Rovaniemi-Kirkenes

Day 0, 27.06.

The last day in urban settings. I arrived at Rovaniemi at 7:20 in the morning and never stopped since then. Now it is 50 minutes after midnight, so I’m very sleepy and tired, but I’ll try to briefly capture this day in words.

It feels like I never did so much shopping in my entire life as I’m doing now. 1000 + 1 little things to find and buy, and I still have the feeling that I’ve forgotten something.

Besides shopping, I was at the Arktikum museum. They have a collection and a full archive related to Petsamo. I bought a new book and checked the maps to see how I will follow the old Arctic Ocean Highway and where the contemporary border with Russia will stop me.

Outside of the museum, where I parked my bike, I noticed a huge wheel. Like an asphalt roller but made from granite and operated by a horse.

I was in shock when I learned what it is! It was a granite roller that was used to build the Arctic Ocean Highway in 1920! The entire surface on the read is documented in this stone, including places unreachable for me now, as they lay on the other side of the border.

I need to sleep now. I will try to start early tomorrow, but now it’s late. Heading towards Ivalo as much as my legs allow. The plan is 100km per day. Let’s see..

Day 1, 28.06.

The first day was not easy to start. Not all was ready in the morning, and I spent a few hours packing and rearranging stuff from yesterday's shopping before finally hitting the road at 14:00. Not to mention installing and synchronizing Garmin, which also took me almost two hours.
I also couldn’t skip the Arctic Circle and Santa. When we were kids, our Finnish relay es made us the best new year present ever - letters from real Santa! It was hanging on the wall in the children's room in a wooden frame that I carved myself. 35 years later, we finally met, and I told him about that.

The monotonous experience of the road made it possible to unlock old memories. Not only about Santa. I realised why I was so obsessed with carrying a trailer. I recall how I was building my own DIY travel bike as a kid. My grandfather cut an old small “Mishka” bicycle in half (only the front fork and half of the frame). I made a wooden extension for the back wheels, installed a car seat there and made a proper trunk. My cousin, sister and I would fill the trunk with snacks and hit the road! Even though there were no pedals and we had to drag this three-wheeled bike with a rope, we enjoyed these trips very much!

This is why I feel so good doing that now. The same things as in childhood, but for real! Or what is more real? Maybe I feel good because I'm getting at least a bit close to my childhood real experience of the world.

The first encounter with another cyclist happened today. The guy is traveling to Nord Cape from France and back. He is carrying a flag of his province with him. Like me, carrying the flag of Ingria. But unlike his province, Ingria now is half fantasy. Recently, I came across the news that Ingrian historian Dmitry Vitushkin was arrested and convicted with a one-year penalty for any war statements. Ingrian activists have been arrested a lot in recent years. The Stalins repressions against national minorities continue.

I stopped at a parking place to eat and was disappointed by how dirty it was! I decided to clean, and now it’s clean. It's a nice feeling to leave a place behind in better condition than it was.

Cuckoo was singing along the road, and I caught myself counting. I rushed ahead, realising that I don’t want to know how many years are left for me. Do you know this believe?

I was planning to make at least 80km today, but a slow late start and time with Santa affected my plans. After I climbed up a huge hill, I saw a place that I felt was nice, safe and beautiful. And here I am. In my cosy bivouac.

Day 2, 29.06.

I have too many things to say and too little energy to write them down. I have 5 minutes before my camping meal is ready. Hunger is an instinct. I would never even dare to eat as much as I do now. But the body knows better. I ate the last sandwich at a Sodankylä gas station 5 minutes before closing like a hungry animal!

Today I wanted to prove myself that I can ride 100km per day even with such a heavy trailer. And I did it! It took time, so I finished after midnight.

Now it’s important to rest, not to oversleep tomorrow.
I found the idyllic place at a river bank. Not even a river, but the reservoir of a power plant. Fish are splashing, and mosquitoes are buzzing. Food is ready. I’ll continue later.

This was all I managed to write that evening because straight after food, I immediately fell asleep. The weather was calm in the night, but the wind woke me up in the morning together with my alarm. If I only knew how much struggle this wind would bring… I would do the same - fold the tent and hit the road!

Day 3, 30.06.

