Through Arctic Lapland

by Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne

The local vehicle for human transport is the karre, which spells post-cart in Qfinsk. It is a word which covers a multitude of shapes. The best karre is like the Norwegian stolkjarre, and has two bodies set one behind the other on one pair of shafts, with remarkably little room for the legs in either. The two wheels are small and sturdy, and have long projecting hubs which remind one of the ancient British scythe-chariot. The bodies of the vehicle may be made of wicker, leather and iron, cane and iron, or eke plain deal board, and it is rare to see a karre which is not approaching the last stage of decrepitude. The horse draws from the fore-end of the shafts, to which his collar is made fast by a six-inch trace and a toggle. The passenger usually drives himself—always if he will so consent—and the man, or boy, or top-booted girl in charge, sits on the back seat on the top of the baggage, and smokes and contemplates.

We set off posting seawards from Kittila on a day which happened to be set apart for some Lutheran celebration, and the little town was taking holiday. We took our last look upon the gaudy oleograph of the Czar and Czarina hung up in the post-house to inculcate loyalty amongst the lukewarm Finns, and then the karre was brought out, and we drove away in style. A swarm of bare-footed, tow-headed, mud-complexioned children saw us off, who would have passed very well for the progeny of tar-heelers amongst the Alleghany Mountains.

There were few men in evidence, but the women were all out in the street dressed in their smartest, with white kerchief on head, blue print gown, and white cotton apron. They were clean, all of them, and not unpicturesque; but it would have been hard to find a neat figure or a comely face in the whole of Kittila.

It might be described as a cluster of farms, this trim Arctic town, and gates are swung across the road every few hundred yards. Between the houses lay fields of barley, breaking into silky waves beneath the sun, and fields of rye with stems higher than a Laplander’s head. Beside each house was a pile of sledges with the runners new-tarred, ready for the winter. Beside the roadway, herds of liver and white cows grazed under the care of bare-legged urchins.

The road, after what we had been through, seemed delightful to us, though it was little better than a sandbed in places. At orderly intervals, sturdy red kilometre posts stood sentinel along its flank, with black figures on their squared white heads saying how far it was from the last station, and how far to the next. Red bridges of log and trestle crossed the streams. Red wooden parapets guarded the awkward corners when the road climbed round a hillside. The Great White Czar was taking care for the necks of his subjects, and red was the sign of his official hand.

It is fashionable to speak of Russia and her dependencies as being the worst police-ridden lands amongst all the wide acres of earth; and what they may be in other districts I do not know—I have not been there—but of Lapland and Northern Finland I can speak with authority. We went into the country prejudiced against the Government; we left it prejudiced in its favour. We expected to meet a harassing police; we never even saw a uniform. We were prepared for official delays, and were ready to give bribes to get on; there were no officials either to make the one or to take the other. Our British Foreign Office passports with their hieroglyphical visés never emerged from the envelopes in which they were originally packed. We went through the country with as little interference as we might have met with in a trip through Yorkshire or Vermont.

But though the Government does not obtrude itself to the passing eye with a bristle of uniforms and weapons, as it does in luckless countries like Germany and France, it makes its comforting presence felt through all the populated parts of the country. Without some one to look after him, and be competent if necessary to twist his tail, a slack and slovenly person like the Northern Finn would never have produced a high road for his traffic, he would never have built substantial bridges, and most of all he would never have organised the post-cart system.

It is on the usual Russian model, this posting system, but it is a triumph of quiet routine for all that. The stations vary in distance from ten to twenty kilometres apart. You drive up, go into the house, and sign a requisition for as many horses and karres as you want. The horses are passable on the whole, for the most part roans, chestnuts, or bright bays, standing about fourteen hands to fourteen-three, and cobby about the neck. The karres I have described. With wonderfully little loss of time, the new vehicle with horse and man appears ready in the courtyard, and you pay off your old one according to the tariff in the post-book, and start off again on the next stage of your journey. The pace as a usual thing is tolerable. The horse walks uphill, trots on level, and gallops on the down-grades as fast as he can put feet to the ground. You may have your own theories about the advisability of these paces, but they are the custom of the country, and you cannot change them. You drive with a loose rein, and when you want increased pace you make a Zulu-like noise something like pop-pop, and if that does not have the desired effect you cut a stick and use it with vigour. The horse shrugs his shoulders and quickens; it is all in the day’s work. When you want him to stop, you say pr-r-r-mph! just as you do in Denmark.

The horse of the post-road is not accustomed to atmospheric warmth, and sweats on small provocation. Under these circumstances he must not be pressed. On our first stage out of Kittila—it was one of the longest, by the way, being twenty-two kilometres to the change-house—the sun above us blazed with true Arctic heat and fervour, and the pace could not be pushed beyond the steadiest of jogs. When we pulled up in the grassy courtyard of Rantatalo at the end of this first stage, the man in attendance drew bucket after bucket of icy water from the well, and sluiced it over the horse’s loins. It seemed a crude sort of proceeding, but one supposed they knew their business; and, besides, it was their horse.