The winter is unquestionably hard, and lasts about six months, from November till the middle of April. At Christmas time the sun is only visible for six hours a day. The entire surface of the country, land, lake, and river, then forms one vast and frozen surface of snow, which may be traversed by means of sledge, snowshoes, or ski. A good man on the last-named will easily cover his seven miles an hour. Although tourists generally affect this country in the open season, a true Finlander loves the winter months as much as he dislikes the summer. In his eyes boredom, heat, and mosquitoes are a poor exchange for merry picnics on ski, skating contests, and sledge expeditions by starlight with pretty women and gay companions, to say nothing of the nightly balls and theatre and supper parties. Helsingfors is closed to navigation from November until June, for the sea forms an icy barrier around the coast of Finland, now no longer impenetrable, thanks to the ice-breakers at Hangö. In the north the Gulf of Bothnia is frozen for even longer.
Towards April winter shows signs of departure. By the middle of May ice and snow have almost disappeared, except in the north, where Uleaborg is, climatically, quite three weeks behind any of the southern towns. Before the beginning of June verdure and foliage have reappeared in all their luxuriance, and birds and flowers once more gladden field and forest with perfume and song. Even now an occasional shower of sleet besprinkles the land, only to melt in a few minutes, and leave it fresher and greener than before. May and June are, perhaps, the best months, for July and August are sometimes too warm to be pleasant. October and November are gloomy and depressing. Never visit Finland in the late autumn, for the weather is then generally dull and overcast, while cold, raw winds, mist and sleet, are not the exception. Midwinter and midsummer are the most favourable seasons, which offer widely different but equally favourable conditions for the comfort and amusement of the traveller.
And, if possible, choose the former, if only for one reason. No one who has ever witnessed the unearthly beauty of a summer night in Finland is likely to forget it. The Arctic Circle should, of course, be crossed to witness the midnight sun in all its glory, but I doubt if the quiet crépuscule (I can think of no other word) of the twilit hours of darkness is not even more weird and fascinating viewed from amid silent streets and buildings than from the sullen dreariness of an Arctic desert, which is generally (in summer) as drab and as flat as a biscuit. In Arctic Lapland, where for two months the sun never sinks below the horizon, you may read small print without difficulty throughout the night between June and August. This would be impossible in Helsingfors, where nevertheless from sunset till dawn it is never quite dark. In the far north the midnight sun affords a rather garish light; down south it sheds grey but luminous rays, so faint that they cast no shadows, but impart a weird and mysterious grace to the most commonplace surroundings. No artist has yet successfully portrayed the indescribable charm and novelty of a summer night under these conditions, and, in all probability, no artist ever will!
His Majesty the Tsar's manifesto has not as yet (outwardly, at any rate) Russianized the capital of Finland. It will probably take centuries to do that, for Finland, like France, has an individuality which the combined Powers of Europe would be puzzled to suppress. A stranger arriving at the railway station of Helsingfors, for instance, may readily imagine himself in Germany, Austria, or even Switzerland, but certainly not within a thousand miles of Petersburg. Everything is so different, from the dapper stationmaster with gold-laced cap of German build down to the porters in clean white linen blouses, which pleasantly contrast with the malodorous sheepskins of unwashed Russia. At Helsingfors there is nothing, save the soldiery, to remind one of the proximity of Tsarland. And out in the country it is the same. The line from Mikkeli traverses a fair and prosperous district, as unlike the monotonous scenery over the border as the proverbial dock and daisy. Here are no squalid hovels and roofless sheds where half-starved cattle share the misery of their owners; no rotting crops and naked pastures; but snug homestead, flower gardens, and neat wooden fences encircling fields of golden grain and rich green meadow land. To travel in Southern Finland after Northern Russia is like leaving the most hideous parts of the Black Country to suddenly emerge into the brightness and verdure of a sunlit Devonshire.
[LAPLAND]
ALEXANDER PLATONOVICH ENGELHARDT
The Peninsula of Kola, which forms the District of that name, extends about 650 versts, or 433 miles, from west to east, from the frontiers of Norway and Finland to the White Sea, and about 400 versts, or 266 miles, from north to south, from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Kandalax, covering an area of 131,860 square versts, or 37,022,400 acres. The coast belt from the Norwegian border-line to Holy Cape (or Sweet-nose), is called the Murman Coast, or simply the Murman; the eastern and south-eastern part, from Holy Cape along the White Sea to the mouth of the Varzuga, goes by the name of the Tierski Coast; and the southern part, from the Varzuga to Kandalax, the Kandalax Coast; whilst the whole of the interior bears the name of Russian Lapland. The surface of the Peninsula is either mountainous, or covered with tundras (i. e., moss-grown wilds), and swamps. The Scandinavian mountain range, which divides Sweden from Norway, extending to the Kola Peninsula, breaks up into several separate branches. Along the shores of the Murman they form craggy coast cliffs, rising at times to an elevation of 500 feet. Further to the east they become gradually lower, so that near the White Sea they seldom exceed fifty or one hundred feet, with less precipitous descents. The reach their greatest height further inland, to the east of Lake Imandra, where they form the Hibinski and Luiavrout chains, veiled in perpetual snow. Some of the peaks rise to 970 feet above the level of the lake, which, in its turn, is 140 feet higher than the sea-level, so that the mountains surrounding the lake are over 1,000 feet above the level of the sea.
Not far from Lake Imandra is the lofty Mount Bozia, (or Gods' Hill), at the foot of which, according to the traditions of the Lapps, their ancestors offered up sacrifices to their gods. Even at the present time the Lapps of the district speak of this site with peculiar veneration. Between the village of Kashkarantz and the Varzuga rises Mt. Korable, remarkable for its many caverns, studded with crystals of translucent quartz and amethyst, the former, together with fluor and heavy spar, being met with, too, in the eastern parts of the mountain. The Kola Peninsula was carefully explored by Finnish Expeditions in 1887-1892.
The climate of Lapland is not everywhere uniform, but in general it is bleak and raw. Winter begins about the end of September and continues till May. It is colder inland than by the ice-free shores of the Northern Ocean, where the warm currents of the Gulf Stream moderate the cold. And yet the severity of the weather does not injuriously affect the health or longevity of the inhabitants. The winter roads are well set in by the end of October (or early in November), the snow-fall during the winter months amounting to seven quarters, or four feet one inch. The Polar night lasts from the 25th of November to the 15th of January, but the darkness is not by any means so great as one would imagine. The white of the snow gives a certain glimmer of light, and the frequent and prolonged flashes of Aurora Borealis set the heavens in a blaze as with clouds of fire, turning night into twilight, as it were, and by their brilliancy and beauty making some amends to the natives for the absence of the sun's rays. It is easy even to read by their light; while each day, about noon, there is enough daylight for an hour or so to enable one to dispense with candles. So that under the name of Polar Night should be understood not the total absence of light, but rather the season when the sun no longer appears above the horizon. It begins to show itself again about the 17th of January, gradually rising higher and higher as the days advance.