Yesterday I cycled more than 100 km and today just 77 km, but I feel much more exhausted because of the crazy front wind! It was a day-long fight against it! Most of the time, I wasn’t able to reach over 12kph. But then I found the technique – leaning against the handlebars and using the front bag to rest my hands on it. This way, I was working as a machine against the wind and overcoming its power.

I had to eat all the time. At the end of the day, it’s becoming impossible to spend enough time eating and spending enough time on the road. You eat, or you cycle! So I ended up eating protein bars while simultaneously rotating pedals.

During the first part of the day, I came across a huge swamp. The information board states that this is a peatland restoration project. The peat swamps in Finland were extensively excavated and dried during industrialisation. Now the restoration takes dozens of years. But it helps to improve the climate and ecosystem.

However, the weather today is quite bad. Once I approached the Sami city Vuotso, the air temperature dropped so significantly that I had to put on all my layers except my down jacket.

I realized that I can’t stay outside for the third night in a row, as I might get cold. So I called the camping 7 km ahead and asked for accommodation. They even booked me a fish soup as the kitchen was closing. So here I am now - in my wonderful cozy hut!

Day 4, 01.07.

Night's rest in the warm wooden cabin paid off. I didn’t get sick and the disturbing sore throat that I felt last morning had gone.
However, I also had to pay for it with some morning hours. I decided to take it easy and to start late. I had a proper breakfast in the reception restaurant and wrote some texts and posted stories from the previous day to Instagram. I even went to see the gold museum and a real gold washing. The camping is situated at the former gold mines and at the border of the Urho Kekkosen nature park.

I started my way to Ivalo at 15, but as I hit the road, I saw another cyclist approaching from behind. It was my French friend whom I met on the first day of my journey. Since then, we followed each other on Instagram. But I was sure that he was far ahead of me because he goes much faster and doesn’t have so much weight with him. He told me that he stayed for another day at the place where we met and is now heading to Saariselkä. We chat to exchange the road news and the weather, and he disappeared behind the horizon.

I took a detour for a gravel road and almost regretted it because it’s so much harder to pull the trailer there, but suddenly I noticed an amazing location near the road that I wouldn’t see from the highway. A huge pipe and the oven were stuck up, and a little area that used to be somebody’s garden, and the oven was in the middle of somebody’s home that burned down.

This scenery looks so much closer to the historical photos of Rovaniemi after the fire caused by the 1944 bombings. There was a well that had rotted down and collapsed, and the wheelchair was standing in the middle of the lawn with grass growing through it.
Suddenly, I noticed something inside the barn that made me shudder. The reindeer was standing under the roof and staring at me in silence. When he realized that I noticed, he started to run away. But changed his mind and took a pee instead.

Behind the barrack I found a wooden stick with a hole and a rotted piece of thread from reindeer skin. We decided not to use found objects this time, but in order not to carry too many things, maybe we can use very small found objects?

I was climbing the mountain on the bike hundreds of meters above sea level, and in the evening, when I reached the summit, I finally saw the descent. I was promising a fast downhill ride. The rest of the day was mostly down.

I met my French friend again in the evening. We could already start publishing a newspaper - “Arctic Ocean Highway Bicycle News”.

Approaching Ivalo already after evening, I made a stupid mistake that cost me an extra 7 kilometers. I put the final spot just in the city center of Ivalo, but not as the camping site where I was going to stay, and eventually went too far, leaving the campsite behind. I’m sleeping in a cabin again because my plan is to make a shorter light radial ride to Petsamotie (Petsamo Road) to the Russian border. This is the part of Jäämerentie that interests me the most. The plan is to read the old guide to the Arctic Ocean Highway along the way. But it’s 100 kilometers round trip, so I have to be fast. So I’m going to sleep now.

Day 5, 02.07.

Today I’m having a day off. The weather was bad, and I decided to postpone my ride to the Russian border until tomorrow. I was sleeping half of the day to recover from the lack of sleep last week. The other half of the day, I was reading and researching about the Petsamo road.

I found an amazing fact that the wood that I found on the river bed near Elvenes and Jacobsnes sawmills in Norway were draftet by the Pasvik river from this particular point - Nellim village, where I’m heading tomorrow. So the project is making a loop.

