no end. As rivers have no end, no beginning, but are a fluid fabric holding the world in a trance of movement and wild choreography.
“The river is everywhere at once, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the rapids, in the sea, in the mountains, everywhere at once, and there is only the present time for it, not the shadow of the past, not the shadow of the future…”
-Herman Hesse, Siddhartha

April 15, 2017 0

Skiing the Torne River — Jukkasjarvi to Nikkaluokta

The birds arrive

Little characters

They flit about

Pecking at frozen pine nuts

Doing nothing much

I am still skiing

Eating, talking, sleeping

Listening

Floating through resting lands

Doing not so much

But doing

Jukkasjarvi’s 90cm thick ice quickly thins as Torne passes a narrow place before leading to another wide wandering lake before Kurravaara. I did not make it that far because I veered west towards Kiruna.

Climbing out of the valley was hard work, but as I made my way up, I could see the clouds bursting from the iron mine’s towers next to the mountains in the distance. Max Hensler, Yasmine, and their boys, the family from Övertorneå, were on their way north to see the ice hotel, so we agreed to have lunch in Kiruna… a deadline! I had to be in town by 2:00 so I skied hard up the hills. The apartment buildings of Kiruna looking so alien to me in the distance. I haven’t seen buildings like that since Haparanda.

Finally making over the crest into town, I found Max and Yasmine at Empes, a classic style burger and milkshake stand in town. My burger, the signature, had mashed potatoes, bacon, two patties, and cheese, and I had a chocolate milkshake. That is all I will say. And it was great to see my friends from Övertorneå.
Feeling full, I went off to find the apartment of Sanne and Isak. Sanne is Kjell Kangas from Pajala’s daughter and Isak is her boyfriend. I found the place pretty easily, and Isak was cooking up some food, a Swedish stroganoff . Fortunately, having skied a lot, I am able to eat anything anytime, so I happily lunched a second time with them.
Sanne works in a watch shop in town and is a painter. I got to stay in the studio room which was nice. Isak is a chef and he grew up in the very far north near the point where Sweden, Norway, and Finland meet. His family are Sámi and his father carves beautiful knife handles and figures out of reindeer bones. He told me stories about going berry picking in the summer with his mother and selling the harvest to people in Norway.

The first night I arrived, Isak, Sanne, and David, Isak’s cousin, sat around with beers, talking and listening to music. They showed me some yoik, which is a type of Sámi singing without works, but with amazing wandering melodies. Listening, I couldn’t keep from noticing how these sounds remind me of the landscape here, music woven into and from the surroundings.
Isak and Sanne also have a number for pets: a very friendly and excited dog named Yolandi and two rats, Ninja and Nalta. The dog and the rats get along pretty well, I was surprised to see, though Sanne and Isak think Yolandi secretly wants to eat them. For safety and comfort, the rats have a four story apartment building with a balcony that somewhat resembles Isak and Sanne’s apartment building.

I spent two days with them relaxing and cooking with Isak. It was good to rest and plan my route north. I’ve heard that the ice on Tornetrask, the big W shaped lake at the head of Torne, didn’t freeze until very late this year. A colleague of my father, a climate scientist named Jim Overland, recently published research that early winter temperatures in the arctic this year and last year have been around 6°C warmer than usual. That is an astonishing number, about 11°F, and people here have noticed.

Håkan Lundstrom in Vittangi told me that when he was a kid it would remain below -30°C for weeks on end. This year it rarely dropped below that. The record low there is -53°C, and this year it only got to -37°C. Things are warming up.
Since above Kurravaara there are no towns along Torne, and the word is that ice is thin, I decided to ski west to Torne’s sister, Kalix River and the town of Nikkaluokta, where one of the main routes along the famous Kungsleden trail begins.
Skiing out of Kiruna was industrial. I had to ski around the mine, and as I went, I could hear the sounds of heavy machines. I skied along north of the mine and around a windfarm, and I noticed how much dust was on the snow near the mine, and the sound of the machines could be heard for a few hours, until I was at least 10km off.

Then I was in beautiful stunted birch forests with the mountains not far off. I descended into the Kalix Valley, which, from above, looks remarkably similar to the Torne Valley as it approaches the headwaters. Coming out of the mountains, the river goes through a number of large lakes separated by narrows, on the lakes the ice is thick and blue, but in the narrows it thins and even disappeared. I stayed one night between lakes before heading over Paitasjarvi, the biggest of the Kalix lakes.
Paitasjarvi is about 20km end to end, and as I skied, the tail end of a storm was heading east, that meant heavy head winds, occasional flurries, and a slow, difficult ski to Nikkaluokta. The winds erased the snowmobile trails, so I was really working. In the distance, I could make out the black granite face that a man at the head of the lake had pointed to saying “Nikkaluokta,” but the more I skied, the further away it seemed.

Suddenly out of the wind appeared a figure on the lake. Closer, I could tell it was a man. Closer still and I saw five big piles of snow and ice, and he was working. Fishing. He was catching pike and char, and I later found out this was Arne, a Sámi reindeer herder from a village along the lake. We had a nice, broken conversation in Swedish-English and he told me “Nikkaluoka, half mile!” In Sweden this means 5km, a Swedish mile being 10. I later learned that in Sámish, though I can’t remember the words, the translation of a swedish mile is literally, “how far a dog can hear.”

