"Smoke Rapids"

Savukoski = "Smoke Rapids"

So out address translated into English would go something like this:

Drop Alley xx C y
98800. Smoke Rapids.
Finland.





Just as soon as the conditions are right I will be off to take some pictures of these "Smoking Rapids"...

In other news, we are now officially in Winter, according to the Finnish Met Office. "Thermal Winter". Now there is phrase you don't here on the weather forecasts in the U.K.!

Gareth.

It's a long drive...

Hello!

So last week Henna's school was on holiday, and I think Henna was even more glad of this than the students! Henna now has a nice new desk set up in the bedroom that is liberally covered in history and politics books of one sort or another and spent many a long hour last week preparing  her lesson plans. My new PC table has just made it as far as Rovaniemi today so hopefully tomorrow afternoon I can finally clear my PC off of the the kitchen table!

Wednesday of last week was "big shopping day" and that was where the title of this post comes in. Rovaniemi, the closest city to us is 179km away. So basically a round trip of 360Km to go to our nearest full size shops/department stores. And also where Henna needed to go for an eye test. The purpose of this being so that Henna could order herself new glasses! So that will mean another trip back in a few weeks time. Not that that is a bad thing. For one it is a drive that takes you past some truly magnificent scenery and if we weren't is quite so much of a rush on the way over there, and all feeling a bit worn out on the way back I could of stopped a hundred times to take pictures! We saw quite a few more Reindeer on the drive, thankfully these ones were not walking down the middle of the road either.

Of course no first family trip to Rovaniemi could be complete without stopping off to see Santa Claus in his workshop on the edge of the Arctic circle! And while we did indeed have our picture taken with the great man, the lack of scanner up here right now means I will have to post that picture at a latter date. Below are some pictures from around Santa's workshop village.







The weather is still full on winter up here. Last week in places the Kemijoki was completley frozen over, the result of it touching -15 on at least two consecutive nights, and although we had a entire day of rain last Friday, most of the snow that fell a few weeks ago survived. Today we have had more snow, no where near as much as the last time, but enough to make walking easier by covering the ice and ruts on the pavements and roads. Still waiting for the morning when we wake up and see a Reindeer out of the kitchen window...

Gareth.

Henna hard at work....

...With her leaving present from her job in Vesilahti! A nice new Fiskars snow shovel, using it to clear the snow from the door step as it was still chucking it down on the 7th October...





I think that that will come in rather handy over the next six months or so!

Savukoski, the jorney and...

...And what an amazing place this is!

Yes, finally, an update from me. So it's Saturday evening, and the end of my first full uninterrupted week in Savukoski is drawing to a close. And quite honestly this place is wonderful!

So the move and the journey...

It all really started on Tuesday the 29th September. We, that being myself, my Dad and Jarkki, one of Martta's godfathers,  left Tampere at 10:10 and drove and drove and drove. But not without stopping to pump a lot more air into the transit vans tyres. It was a long old drive, fun though. The scenery was nothing short of breath taking, and we eventually arrived in Savukoski at 23:00 or there about. The van was unloaded in just a tenth of the time that it took to load, we threw a few mattress's on the floor and flaked out. Henna, Helena, Martta and Sirkku were coming up the road behind us in the James family battle wagon and left Tampere at around 17:00 on the same day. What with stops and things they arrived at 06:30 the next morning. So there we go. Wednesday, 30th September and we are all in Savukoski.

But so was a hire van that lived in Tampere and about 21 packing boxes that also lived in Tampere. And my Dad. Who had a plane to catch on Saturday 3rd October. From Tampere. And Sirkku, Henna's Mum whose car was in Tampere. You can see where this is going can't you? Yes, road trip. Mk II was on the cards. But that was not before we took a few days to explore Savukoski and the surrounding area. Just want to mention again that with a municipality land area of 6421 sq. km's and a population of just 1350, if the area was carved up into 1350 lots every person would have an individual area of approximately 490 hectares, and for the sake of comparisson, Box Hill National Trust park in Surrey, U.K. covers an area of approximately 490 hectares...

Savukoski "centre" shops.
That is a "Sale" on the left and a "K-Market" on the right.

And the bank and pharmacy which are just to the right of that picture above.


Then there is this shop.
This shop will sell you, for example a fridge freezer, a broom, a nice energy saving light bulb, some top quality motor oil , a Lynx (and everything associated with one), a chainsaw blade, a trailer for your KVF750... I could go on for a while but I think you get the idea.

I don't have a picture of the pub/post office combi building. But one will follow in a latter update...

So that's it. Oh yes we have several B&B's, and a rather nice hotel, and Mrs Santa Claus has a cabin in town as well. But for anything else it is off to Kemijärvi which is 94km (54.8 miles) down the road. It is the nearest town of a proper size to Savukoski and is also the closest place with a train station. We dropped Jarkki off at the train station on Wednesday afternoon for his journey back home, and then on Thursday we were back there again to buy some bedroom furniture and bits and pieces. It's not really all that bad as there are some incredible views along the way...




Most of the distance between Savukoski and Kemijärvi is getting around the Kemijoki river.

The end of the first week of October was non stop sorting the house, and Henna getting ready for her first full week of teaching that started on Monday, sorting out the internet (very important!) and getting the van, the boxes, my Dad and Sirkku all back to Tampere. And boy was that a long, long 24hours. But it all got sorted, everyone and everything ended up in the right place on time, or in one case several hours too soon but I at least got to travel back to Kemijärvi by train. Where I arrived on Sunday morning, jumped in my car, and drove back to Savukoski. To be greeted by snow!

And by the end of this week there was a lot of snow!

