Life in the sub-Arctic

25 March 2012
Sunday

I've always loved looking at maps.

In Japan, when everyone was installing these brilliant navigation systems in their cars, I preferred maps and still do now.

I'm not a technophobe.

I'm not like that when it comes to music. I went from records to CDs, to MP3s to Spotify. I now tend to make albums in Youtube or listen to friends' live recordings using Dropbox.

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The edges of our planet have always held a fascination for mankind. Most of us have a bit of the explorer in us... Apart from people like Outi's husband who has no desire to go overseas. It is not because he is uncomfortable with flying or anything like that. He is just happy where he is and feels there is a lot more of Finland left for him to discover. I felt the same about Japan.

He also thinks that if he takes his family to a foreign land, his children may get kidnapped.

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Looking at the world atlas, I have, for a long time, been drawn towards the northern extremities of our planet.

For me, travelling is not just about the destination but about getting there. Travelling by air is just so dull and there is something clinical about arriving at an airport - it doesn't feel real. I'll fly if I have to but given the choice, I would rather plan a journey closer to home on foot or bicycle, by car or train or boat. A road tour around Lappland, the land of the indigenous Sami; now that would be an adventure. A boat trip from Norway to the Faroes and on to Iceland for some hiking. Walking in the upper Norwegian plateaus in the winter.

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A quarter of Finland is inside the Arctic circle and Kauhava where I am is just three degrees south of that. South Ostrobothnia wasn't included in what was referred to as Finland until the 18th century.

The latitude here lies just south of Reykjavic. Pan to the west and we are in southern Greenland. Keep going and we are in the Northern Territories and the Yukon, more northerly than most of inhabited Canada, north of Anchorage and in the middle of the Bering Sea, just south of the Bering Straights. The sea around northern Japan freezes in the winter and yet Japan is the equivalent to another one of itself to the south. Siberia is half a continent away to the south.

And yet, Finland is not classified as Arctic tundra. Despite its location inside the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia, it still benefits from the North Atlantic Drift keeping it warmer than would be expected given its latitude.

Yes, temperatures do get low but I have felt colder in England at plus two degrees than at minus 18 here. If it's windy, you don't go out and although the zinc roof above me has blown like billows, it's not as windy as when it's blowing a south westerly along the Paragon in Ramsgate.

Wrapped up in extra layers in my living room in Ramsgate, shivering while looking at a map of Finland before getting here, I thought, "What a remote land. Why did people ever think of first settling there? It must be freezing in the winter. What am I thinking?"

Let me just say that the Fins know how to live here. You dress sensibly, the houses are properly insulated and ventilated (hence my kitchen extractor which I can't turn off) and living is generally very comfortable. My heating is hardly ever on and yet it's a constant 21 degrees in here and I am sitting in a T-shirt.

They don't just cope, they manage in conditions that would bring our country to its knees.

And in the summer the whole country celebrates in mid-summer festivals while basking in temperatures of over 30 degrees.