Soon I was in Nikkaluokta, totally beat from the long day, and I skied/tumbled into the Nikkaluokta Sarri AB, a hotel/camping at the gateway to the mountains. Flying outside was the Sámish flag in front of the snowy peaks, and inside I met Anna Sarri, the woman who runs the hotel there. Nikkaluokta is on one end of a very popular ski route that runs through the high mountains from Abisko to the north, my final destination on the banks of Tornetrask. Part of the route follows Kungsleden, or King’s Way, a long hut-to-hut trail through Sweden’s northern peaks.
In Nikkaluokta, I met Anna’s son PärHenrik, Ellen, and Mårten, young reindeer herders working in the winter season driving tourists on snowmobiles through the mountains. They were good fun, and told me some about how the reindeer work. This time of year is calving season, and so they don’t want to disturb their animals, but in the summertime, they will gather them up and take them to camps where they count them and take some to slaughter, making sure they keep the herd in good shape and proper numbers. There are regions of Sámi herding territory where different families get to keep their animals. I asked Ellen how many reindeer her family had, and she said, “oh, you don’t ask that, it’s like asking how much money someone has.” Alright, I thought, how cool, it’s not about money.
Ellen showed me a map of the herding regions, and they are really different from the Swedish map, with long regions running from the northwest in a usually southeasterly direction, mostly following the rivers… you know me, I liked this logic of space. I went to sleep grateful for knowing new friends who work on the land and water, and eager for the days to come, out of the Torne Valley and into the mountains.
From the valley

Spruce and fir

Fade to gnarled birch

Old trees

Watching time pass

Feeling the mountains move

April 5, 2017 0

Skiing the Torne River-Övertorneå to Pajala

What about the old time traveler

The wayfarer

Easy as she goes

In the woods

On the river road
I wonder

Is that me?

At home, houseless?
Resting and eating

In a new friend’s kitchen?
Carry on

Carry on
Easy as she goes

I have so much to tell you. The last days were sweet as the creamed coffee in my mug this morning. I witnessed a glimpse of humanity that fills the deepest gullies of my mind with the comfort of home, I know that may sound strange being only a few weeks in this northern land.
…
I started out at noon from Övertorneå after meeting Lars Munk. Lars started out in Denmark with a fisherman father and made his way to Lapland to become a fishing guide after studying at the Övertorneå Folkhögskola, the folk school, where he later taught. He worked in Iceland for three years and then returned to Sweden and started a fishing outfitter in Lapland with his wife. A few years back he sold the company and started working for Heart of Lapland helping businesses in the area hone in on the tourism market, which, after mining, is the major economic force at work in the Swedish north.
After Övertorneå I continued up to Svanstein, a small town between the banks of Torne and a jumble of hills that hosts a little alpine ski resort. On the way, I skied through Juoksengi, a town that sits right on the polar circle. From the trail I could see flags flying in the distance –Russia, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Greenland, USA, Canada — a thread of light, a seam upon the north. There I found the Polarcirkelhuset, a house beneath the flags that is also a restaurant and hotel.

The place was closed, but a nice man with little english came up and told me to”wait wait” and sure enough, five minutes later Yvonne Kangas and her son arrived and let me in. We spoke a bit, and they put on coffee as I dug into my lunch. A moment later Tomas arrived and I learned that the place is a community managed restaurant and hotel. Tomas brought me a certificate saying that I had crossed the circle and also gave me a hat, a shirt, and a nice little cup.

After lunch I made a jump across the arctic circle, and I was on my way again, this time skiing cautiously along the highway because I wanted to make it to Svanstein. I was cold and wet and went to the place in town to stay, Svanstein Lodge. Lotta who recently bought the place with her husband kindly offered to let me stay for free, and showed me around the beautiful big place. I got to stay in my own little cabin with a fireplace and a warm bed, sauna in the evening.
In Övertorneå Lars and Max told me about a woman who runs a restaurant whose popularity outpaces population growth, whose menu is myth, and whose view is good as that from Mount Olympus, only over Tornedalen. As I skied north towards Svanstein, I thought about how nice it would be to meet Pia Huuva, the queen of Restaurang Utblick Luppioberget, the mountaintop eating house.
Lars’ colleague at Heart of Lapland, Linnea Sidenmark, offered to put me in touch with Pia. Since I had already passed Restaurang Utblick, and it would have taken me a full two day detour to visit, but Pia offered to come and see me in Svanstein, only an hours drive for them.
Pia came with her daughter Maja and dog Benna, and we took a walk through the sunny, cold afternoon. Pia told me about the restaurant on the mountain. She talked about her food philosophy, how she wants to attain schyst (pronounced sch-ust) in everything she does. Schyst is like “sustainable, ecological, and like really good,” Pia told me emphatically. The restaurant serves mostly local produce and meats, and in the three months that it’s open they feed something like 18,000 people.

