After Sweden we return to Finland and then start back towards the accommodation on a very roundabout route via Pallas Yllastunturi National Park. We get there later than expected however as soon as we approach the park we see reindeer everywhere including a, for us rare and unique, white one. We do not have time anymore for hikes but we still want to stop at the major attraction for us, a crashed airplane.
The hike is a short one, 0.3 km one way to the fallen WW2 airplane. Again the mosquito protection holds ok but it is a bit unnerving to see clouds of mosquitoes wherever you turn. The remains of the plane are all collected in one place and after examining them we return to the car and start south toward our cabin. The plane is all that remains from a Fokker C X that was carrying Paavo Elias Kahla, Finland’s most famous spotter pilot with more than 300 combat flights behind him. Even though it crashed in 1944 the fate of the pilots became clear only after the war in the fall of 1945 when the plane and remains of the pilots were found by a farmer. Interestingly they were the last pilots of the Finnish Air Force to be killed in a combat flight.
On the way back our only stop is near some wild rapids of the Ounasjoki river that we are driving parallel to and then we return to our cabin to rest before starting our way south tomorrow. This is our only day completely north of the Polar Circle and we enjoyed it a lot given the lack of rain and the 24h daylight and we finish it in style with a test of our sauna – it works great and we feel almost at home until we remember that we are here to escape the heat.
For our late dinner we finally manage to prepare the chanterelles that we carried with us from Turku – delicious. Coupled with the poro (reindeer) salami we feel that we are eating a real Finnish dinner far away from any civilization before our inevitable return tomorrow.