At 10 pm, the rain stopped and as I was bored by spending the day indoors, I took a 5-kilometer hike over the hill.

Day 6, 03.07.

It was an epic day, but a very long one. Basically, it was a culmination of my Rovaniemi-Kirkenes journey.

There is a crossroad in Ivalo from where one road heads to Norway around Inari lake from the western side, and another road runs over the hills and slopes to Petsamo (contemporary Russian Pechenga). This route is going all the way to the Petsamo border, and the closed checkpoint is the furthest point one can travel by the historic Arctic Ocean Highway.

I tried to start early, but nothing went smoothly, and at the end, I wasn’t able to find my glasses and spent an extra 20-30 minutes searching. Eventually, I gave up and bought new ones in a local store. So finally, I hit the road only around 11.

The first place I came across was Pikku-Petsamo, which is similar to Pikku Joulu (Small Christmas); it’s a small Petsamo. Later, I knew that it was one of the places where the Skolt Sami evacuated from Petsamo after the war. I realized that it’s the only way to do this ride without a trailer when the first hills started. One hill after another. And of course some front wind too. Closer to Nellim on the old part of the road, I found the so-called Travellers Cross, that Skolt Sami erected in memory of their displacement.

In the Nellim village, there is a church that is also dedicated to Petsamo, and some Skolt Sami graves collected from Petsamo were reburied there. There is also a grave of Soviet soldiers at the very corner of the cemetery.

Then asphalt ends, and the real Arctic Ocean Highway starts! All the way until the border. The border was quiet, even too quiet. Later, one guy told me that now it’s a shift change in the army, and there is basically no army in the region at the moment. Which sounds scary.

The big stop sign clearly shows that it would be a terrible idea to continue. This is the furthest point I can reach by Jäämerentie. This border checkpoint was closed already in 2014 and was not so popular also before that. So unlike the neighbor border crossing just near Ivalo that is closed now as a consequence of the Russian war in Ukraine, tho one was closed long before. So I turned back to visit the Pasvik River bridge, where I made a little fire and got my lunch.

It was already late, but I also wanted to visit a wood flume. The system of how the wood was transported from Inari lake to Kirkenes and to the sawmills of Jakobsnes and Elvenes. Last year, when I discovered these destroyed sawmills, I was trying to investigate from where exactly the wood was coming, but it was tricky. And now I was just reading info about the old border checkpoint and accidentally came across with this information.

The flume is already 100 years old. So are my wooden pieces that we transported from here in the 1930s and that were found in Kirkenes last year. These pieces are still in my studio waiting its turn to become a part of an art project.

The way back was long and terribly cold. Going up, one can  warm up a little, but the downhills were freezing. I came to the base camp around 3 am, it was extremely slippery, and I was frozen and hungry. Ate some instant noodles and just switched off.

Day 7, 04.07.

After the previous day’s 120-kilometer ride, it wasn’t easy to start early. Additionally, I had to rearrange my stuff after three days in a base camp and do the laundry. But step by step, finally, I was ready to continue my way. I bought gloves, some food, and a tube scarf because yesterday the weather was surprisingly freezing. Finally, I left Ivalo around 14.

The ride to Inari was fast and around 17, I was there eating kebab in a local pub. After Inari, there are no shops or cafes for about 200 kilometers all the way to Näätämö - a place on the Norwegian border.

I left Inari very late, only after 21, and decided to go for night cycling. The rain was coming and going, and I felt that it was better to cycle in the rain rather than set up a tent in a wet sideway.

After midnight, I came across the dugout on the roadside - the deepenings in the ground with a ceiling and walls made from logs.

Most of the walls had collapsed, but in one dugout, the wooden walls were scarcely standing. Were they Soviet or German, or maybe Finnish fortifications from the Lapland war? Or just barracks for the road workers from the postwar time when this road was constructed? Hard to tell. In one dugout, I found a bent handsaw. I took it with me, planning to restore it to use in the project.

I was cycling until the turn to Kirkenes, and then maybe 20 kilometers more by that road. It’s the most empty part of the road in my journey as there are no cafes, shops, gas stations, or campings all the way from Inari to almost Näätämö.