As our talk wandered on, we got onto the subject of Sami people. Sami have been in this area called Lapland for thousands of years. In Sami languages, Lapland is actually called Sapmi, and like in the Americas, Sami have been living off lands for a long, long time that were absorbed by nations, and as the land became privatized, the people were acculturated and treated with little or no respect for their traditional lifeways.
Today many Sami still work herding reindeer and making a life from the forest, rivers, and valleys, but Sami kids, along with the rest of the young population of Tornedalen (who spoke mostly Finnish) in the mid 20th century were forced into residential schools where they had to speak Swedish and speaking Sami languages, Finnish, or Meänkieli was banned and cause for punishment.
Despite this trying history, Pia said that Sami people still practice a very particular way of stewarding nature and have a unique and deep understanding of the land and forest here. But in society, Sami still face severe prejudice in some regions. Pia’s husband is a Sami man, and Pia works helping Sami entrepreneurs with their businesses.
As we spoke, Pia’s daughter Maja, with the beautiful full name of Kaisa Maja Elvi Huuva Kavat, chosen by Maja herself and inspired by a beloved childhood story, listened patiently and intently. I thought, how great for this girl to have a mom like Pia, so engaged, so humble, so active.
We closed as Pia, with reverence, spoke of the way that all the world is made of energy, literally, matter is energy. The way we live is dictated by our own energy. Physics tells us this is true, that matter is a form of energy and different particles can affect one another’s behavior depending on their energy states. So can humans act like positive ions too, spreading positive energy to the world around?
Two nights after I met Pia, I was staying in a little cabin on the Finnish side of the river, a place called Naamivaara. At about 10 PM I walked outside and was stopped dead in my tracks. Above me, a purple spire danced over the forest, became a wave of bright green and swirled away past the horizon. Then another spire jumped out of nowhere and filled the void between me and the heavens before evaporating again into darkness.

The Aurora Borealis is a stunning revelation of the energy that Pia talked about, the dynamic magnetism that holds everything together revealing itself in a swirling green and purple aura, a silent unfolding of the sky. It is a phenomenon of particles excited by solar winds releasing their energy in the earth’s magnetosphere.
The way I arrived to this little cabin in the woods brings Kari Piipari into this story. I was skiing out of Pello, a town in Finland where I bought some groceries after crossing the river. My cell phone charging cable came unplugged from my solar panel, and I was struggling to put it back in when I saw a man skiing up behind me.
I asked him for help and we got to talking about why I had a solar panel. I told him about the expedition up Torne, and he got very excited. He told me that he had moved to Lapland three years ago from Helsinki, and he wanted to do adventures also. We exchanged contact information and carried on our way.
An hour later I got a text from Kari saying that he had returned from his ski and where was I going to sleep. I replied that I would camp somewhere on the snowmobile road heading north. No reply.
About 5:15 I was looking for a campsite and to stop skiing for the day. Up comes a snowmobile and a man in a bright orange suit jumps off. It’s Kari. He greets me and asks if I want to go to a cabin not far away. I told him I wanted to ski, and he offered to tow my sled with his snowmobile and light a fire in the hut. Oh mylanta, a guy on skis towing a sled like an ox can’t turn down that offer. Then he showed me some things he brought for me. Winter dried moose meat and moose heart, a fillet of pike-perch, and some frozen berries he had picked himself. It was amazing, I felt so grateful.

Kari took off in his snowmobile, my old sled in tow. I ate some moose heart and a snickers and started huffing onwards with the sunset. After about two hours more skiing at a fast click, I was still a ways from the cabin. It was further than we thought and the path led far in the wrong direction before winding slowly back towards the river. So at about 7:40, long after sundown, I jumped on Kari’s sled for a 5 minute ride that would have taken me 25. The cabin was a spacious hexagon and had a storeroom of dry wood next door. Kari had a fire going and we talked for a while over hot chocolate. He is a P.E. teacher in Pello and likes hunting and fishing. I enjoyed the company, but Kari had to go back home because he was leaving town in the morning.
Then the aurora came.

The next day still high on northern lights, I was invited for coffee and cookies with Salia Sirkkala, Tinna Norrman, and her husband before I crossed the river back to Sweden. Salia is also a teacher in Pello, but of English. She knows Kari, and was so happy to hear the story. It’s a small world up here.
I skied back into Sweden with the plan to stay in a cabin in Kassa, a town just 20 kilometers south of Pajala where I planned to make my next stop. I skied late again after getting bogged down in powder in the forest. I arrived to Kassa in the dark. I found the cabin after asking directions from two boys in a nice house with a barn up the hill from the river. A few minutes after I got to the cabin, their dad Örjan Pääjärvi came and invited back up to sleep on the couch. I was so happy, and we had a sauna and a long conversation about the world that night as the mercury dropped to -28° C outside.

In the morning after porridge I skied onto Pajala where I am now, and perhaps tonight I get to play some hockey.
…
Does a cold winter

Bolster a warm heart?
Like the woodstove

On a frigid night

Must be carefully attended

And fed well

With pitch sweet wood

So the flame

Can jump and leap

With blazing life

March 9, 2017 1

Skiing the Torne, Arthotel Tornedalen to Övertorneå

It’s midday

The snow is fresh

Heavy before the sled

As if to say

Slow down

Be here

Be here
…
I was greeted by falling snow in the morning the day I skied towards Risudden. I passed along the river just after noon, and it was open water gushing down into a section of heavy rapids where the river enters a small gorge.
On the old railway line were tracks, not rail tracks, but some kind of cleft-hoofed creatures’, a pair of them wandering in and out of step. In the distance I could see something, a shape moving on the trail, a brown smudge. Snow is remarkable for following tracks, the impressions like a intaglio print documenting the movement of the world, and so impermanent it is, impressed upon frozen water only.

