Finland

Kilpisjarvi is little more than a string of widely-separated developments: The Finnish Border and Customs point; A campsite, resaurant and shop; and a large Santa Claus resort, spread along almost 8km of the E8 road, with birch woodland between. All overlook the large lake Kilpisjarvi.

We took a ferry on the lake next day, along with quite a lot of other people, and were welcomed by the operator to Sweden, where we landed. The purpose was to walk the 3km to the point where Sweden, Norway and Finland meet. It’s quite a thing to do.

The meeting point is in a lake, accessed by a boardwalk to a shiny yellow cairn built recently by Norway.

Following this, we turned to follow the trail through Finland back to the campsite. The ferry waited for those depending on it to take them back, and we let the operator know when we got back.

Our trail took us past Kitsiputous, Finnland’s highest waterfall. Round the side of the mountain Malla, we passed a rubble-covered World War 2 bunker and a remarkable split boulder. All the time we had views of Kilpisjarvi (lake) and Saana (fell) beyond. The last is important to Finns as an important waymarker on their travels. A very large eroded path is used to climb it.

Back at the E8 (road) we came across an enterprising Finn selling the fish he had caught last winter and salted and dried, along with coffee and pancakes, so we had some of each.

We had smoked charr kedgeree for tea.

We had intended to stay off-road at the bridge to Keinovuopio, a place we last visited in February 2017. Now there was a big river, and lots of boats. Unfortunately lots of mosquitoes, too.

The mosquitoes won. We moved to a breeze and went up a hill, Lautsuvaara, 700m+ nearby for the evening. We did not know at the time the parking place was at Finland’s highest road, a place known as Muotkatakka.

Next day we headed back to Norway. It would be good to explore the Baltic coasts more, but not at the height of mosquito time.