Elks do not Speak English

PREFACE --------------- Finland is an unknown country. Most people know that it is somewhere up there, in the north, near Russia. A lot f people confuse it with Iceland. Many people seem to know about Finnish mosquitos and reindeer. And, of course, the majority of children under 10 know that it is the homeland of Father Christmas and of the Moomies. But that is about it. After all, by definition Finland means “ The End of the Land ”. This book intends to present Finland to the un-initiated, with an insight of the culture, habits and peculiarities of this naturally beautiful country and of its small and charming population who seem to live two distinct and separate lives, one in Summer and one in Winter. After some 14 years of wonderfully long spells spent by the shores of one of the major lakes in the heart of Finland, Celia and I consider ourselves fully fledged as part of the Finnish habitat and completely integrated in the rural society that represents the back bone of the country’s long history and of the nation’s short history. Our love for Finland has convinced me to write this book in order to offer an objective view of a country made almost more of water than of land, where the millennial power and the magic of the forests are still the dominant factors in shaping its inhabitants’ character and where the ruin towards which our poor old world is racing still seems remote and almost impossible. Recently I came across an old map of Northern Europe, dating back to 1486. The outline of countries like Britain, Denmark Norway and Sweden, as well as of what were to become the Baltic States, could just about be identified. Finland was not there. Only 6 years later Columbus would complete his epic voyage from the Spanish port of Palos to discover the new continent, so far away, and yet by the end of the 15th century Finland had not been found by the map geographer. The explorers probably felt that beyond the Winter freeze of the North sea and the land of Sweden, so clearly visible from the shores of northern Denmark and from the walls of Hamlet’s Elsinore Castle, the world ended, engulfed in the mist and shadows of perennially icy forests. Even today the country maintains a mysterious face that makes it little understood and scarcely known to the rest of the globe. Hopefully this book will succeed in revealing some of its attractions and will help a little in giving the Finns the confidence and the belief they need and in making them appreciate how lucky they are to live in one of the few remaining corners of the world where, despite an advanced modern technology culture, so far the society has managed to keep a very clean face and a good dose of common sense. Maybe that with this book I shall succeed in convincing the Finns that their evident shyness of the world and their anxiety about being accepted as a complete and progressive society are unfounded. The fundamental honesty of the nation – that after all was the first to repay in full the debt to the Americans after World War II – and its scientific and technical achievements over the past 40 years make it one of the most modern and respected in the world. As long as they manage to hold on to their forests for many years to come.