The tracks left the trail towards the river, and looking into the woods that way I saw a moose. I think it was a moose. A yearling, probably born last spring. I didn’t stick around, knowing that moose mothers can be volatile. What a magnificent creature, so huge.
Into Risudden I went, a town of big old houses overlooking a wide stretch of river from a hillside that was daunting to me with my heavy sled down below. I had a rough idea of where the Arthotel Tornedalen might be. Lars really wanted me to stay there and I was excited, I had heard about the place’s character, difficult for anyone to describe.
In front of me, a sort of white directional sign reading “Konsthall” pointed at an empty field of snow. Strange, I thought. On the hill a cluster of houses, one white, one red, a sauna, and another higher up house with a shed and what looked like a ceramic sculpture in front. Crossing the road, the mailbox read, “Stensmyr,” that’s the name! No other signage.

I was feeling hunger heavy on my gut, and as I pulled up the drive, I saw a woman bustling about in the big red house. She saw me and came out. This was Maria, a very kindly woman from Överkalix who works for Gunhild keeping house. Gunhild wasn’t yet home from a place down south. Maria ushered me into the house, and I suddenly entered a dream.
Outside,

Flakes laden the ground

Each one unique

A life of its own

A geometry of the environment
Inside,

Flakes laden every surface

Flakes of the mind

Composed of glass

Rubber, canvas, ceramic, wood

Paint, weasels, wax, corc

A life, each one

A geometry of being

Drawn into nothing

But the world
I didn’t understand

The house is a menagerie of works by artists unknown to me, forms unencountered. At that very moment, honestly, the identity of the art, anything more than my lucid first impression, was not so important as food, and food there was. Maria started me on knäckebröd, a sort of brown bread cracker with butter, then came a salad, lamb sausages, potatoes and vegetables. My stomach was singing. After food we had coffee and fika, some vanilla rolls.
As I ate I learned about Maria, how her husband inherited a house in Risudden, and from the front windows she can see clear up the Torne River nearly to Övertorneå some 30 Km away. She moved here after losing her job and Gunhild took her on to work. We talked about saunas and beer and how the two are like peas in a pod; the sauna is the pod, and the human, beer in hand and belly is the pea.
At that lunch was over and I went out to light the sauna fire. Maria had to go, so I took some beers and enjoyed the warm room by myself for some hours. Eventually I turned more baked potato than human (two beers didn’t help), and I wandered across the frozen driveway to the glowing red house full of mindfood.

I sat down to read at the long table before a big photograph of a poodle face and a human hand protruding from a black fur coat. The coat blended perfectly into the poodle’s own coat… human and dog made one. Just then Gunhild (pronounced goon-hill-dh) arrived. I immediately felt her radiance, her passion, and her clean but immaculate style suited her home and hotel perfectly. She whizzed about asking me question on question as we warmed up another of Maria’s amazing preparations–moose meat hunted by Gunhild’s brother wrapped in bacon and baked in a nice sauce with potatoes, peas, and brussel sprouts. Thank you moose.
Over dinner I learned a bit about Gunhild: she studied anthropology, ethnology, and art history in school. She grew up just north of Risudden in Hedenäset, and then was married and moved to the south of Sweden and worked directing various konsthalls, “galleries” is the closest translation, but it seems to be more than a gallery, verging on museum. Her husband passed away and she moved back north to reestablish life in Tornedalen, and as a speaker of Meänkieli and a local born, she is reassociating with her roots and undertaking a big new project.
It started as Guesthouse Tornedalen and recently changed names to Arthotel Tornedalen. As Gunhild said, the place is full of “the finest contemporary Swedish art,” and while absolutely baffling to enter such a sophisticated and challenging art collection out of the quiet woods of Norbotten county, her curation is brilliant. And she is going big.
Gunhild is just working to finish the financing of Konsthall Tornedalen, what is to be a huge cultural center and gallery in Risudden right on the banks of Torne. After hearing about her master plan, I drifted off to sleep with visions of the konsthall dancing in my head.

In the morning over breakfast, Gunhild talked to me more deeply about her collection, about living with this art. She put it so beautifully, “When you don’t understand something, it’s art,” she beamed, “it’s completely impractical, it’s for the brain,” “it’s social, that’s what’s so interesting.”
I skied away from the menagerie in the woods and from Gunhild in her fur coat and aviator cap. I was in awe. Passing the Konsthall sign in the empty field, I understood now, and I went on my way anticipating a good future.

Spending the night under open sky

Hoping to see a magnetic green light

But not heartset
Locals came by me on snowmobiles

“Who the hell is this crazy man?”

