Compass North
In the north of Finland, the traveler is at least as likely to meet a reindeer as another human being. The numbers of men and reindeer are roughly equal in the northernmost Lapland province, but people are not in the habit of spending their time on the roadside feeding on the vast forests' bounty.
Take Kari Kilpimaa, Källi, as he is known far and wide. He hails from the municipality of Savukoski in eastern Lapland, a vast administrative area stretching all the way to the Russian border. The landscape is known as kaira, a wilderness of forests, rivers and mires, with a lone fell rising above the forest here and there.Savukoski is the most sparsely populated municipality in Finland, with an average of 0.25 inhabitants per square kilometer.The EU average is 120 times more, and if the population density were the same as in Belgium, there would be well over two million people here. As it is, the population of 1500 is concentrated on the southern edge of Savukoski.
In the kaira proper, the occasional hunter, reindeer herder, fisherman and hiker constitute the sole human presence, unless you believe that Santa Claus and his busy helpers reside, as the legend has it, inside the mighty Korvatunturi fell.
In Savukoski we also meet Källi´s wife Riitta Kilpimaa and Pirjo Wessman, a project worker, cleaning mushrooms. It isn't any old mushrooms they are cleaning and slicing up for drying. It is matsutake, the mushroom valued so highly in Japan that it is a much appreciated business gift. It was only very recently that matsutake were discovered in Finland. Of course it had been there all along, but had never been appreciated by the Finns. As luck would have it, the forests of Savukoski turned out a veritable matsutake gold mine.
While others were still wagging their tongues on the topic of how the Japanese could pay ridiculously high prices for that smelly toadstool, Källi had set up in the matsutake business. It's a Cindarella story. A Finnish film director with good contacts in Japan had established a company with a vague idea of doing some business. In no time at all the necessary contacts were found in Japan and the word went out in Savukoski that Källi would buy every single matsutake retrieved from the forests.
As we drive along the riverside dotted with defunct farms, even the born optimist says that the community is engaged in a battle for survival. When Källi went to school, there were three parallel classes of 38 pupils in his age group. Now more than five of those over one hundred youngsters stayed in Savukoski. He says that Savukoski needs small businesses processing the natural resources into value added products instead of taking them elsewhere for processing.
A lot of wood is harvested from the forests of Savukoski, and Källi thinks some of the income that they generate elsewhere should be returned to Savukoski and used as seed money for small businesses. There used to be a sawmill, but it was closed down. Happening to run into a man who had invented a firewood chopping machine, Källi got together with a couple of partner to start a firewood business that sells firewood to Norway. It provides part-time employment to eight people.
"Running a continuous loss and doing very well" is his philosophy of life. Obviously a survivor.
BY RISTO PITKÄNEN
PHOTOS KREETTA JÄRVENPÄÄ