Around 3am I felt that the last energy is leaving me. I found the place near the swamp with a campfire and some dry ground for the tent, and slept there for 4 hours, aiming to hit the road before breakfast the next morning, and hoping for dry weather and favorable wind.

Day 8, 05.07.

As I mentioned in my last note, I slept only four hours and started my way immediately after waking up because I was afraid that it might rain. I was pushing hard to deserve some breakfast and stopped to make some food and coffee only after riding 23 kilometers.

The food was delicious! I continued, but it was hard with so little sleep, and my average speed was low this day.

I found some nice boulders along the road, but it was too much to unpack my climbing pad and shoes to try them. So I had to prioritize.

The day was really monotonous otherwise, and my only aim was to make more than 100 kilometers to stay in Näätämö overnight. However, all the options there were fully booked, and I had to go to the camping 30 km before the border. It was nice to stop earlier, but at the same time, I was worried about the coming day, as I was planning a final push to Kirkenes.

The camping is situated in a picturesque place on the lake, but the only problem is mosquitoes. Generally, the insect problem was less than I expected, but in some places the expectations were fulfilled, and I had to wear the mosquito net over my cap while setting up the tent.

Day 9, 06.07.

The Final Push

As follows from the title, this is the final day of this leg of the journey. The plan is to reach the border in the morning, cycling 30 kilometers from Camping to the border town of Näätämö. There, I have to receive the parcel from a post locker and send some items to my parents - things that I don’t need in the following days of the trip, and some presents for my family.

In the morning, before hitting the road, I visited the open air Skolt Sami museum next to the camping. The history of Skolt Sami is strongly connected to Petsamo, which used to be part of Finland from 20th to 44th and then seized to the Soviet Union. First, their settlements were divided by the Russian-Finnish border that cut Petsamo between the USSR and Finland as a knife - straight line to the very Arctic Ocean coast, and then after WWII they had to evacuate from these territories when it was seized to Russia.

I reached Näätämö quite quickly, but there I stayed for half a day. I had to solve the issue with delivering parcels to Kirkenes. The initial plan was to pick up the parcels and bring them over the border on my trailer to send by post from Neiden to Kirkenes. I didn’t know that Neiden doesn’t have its own post office and the closest Post office is actually in Kirkenes.

Taking 15-20 more kilos to the last part of the journey was absolutely impossible as I was barely managing to go uphill with the existing load, and the Näätämö-Kirkenes was the most difficult part.

Likely the situation was sorted quite quickly, and an amazing volunteer Vidar came on his car from Kirkenes to pickup the parcel in just 1,5 hours. I also gave him my tent, sleeping bags, and extra clothes, so I can travel the last 50-60 kilometers a bit lighter. I knew that it would be the highest elevation at this part of the road.

I started from the border around 17:30 or 18, and the rain started exactly the same time. But I didn’t care anymore, knowing that it’s the final effort, and after these 50 kilometers, the warm shower and soft bed in the residency are waiting for me.

I crossed the border with Norway! Time shifted one hour earlier so I gained more time to go! There is no darkness, so nothing is stopping me from riding all night!

The crazy hills started, but it was manageable. Again, the problem was that I was sweating going uphill and freezing when going down on the high speed. Rain wasn’t a great help. I stopped to change into dry clothes and got an energy bite.

I was so tired that it was difficult to continue. I stuck with my phone, posting stories on Instagram for one more hour.

Kirkenes was getting closer, but I wasn’t recognizing the landscape until suddenly I reached the airport! The concrete structures that used to serve as protection for German military planes were standing on the right side of the road. I will climb them again this time!

I went to the airport to get a little bit of warmth. It was already about 11pm, and it was getting cold outside. I took a picture with three border poles (Norwegian, Finnish and Russian) and called Sasha.

Only 12 kilometers left, and it was hard to believe! But not the end of the fight it was! The biggest hills were on the way from the airport to the town.

Finally, I was taking a picture with the “Welcome to Kirkenes” sign a few minutes before 2 am, and around 2 am, I finally arrived at Terminal B, Pikene Pa Broen art residency, where I was supposed to spend two weeks. Only now I realized that I was traveling so long that just about a week's time was left for me in Kirkenes.