They thought in Swedish, Finnish, or Mäenkieli

Well my name is actually “crazy”

Nice to meet you
We shared conversations under the heavens

Warm as the stars

In the winter night
…
Skiing was easy from Hedenäset where I had camped. It was Sunday and all the locals had been out playing with their snowmobiles the day before, so I had a good firm track to follow. The way was along rolling hills, and I even saw a little rope tow ski lift a few kilometers before Övertorneå.
Just before the hill I skied by an amazing scene. Some moose tracks that were spaced far apart, a running moose, entered the trail and then swerved left and right. What looked like dog tracks came bounding from the forest. Then the moose stifled and skidded, perhaps trying to defend itself a bit before accelerating down the trail.
Then a pattern began; every few meters a dog appeared on the side of the path indicating a planned attack on the moose which swerved each time and then carried on full bore. This lasted about 100 meters then the moose dove into the woods.
There was no blood, no sound. What a silent scene to encounter.
Skiing into Övertorneå many people were out for a sunday walk, the bridge to the sister village in Finland, Ylitornio, was the first bridge I had since Haparanda/Tornio. The church tower stood above the town which is set in a donut around a little hill covered in forest. Lars told me to stay at a place called Övertorneå Camping that had recently changed owners. A Swiss man named Max bought it and moved up with his family. Others had spoken of the new Swiss man in Tornedalen, and I was eager to hear his story.
When I arrived, I saw on the riverbank a cluster of red cabins and an area for tent or caravan camping. There was a restaurant and a sauna house with a wooden hot tub that looks like an enormous whiskey barrel cut in two filled with water with a woodstove dropped in.

A nice man named Håkan greeted me. Håkan seemed a bit flustered, and explained that he had run this place for 18 years, and now was helping Max transition in as owner. The sale proper was to happen this week. Just then a big bloodhound on a leash came sniffing around Håkan’s car. “That’s Brian, he’s nice,” came the voice of Max trailing Brian the Bloodhound.
After greetings, Max walked me over to my cabin, and in the short moments between I learned that he had been working in IT for supply chains with big companies in Switzerland before his mind and body gave him an overhaul a few years back, crashing from high stress and being overworked. So, he came to the north, a lover of Scandinavia.
Thinking about that, I unpacked my things into the warm cabin, again grateful for the space to dry my stuff and thaw my bones. Max invited me for dinner at his place, Swiss fondue, he said, in the big yellow mansion on the property called the “priest’s house.”
I arrived at seven to the bustle of a family home, boxes still being unpacked–they arrived here just 12 days ago. Max’s wife Yasmine was preparing the fondue, and I learned that she speaks French, Italian, and Swiss German, a little English, and they are all learning Swedish. Their two boys, Janne, 4, and Kimi, 2, were playing with wild excitement, and Brian the Bloodhound lounged on his very own leather armchair.

Over the delicious meal, we spoke about their choice to come north with the family. Max explained to me that the emphasis on performance, professional performance, caused him to overwork, and eventually he crashed. This midlife meltdown was devastating with young kids and compromised his existence in the milieux of a wealth crazed professional culture. What to do?
After a trip to Lapland, Max returned to Switzerland with new life, refreshed by the quiet light and different pace of the north woods. But at 48 years old, even with 25 years experience and success, it was difficult to find work in the Swiss economy. With over 350 job applications sent, Max got only a handful of interviews. Yasmine told him if he didn’t change course things were not bright.
So they began to look for a place in Lapland, and after months of searching and negotiating, Yasmine found Övertorneå, and Max agreed, this was the place.
The vision for their future is to create a lodge and retreat where people can come from rushed and relentless professional lives to find connection, fun, and peace along the Torne’s bank with their families and friends. It will be called Norrsken Lodge, meaning Northern Lights Lodge in Swedish. Max wants to help people avoid the meltdown that happened to him, what happens to scores of working people.
This passion and empathy, motivation to engage rooted in personal experience is blazing a meaningful trail into the future for Max and Yasmine and their boys. I wish them the best, and Brian is happy as a dog who thinks he is in heaven, where snow is drifting cloud and the forest is full of good scent trails.
…
The next morning I woke up to go meet Stig Kerttu and his colleague David Mäki who work for the Övertorneå Municipality in business development. On the way I stopped at the hardware shop, the Övertorneå Järnhandel, to get some better gloves for skiing because my light gloves are too light and my big gloves too warm. The guys there were friendly and welcoming and they offered to give me the gloves as a sponsor. What generous folks, Ingemar Björnfot, Lars-Eric Sandstrom, and Ingvar Sandstrom.

As I walked to meet Stig, I recalled how he reached out to me after I wrote an email to the Övertorneå Kumun, and he offered to show me around town and teach me about the histor. Stig is in his early sixties with bright eyes and an inquisitive way about him. His warmth is matched by a strong intellect a very thorough education, focused in economics. In the 1980s he helped Övertorneå establish itself as the first “Ecological Society” in Sweden, working to have a neutral footprint with responsible resource management.
He brought a brilliant conversation to the table, first teaching me some about the region prompted by a map of the area from north western Russia and into northern Scandinavia. Our talk was magnetized towards migration, a touchy topic throughout Europe. Sweden took in more refugees over the last two years than any other European country. 250,000 people were allowed to come here, and recently the country closed its borders. The influx presents economic and political challenges, but also opportunities if it is well managed. That is easier said than done.
David and Stig seemed disappointed and frustrated at other EU countries including their Finnish neighbors who refused to open borders despite having histories of emigration themselves after war and unrest.
How we humans become entangled with the nuances of culture and prejudice and reject one another when what we share and the ways in which we can support each other are much more profound than religion or language or skin tone. These days we are all neighbors, we have condensed space and time in both physical and virtual spheres, the Earth even fits into Google. If you live in Vanuatu, and I am in Finland, I could be at your doorstep tomorrow. Will you take me in? We are on one planet, we are an organism blossoming across its surface wildly in the flow of time, how can we gain perspective?

