Now that I have your undivided attention, LIFE IS!*

 

Here in Nowhere, Finland, we've been suffering (or, if you're from rainy Vancouver like me, half enjoying) a winter of record high temperatures. The last time we had such a warm December was back in about 1929. I'll leave the economists to make the requisite doomsday remarks about abnormal weather and stock market crashes, but the upshot of all this unseasonable heat is that only this past week did we get the kind of frigid weather systems that normally enable ice fishing in mid-to-late November.

 

So now the million bogs in this country are finally frozen stiff enough that the machine harvesters can get in to cut the trees that our economically vital wood products industry has been desperately needing. That's a good thing, folks. But the other good thing is that on Saturday I got my first taste of walking on a lake (like Jesus, but not).

 

You know Fabian: he's the Alaskan exchange student at my school of forestry. (Instead of returning home like he'd originally planned, he's staying for the spring semester and graduating this year. Yeah!) We have a new arrival as well: Jan (pronounced Yahn) from Czech, male, age 23. We three decided to check out the local outdoor recreation center three miles north of town. What we did:

• hiked some trails
• saw a church with walls but no roof and 7 trees growing out of the floor
• tested the sliding and bouncing qualities of a suspension bridge
• wrote our nicknames on the snow-dusted lake ice
• held a distance championship for sliding on the lake ice
• climbed a way-too-tempting pair of pine trees for the pleasure of endangering life and limb (just me; Fabian took pictures)
• snacked on tasty meatballs made by Master Chef Me
• spotted a bird (not a woodpecker) pecking bugs out of a standing dead birch
• checked out an infamous Scandinavian phenomenon: the swimming hole at the end of the sauna dock. Approached with fear and trepidation, did not enter water.

All in all, a half day well spent. Especially since the lakes are now covered with 4-6 inches of snow after last night's blizzard. We seized the moment, folks! We seized on a unique opportunity to act like kids! Aren't you jealous? ..Wait, I'm talking to people who most likely play with Lego bricks. Yay for Lego!

 

-BC

 

*From the Finnish, "Elämä on," that's life, c'est la vie. Celebrate life!