Hunting down the cultural, social and geographical eccentricities of the world!

There is no single social situation more petrifying for a fledgling bookish male than being stark-naked with a bunch of strangers in a confined wooden shed. Though as the insufferable heat leathering itself over every inch of my body reminded me, this was where I found myself. The burly fellow dominating the bench behind me threw me another beer which I gladly accepted; half an hour ago he was selling me it from behind a bar, now he was sat entirely naked behind me with what felt like every other male in the village. For the Finns, ‘Sauna’ is the least sexual activity possible, beers with the boys whilst whipping each other with birch branches is after all an epitome of manhood. The beers kept coming and so did the heat as the villagers competed in a broken mixture of Finnish, Sami and English by swapping stories to see who could impress this misplaced foreigner the most. My barman’s anecdote about his brother’s reindeer losing a limb to a leftover Second World War grenade was soon interrupted by a voice from outside assuring us (I presume) that it was nearly midnight, as the villagers spontaneously emptied the sauna.

The walk felt like an eternity, but at least I had my clothes on. The majesty of the midnight sun revealed shimmering fish drying in cages atop of grass covered roofs and the occasionally doe eyed reindeer raising its head. Time seemed to disappear; only a numinous sunlight prevailed here among the rolling russet mounds of the moorland. Hours or minutes later we arrived along the shores of the Tana River that straddles the border between Finland and Norway to find a loosely assembled collection of driftwood, crowned with a vertical presentation of a withered and dried out wooden boat.

The crowd hunched, silent in anticipation as some traditionally dressed women carried a flaming torch forward, the array of primary colours donning their dresses stood in sharp juxtaposition to their target. The whisper of cracking dry wood instigated the last dying breath of the boat as the fire engulfed it and the auburn flames pierced the perpetual white light.

Of all the myriad of lesser visited places in Europe, Finland and particularly Lapland, is perhaps the most eccentric, contrasting and unexpected.