Finnish Utopia
Repovesi National Park is Finland as advertised.
No nation ever lives up to its advertising.
Despite being crowned the happiest country on earth six consecutive years, Finns can be grumpy and wear faces like they just had something bad to eat (and want nothing to do with you). They can drink too much (and aggressively try to be your friend).
But there are times and places when you can’t believe the place is real, like autumn in Repovesi National Park. As someone who’s spent months in Lapland, I’m tempted to believe that the farther north you go, the fewer humans you encounter, the better the world gets. But Repovesi proved me wrong.
Only two hours’ drive northeast from Helsinki, Repovesi is replete with gin-clear lakes, stunning granite bluffs, and dense forests of pine and spruce.
It’s also about the most civilized camping I’ve ever encountered. Campsites come complete with toilet (BYOTP), picnic table, wells for drinking water, and firewood. If you want a fire, you cut wood from logs provided by the park service. Saws and axes are also provided, and Finns are so honest that the tools aren’t chained to anything. They’re surprisingly sharp, too.
My canoeing partner and I made a long weekend of it, putting in at Lapinsalmi on Thursday and canoeing to Määkijä to spend the night. We drank wine around the fire, remarking in disbelief that we had the entire campsite to ourselves. Repovesi is, after all, one of the country’s most popular national parks, and to totally escape the crowds is unlikely.
Friday night we encountered the hordes in Karhulahti. In Finland, where even three’s a crowd, we had 20 Finns in the campsite. The price of good fall weather? But, living up to Finland’s reputation as a highly-advanced society of forest people, the 20 seemed like two. They were clean, quiet, and courteous.
Most signs in the park are in three languages, so English speakers and Russians can also understand. There’s a sense of humor, too, with clear instructions about what to do with your “poo.”
Although the lakes are full of fish, I couldn’t buy one. But Tapio, forest god of the polytheistic Finns, was just, and the forests were packed with chanterelles, which we sautéed to add to our Thai curry. Dinner was paired with nectar from the well at Olhava, gift of the water god, Vellamo.
Saturday night we stayed on in Karhulahti, giving us time to make day hikes to Olhava, billed as the El Capitan of Finland. We sipped tea and watched climbers scale its face. In this case, the comparison may be exaggerated, since El Capitan’s face is 900 meters from base to summit, and Olhava only 50. But since one may fall to his death from either, the difference is perhaps splitting hairs.
There were only four campers that Saturday in Karhulahti, half of them foreigners, and none of them as loud as their national reputations. The evening passed quietly.
When my partner awoke on Sunday we paddled out, past the pine forests and granite bluffs covered in autumnal ruska. Everything was just like in the brochures.
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