Finishing our morning on an unsettled, but thoughtful note, none of us had a single answer. Stig and I went for lunch with the mayor of Övertorneå, Tomas Mörtberg, a farmer by trade who now is both principal of the local Folk School and mayor. He was an earnest guy and I was glad to know that people honor farmers around here so. We spoke about the region and about the Folk School which provides education to adults and those in need of opportunities. It is free for everyone, including non-Swedes.
Now I will stay in Övertorneå one more day to meet Lars here tomorrow before heading out again towards the arctic circle and then on to Pajala.
…
Tied to the bounty of self

I don’t know if I go in

Or go out
Perhaps the plain of winter

Is what expels the certainty

Never knowing

Whether I stand

On ground or water
And like that

Are we all

March 1, 2017 1

Skiing the Torne River, Kukkolaforsen to Risudden

The river valley: Tornedalen
The waters:

Torneälven in Swedish

Tornionjoki in Finnish
The vast river

At the center of two lands
Is it

Dedicated to an ancient king

A king made myth?
Is it Tor’s River?

…

I feel a rooting in this valley unfamiliar to my wandering feet. Today passing through the town of Korpikylä I visited Hulkoffgården/Butiken på Landet on the banks of a bay at the base of the rapid Matkakoski.
I skied in on the old railway line and coming in from the back I saw a big farm with two yellow houses and two red barns laden with snow. I was hungry and had heard that there was a country store, so I went in search of coffee and food only to find out that things weren’t so open and maybe the owners were out of town.

I was heading back to the rail tracks when the reindeer caught my eye, four gentle creatures in a pen, and while I was saying hello, Pia, an older woman with bright blue eyes came down the way. She already knew who I was, word having spread of the skier named Galen (which means “crazy” in Swedish) coming up the Tornedalen, the Torne Valley.

We took up conversation fast and Pia said that the reindeer are new to their farm being that this area is one of the only areas in the country where it’s permitted having them domesticated. Here and the Kemi River area, mostly in Lapland where herding reindeer is a traditional way of life. Pia and her husband also keep cattle, and she voiced proudly that they feed them only real good food, grass grown on the farm and some extra barley for protein.
Pia said that the place has been farmed and lived on by their relatives since the 1700s and has been occupied and farmed longer still, perhaps much longer. This reminded me too of Kukkolaforsen, where the Spolanders have been for many generations.

Pia took me inside what I thought was a second cattle barn, but how wrong I was. The ground level used to be a cattle barn–it was built by the generation before who handmade the bricks. Now it is made gourmet eating house with beautiful settings and a wine bar.

I asked Pia why the business had two signs and she said “you’ll have to see upstairs,” beaming. We went up, and I couldn’t believe my eyes, a proper fashion boutique in rural Norbotten County with beautiful wool coats and furs, hats, knives and scarves and boots. Of course!! “Butiken” read the sign.

I immediately thought of my grandfather, Charles Willard Olson III whose friends called him the Swede. Our family, as did many Swedes, emigrated to the US sometime around the turn of the 20th century. This movement recalls how dynamic our world is, how people everywhere at some point have moved, we are not trees, we are a fluid culture. Standing there in Butiken På Landet I felt the power of my ancestors who left these lands to go to America, “the promised land.” Charles, Grandpa Chuck to me, was a very fashionable fella, he would have loved this store and this country. I told this to Pia, and smiling she brought out a Swedish “fika,” coffee and sweets.

As we spoke she talked entrancingly about Tornedalen, among many other things. She explained her son’s deep interest in the history and mythology here and of the potential links between this area and Celtic peoples who came here long ago, long enough to see the receding glacier from the ice age which shaped these lands and to meet King Tor and contribute to the myths that are so enchanting to my wayfaring mind. Tor’s River, Thor’s River?, I thought, feeling the weight of this incredible story forming landscapes upon my mind.
I am curious about the veritability of these stories and how they can be added to. If you know anything about it please write to me, ghecht@coa.edu.
As I said goodbye to Pia feeling a profound sense of belonging here, I got back on the trail, floating the kilometers towards Risudden, my destination for the night.
I thought of another enthralling conversation yesterday that blossomed out of an act of great generosity in Karungi just beyond Kukkolaforsen. As I was skiing into town, a snowmobile, here “snowskooter,” pulled up behind me and a girl hopped off the back waving. This was Victoria and her step dad Lars, come to greet me and Victoria wanted to ski. Just what I was hoping!! On top of that they brought me oreos, a beer, and a Norbotten hat! Reminding me that I am still in Norbotten, not yet Lapland, I’ll be there soon though.