That video above was taken on the afternoon the 7th October which is when most of the snow fell, what is hard to see is just how hard the wind was blowing! The snow was coming it at right angles to the floor! Incredible weather!

So this is what Savukoski has looked like over the last couple of days and will most likely continue to look like for another few days...

The view from our front door.




The view from our front door.


The view from our living room window.


Ours is the right half.


This bit.


A field in the middle of the village centre.


Looking towards some of the rapids that give Savukoski it's name, with some ice already forming on the Kemijoki in the lower left.

And there we go. Henna has finished her first full week of teaching, and the school is now off for a week, Autumn break, for which she is eternally grateful! We hope to get over to Rovaniemi which is our closest city at 175km (108.7 miles) from our place at some point this week. Of course there is also plenty to do around the house, and plenty more to discover in and around Savukoski!

The adventure continues!

Thanks for reading everyone.

Gareth.

Perille on päästy ja lomakin on jo ehtinyt koittaa!

Perhe pääsi ehjänä perille tänne Savukoskelle. Lähestulkoon täysissä ruumiin ja sielun voimissa. Miehet lähtivät pakettiautolla matkaan tiistaina 29.9. 2009 aamulla hyvissä ajoin ennen puolta päivää. Minä ja lapset kuskina äitini lähdimme matkaan samaisena tiistaina illalla viiden aikaan, kun oli päässyt kotiin Vesilahden keikan viimeisen työpäivän jälkeen. Runsaasti kiitoksia Alkuopetussiiven työkavereille ihanasta läksiäislahjasta. Lumilapiota on jo käytetty!

Meidän Savukoskelle matkaajien reitti kulki samaa reittiä. Tampere-Jyväskylä-Kuopio-Kajaani-Kuusamo-Salla-Savuskoski. Matkalla oli lunta tienpientareilla mutta tiet olivat itsessään kuivat ja käsittääkseni hyvät ajella. Miehiä oli kolme ajamassa, joten heidän vauhtinsa oli melkoisen hyvää eikä kukaan väsynyt ylettömästi.

Meidän tyttöporukan matka alkoi lupaavasti noin kymmenen ajetun kilometrin jälkeen, kun takapnekiltä tiedusteltiin "Ollaanko me jo perillä?" Jyväskylässä tehdyn lapsien tankkauksen jälkeen takapenkki hiljeni ja havahtui hereille satunnaisesti. Me etupenkin aikuiset otimme voimanokosia tienlaidalla. Auton tankkaaminen Kuumossa herätti kummasti. Pakkasta oli varmasti ainakin viisi astetta!

Poroja ei matkalla näkynyt, johon syykin selvisi kun kouluun pääsi torstaina ja perjantaina. Poroerotus oli alkanut, joten kaikki porot lienevät olleen jo matkalla syynättäviksi.

Koulussa olen tehnyt yhden täyde viikon töitä ja sen lisäksi kaksi päivää ensimmäisellä viikolla. Joten johan tässä 7 työpäivän jälkeen onkin kiva lähteä syyslomalle :-)

Muuttostressiä

Aikaa muuttoon on muutamia päiviä. Tällä kertaa muuttoa on helpottamassa muuttofirman lootat, mutta jonkunhan nekin on pakattava. Ja sitten on siivottavakin koko lukaali. Rojua ja rompetta tuntuu olevan joka sopessa. Kohta tuntuu siltä, että koko maallinen omaisuus täällä lahjotetaan pois ja ostetaan uudet Savukoskelta (tai sieltäpäin...).

Tällainen pikamuutto toisellepuolen Suomea samalla tehden töitä on kyllä melko haasteellista. Kaksi edellistä päivää on etsitty asuntoa ja tehty muita järjestelyjä ja kun ne on kondiksessa olo himpun liian rentoutunut. Stressin purkaantuminen ei tee nyt tässä vaiheessa liian hyvää. Nukku Matin kutsu kello 17:15 ei ole niin loistava asia.

Tuntureiden ja porojen kiilto on silmissä. Joulupukillekin on kuulema tulossa postia vietäväksi ihan Englannista asti. Täytynee visiteerata kun siinä naapurissa asuu ;-)

Yes you read that right...

OK. North. From Tampere, where we have lived since the summer of 2002 when Henna and I came back to Finland.

To Savukoski, which in English means Smoke Rapids.

Yes we are staying in Finland, and yes we will be living in the Arctic circle. Not all that far past the "line" but far enough for now.

As you can see from this screen shot from Google maps, Savukoski is 898Km from where we live now.

So why are we going to live there. Well. Henna. Henna is to be, for the next 10 months, the history teacher in the comprehensive school found at that address in the picture above! Tuesday (22/09/2009) was a very long day for all of us as we waited to hear if Henna had been fully excepted by the relevant boards in the area. Never really any doubt in my mind of course!

So we are off, next week! That's right, we will most likely need to be fully moved to there by the 1st of October. So the next 7-10 days are going to be some what hectic to say the least. We have lived in this apartment for the last 4 years and one month so there is a mountain of stuff that needs to be sorted and then packed.

We have made this blog to document and share our adventures over the next 10 months and we hope that you will all enjoy reading about our experiences in Lapland, Finland style, over that time.

Before I leave I want to share some facts with you. The municipality of Savukoski covers an area of 6,496 square kilometres and has a border with Russia that runs for approximately 67 kilometres. With a population of around 1200 people that makes Savukoski one of the most sparsely populated municipalities in Finland with just 0.19 inhabitants per square kilometre! Due to it's location the Reindeer out number the humans by ratio of over 10:1...

For more info, see here, here, and for sunset/sunrise times and other related data see here!

Thank you for reading, everyone. Hope to post maybe once more before the move then as soon as we can after arriving and then hence forth at least once a week from then on!