Day 40 – to Utsjoki Village

Some rain this morning and a north wind making it a fresh start. But the heating in the van only needs 5 minutes or so to take effect, and pretty soon I was back into my current book with coffee. It’s a rare long novel for me, I don’t often go for 600+ pages these days, but this, Vine Street, a crime novel about Soho in the 1930s and 40s, has come with a respected recommendation.

I turned down the opportunity to gain the only significant hill around in favour of some tracks and the suspension bridge, which has quite a reputation. I had a completely peaceful park up in the forest, close to a small lake, more like a tarn, yet only 3 kilometres from town.

The bridge has a reputation, as it is on the river Juutuanjoki just as it heads through a narrow gorge where it is at its most fierce. I had thought the dog wouldn’t be happy at all, but he took it on, with care..

There is a lean-to shelter on the side away from the road, and a guy and his elderly mother, in her late 80s, had lit the fire to cook some sausages. It was a welcome rest place for a pleasant chat.

I then attended to a few matters in Inari; fuel, AdBlue, water fill up, recycling, supermarket, before driving the 120 kilometres up to the Norwegian border. This is a bleak section of road, and I noticed a couple of long distance cyclists fighting there way down it, albeit with the wind. It’s a fairly straight road, so the view ahead is often to the horizon, 10 km or more, grey and cloudy, drizzly rain, 6C or cooler. I’ve not cycled sections like this myself very often, but they do stand out in the memory when you look back. A bonus was that there was hardly any cars.

Utsjoki is described as a ‘village’ on Finnish maps, it’s not a huge place.. Everything, pretty much, is cheaper in Finland than Sweden, so there’s fuel and a supermarket and a tacky souvenir store, a campsite and a hotel. Around the town, or rather village, is some wild hiking country which is particularly good for trout fishing. After walking the dog, I wandered over to the pub, expecting very little.

It was warm and welcoming, more because of the furniture than the beer. I soon got chatting to the only other two people in there, two guys, brothers, who were up on a fishing break from the south of Finland.

They were interested in what I was doing, and told me quite a bit about the sort of wilderness, almost extreme, fishing they do; no paths, carrying an inflatable kayak, and camping out a night or two at a time. This night they had a cabin, after the last two nights out. It was, what they called, their ‘revenge’ trip. Last time they were here one of them suffered from tachycardia, with a heart rate at 270 beats per minute at midnight in a wild camp. They just about had cell phone reception, one bar, and within only an hour, they were being cared for in hospital in Kirkenes, in Norway, where he stayed for a week.

On talking more, the guy wanted to run something by me… which I was quiet agreeable to, as he bought the beer. He was a Crime Scene Investigator from a town near Turku in the south, and is going to give a lecture at a conference in San Diego in a couple of weeks, on his specialism, blood staining. His English wasn’t as good as many Finnish I’ve spoken to. He wanted me to listen to a part of his presentation, and advise about pace and clarity.

Hardly a relaxing topic for a Friday evening beer, but overall, a thoroughly enjoyable evening.