Lars laid down some ski trail with his skooter, an act he does for the community as well, laying ski track around an island in the river. Then he headed back to his duties as a firefighter for the town, but not before he told me that Karungi used to be a booming place because it hosted the post office where East and West met during and after World War two. Now it’s a quiet little place, but before tens of thousands of letters came through everyday.
Victoria and I skied away talking about all sorts of things like her wonder at how the USA is not going through upheaval and revolution (which I think we may be, and not just the USA, more on that later). She also told me about her work in Norway with the outdoors as a follower of “friluftsliv” which translates roughly to “fresh air life” and exists in conjunction with the “freedom to roam” laws in Sweden, Finland, Norway, and many other countries where wandering about the countryside is permitted pretty much anywhere that is not obviously private.
Friliftsliv is a way of living with nature and respecting it without exploiting it economically, and it is founded in outdoor recreation and exploration. I asked how she would describe it best, and she replied “basically what you are doing, living in nature.” I was moved to hear this, and hopeful that it is true, also very excited to know that this school of thought is vibrant here. In some ways friliftsliv and freedom to roam maintain the common lands and waters as commons to be explored and appreciated in the ways that they have been for centuries, and it thwarts land greed to some extent as well by providing equal access.
Victoria turned back after some kilometers and left me feeling pensive and alive, curious and calm, hopeful for something I cannot describe. I was so grateful to this place, and I felt at home, wading through snow.
Galen Winchester Hecht

My name
Charles Willard Olson III

My grandfather

Passed on now

But made of Swedish stock

Northern blood
In these the Norbotten woods

I feel as I am meant to feel

Wake as I am meant to wake

Brother of the frozen brooke

Son of the tireless snows

Wondrous with birch and fir
I think I will add to my name
Galen Winchester Olson Hecht

February 25, 2017 1

Skiing the Torne River, Early Days

Starting the Journey — Haparanda/Tornio to Kukkola

Morning

A thousand suns

Of Ice

Glinting

All about

Look at the map of northern Sweden and Finland. Find the point the where the border meets the sea, then look closer still and you will see the borderline do a wild squiggle between the towns of Tornio and Haparanda. For the most part, this border was drawn through the Torne or Tornio River and above it the Munio River along the line of deepest flow, but the town of Tornio, west of the main river channel was taken by Russia as a strategic trading point when it annexed what is now Finland from the Swedish Kingdom in 1809. In 1917, during the Russian Revolution, Finland gained its independence, this year celebrating 100.

This border in many ways is as fluid as the rivers that mark it. I crossed many times in the last days, never noticing until in a shop or looking at the time. On one side of the river there are Swedish Krona and on the other, the Euro. On the Finnish side it is one hour later. But people on either side of the line usually speak both languages well, and often Miän Kieli (meaning “our language”) is spoken, a tongue that resembles old Finnish with lots of Swedish mixed in.

Along this borderland, I have relinquished my own borders, and I am taking on the role of wandering story-collector. What a wonderful way to get to know the snowy north of Lapland, traveling by skis and meeting the locals to share stories.

To do such a trip requires much equipment, some good contacts, and also some wits about the woods. I was very fortunate to get in touch with Lars Munk, of the Heart of Lapland, an organization that coordinates tourism and adventure travel throughout Swedish Lapland. Lars is an outdoorsperson himself, an avid fisherman, and he is interested in storytelling about the people and the landscape as a means to bring tourists to this place and support the locals. Lars generously offered help and guidance on my journey including occasional stays in some of the lodges along the route.

The day before I was set to leave, Lars recalled a man named Per Johansson, who has an intimate knowledge of bushcraft and the Lapland nature. I was camping outside of Haparanda/Tornio testing my gear, and arranged to meet Per in town on Sunday. I skied into town with a bit of equipment, ready to get the final few items necessary for my journey. I was just getting to Natur Kompaniet, a nice outdoors store that helped much with my outfitting, when Per pulled up in his car. I guess he knew where to find me.

Per stands very tall, perhaps 6’3’’, and has the burl of a woodsman. We stood in the parking lot for a while discussing my equipment and the journey, and which maps to use. He then took me down to Riekkola just south of Haparanda to show me around the woods. Per has worked for many years in the Swedish Military and teaches winter warfare to trainees. He now he runs his own adventure company, Rimfrost Adventures, where he takes people out into the wilderness to learn skills and experience this place.

His knowledge, clearly abundant, would take years to learn, but none the less, he gave me good tips about how to warm up in serious cold, a nice model for my winter bivvy setup, and advice on what firewood and tinder is best here in winter. We also spoke about travelling on ice, which is far and away the biggest risk of my adventure. River ice is not consistent, and extremely dangerous because a plunge through could sweep you under the ice sheet. Per informed me about the snowmobile roads, which are my most likely option of safe travel through the Torne Valley, and I left feeling at once grateful and glad that there are people who are so dedicated to learning and sharing the hard skills of life in the woods.

The next morning I awoke at dawn after a night of fresh snow, my thermometer read -23 Celsius. Seven inches of the fluffiest snow imaginable blanketed the birch stand where I was camped north of Haparanda on the riverbank. I packed up my camp and set off to go back to Riekkola to see the mouth of the Torne River where it enters the Bay of Bothnia, before heading back up towards my pulka (sled) and on into the north.

On the way back from Riekkola, feeling elated at having begun my journey, I stopped in at the Haparanda Bladet, the local newspaper. Lars told me that it would be a good idea to see about a story in the paper, and that way, people in the valley could know that I’m coming and what I’m doing. Perhaps this would lead to some nice meetings, and it did, immediately. The journalist Pirita Jaako who speaks the best English wasn’t in the office, so Örjan Pekka, the editor invited me to lunch.

Over a big meal we spoke about his job as editor and also his new part time occupation guiding people aboard a real icebreaker ship with the company Nordic Lapland. He showed me some photos of the big red boat and people swimming in the sea in immersion suits. Then he showed me a photo of an Israeli man drinking the seawater (yes, it is that fresh and not salty that you can drink it!), and how this man was astounded at the abundance since Israel is fighting over water. This story touched a nerve with me, because it reminded why I am on this journey in the first place, to get acquainted with our water world. To learn about relationships just like this one on our blue planet.

After lunch Pirita Jaako and I did a short interview and I went on my way back into the woods.

I had left my pulka full of equipment behind near my camp. Skiing without the pulka is really quite easy and free and the woods are no problem. But with the 80 lb pulka in tow, the woods are another story. Imagine drift racing a car in mud with a laden trailer hitched on.

My struggles through the woods relented when I pitched camp just a small distance from some houses, remembering Per’s words that the law in Sweden allows you to be anywhere in the woods as long as it’s not a personal garden or some restricted area. The night was bitter cold, and in the morning I awoke ready to move to get blood back into my feet and hands.

Lars arranged for me to stay at a place called Kukkolaforsen 10 or 15 kilometers upriver, so I hitched up and started hauling my way north. Along the way I saw a magpie, loads of snowshoe hare tracks and their light colored droppings that I initially mistook for dogfood. I felt immense awe for the creatures that winter here, how tough they are to survive such long cold without a pulka full of equipment.

I skied along the willow banks of the river, at times trying to make way through the forest only to be astounded by the difficulty of hauling the pulka there. I passed through a little hamlet of which I don’t know the name where I saw many charming houses on a long meander. A kind man was out front of the last house and though he didn’t speak English, we communicated with sign language, and he showed me where the river ahead would be safe to ski.

Just after the hamlet, the river ice got very rough in the middle of the channel and began to deteriorate in broken sheets, an odd chaotic geometry. Soon enough the middle of the river was open water, warning of what was to come.

The water in the opening was fast moving and rough, a reminder of the living seething power of the water under the ice. The open channel got wider and wider as the rush of whitewater began to sound from above. Soon enough, Kukkolaforsen, the Kukkola Rapids came into view, a beautiful descending torrent of water surrounded by thick ice. On the western bank sat the lodge that shares its name, my destination for the night.

Kukkolaforsen — Rooster Rapids

Outside the window

A torrent of water

White as the ice of the bank

Steaming fury in the winter cold
Inside the smell of coffee

And cloudberries over muesli

Cool music of morning

And hushed chatter

…

Skiing through Kukkolaforsen, I was feeling very good. The small red huts looked warm and cozy and there were many saunas. At that I nearly melted with happiness having slept at -28 C the night before. There was also a museum, two old flour mills, and a smokehouse for fish.

The reception area is warm and overlooks a beautifully set restaurant with a full on view of the whiterapids out the front window, bright against the black river sailing away below.

On entering the warmth of the main hall, I sat down for a cup of tea with Kevin, a fellow traveller. He came to Lapland to see the northern lights. Here the Aurora Borealis is as strong as it gets, home of what people call the “dancing lights.” I have yet to see them, but my hopes are high with so many days of my trip ahead. Before dinner I went to my little cabin room, and unpacked some gear to dry.

Back in the main hall I was greeted by a plate of beautiful crackers topped with a diversity of spreads. Local salmon cuts and whitefish salad and roe to name a few. Before digging in, Johannah, a daughter of the Spolander family that started this place came over to the table and introduced the appetizers and the main meal to follow which was an extraordinary plate of local salmon. She agreed to meet with me in the morning to tell me more about the place. Before sleep I took the treat of a woodfired sauna and then sailed off in a warm bed.

In the morning after breakfast Johannah and I sat down to talk. She told me that her family has lived in this area for five generations, and she and her brother Mathias now work the family business that was started by their parents. Kukkolaforsen means Rooster Rapid and the rapids outside the window define this place in many ways, and they sure do sing. Just up from the building are two old flour mills, both originally run by waterpower, and then there is a fish museum, smokehouse, and processing area where remains were found from people fishing here as long as 400 years ago.

Kukkolaforsen is known for a peculiar and unique style of fishing, where the villagers build wooden bridges over the rapids held together by gravity and lashings, and not a single nail because the shaking of the fast water would tear the iron from the timber. They then build steps down to the water where boats are tied, and the fishing happens with a six meter long pole that has a net on the end. As much as 8,000 Kg of whitefish are caught in the Kukkolaforsen each year, and Johannah told me proudly that 5,000 Kg are used right in the kitchen at the lodge.

As much as for fishing Kukkolaforsen is known for its saunas (here pronounced sa-oo-nuh in a singsong way). There are 15 saunas right here at the lodge including smoke saunas, an enormous community sauna, a round sauna, a tiny sauna, woodfired saunas, traditional sweat houses, and electric saunas. One local man told me that this is the sauna academy, and Johannah says that there are ten more being planned. The most brilliant part is that there is a sauna museum, but instead of just looking at an exposition, the sauna education comes with real experience in one of these heavenly hot rooms.

In the back of the museum is a small display about the lifecycle in the sauna. It consists of three ceramic scenes displaying a birth in the sauna, a young man coming of age by going to the sauna with the men of his family for the first time (a real scene about Johannah’s father), and a death of an elder in the sauna. Leaving I was so moved with the importance the people here place on saunas. In the bitter northern winter, it makes sense that a place of such warmth would inspire such reverence.