Who?

Photo by Frida Vuorinen

Oskar Eriksson, 21, has been a fan of the great outdoors since “mulleskolan” and “solskolan” in his early years, though the interests has grown stronger in the last 5 years. He has grown up close to the woods in Värmland, Sweden and enjoys backcountry skiing and the mountains of Sweden and Norway. Oskar worked in Kebnekaise mountain lodge last summer and felt like he wanted to do more of that kind of stuff, and maybe work with it in the future. He started the course Nordiskt friluftsliv (Nordic Outdoor Studies) last autumn along with the other two paddlers. He’s the least experienced paddler of the three but has most nights spent in tent. His motivation for this expedition is that he wants to see new places and spend a whole summer outdoors and of course to get to paddle along with two friends. Oskar says that it is an adventure to both plan and to execute a tour like this, so after this winter he´s eager to start this trip around Finland.








Photo by Ulrika Fellman

Eeva Heikkilä, 28, started her outdoor career with a paddling tour with her dad at the age of 2. The experience was mostly frightening because of the exciting voices of the Finnish summer night but luckily there were many better experiences afterwards and since those days she’s been enjoying the outdoor life with family, friends from the scouts and nowadays with studies in becoming a certified wilderness guide, specializing in kayaking. Her greatest motivation to do this trip is that it just sounds like so much fun. Enjoying the nature and friends almost a whole summer is what one would like do every summer. And of course it will be a great experience from both personal and professional point of view.

Photo by Alexander Brännkärr

Sigurd Ankergård, 21, comes from Copenhagen in Denmark. His interest in outdoor life started in the 10th grade, where he had it as a specialization. Since then he’s been paddling a lot and in 2008 he even started to study to become a kayak instructor in the European paddle pass system. Now he’s studying at Outdoor Academy in Finland with Eeva and Oskar, to become a wilderness guide and a kayak instructor in the Nordic instructor system. To Sigurd this trip is about doing something fun and making a challenging and exciting journey.

What?

Like mentioned before, our goal is to kayak the coast of Finland during the summer of 2010. Finland’s coast line is approx. 1300 to 1500 kilometers long and covers most of the western and the southern borders of Finland. The sea that surrounds these borders is called the Baltic Sea. The Baltic Sea is bounded by the Scandinavian Peninsula, the mainland of Europe and the Danish islands.

Our plan is to paddle this distance from Tornio (the northern end of the coast) to Virojoki (near the Russian border in southeast Finland) in about 50 days starting in the middle of June. That’s not a very hardcore-pissing-your-pants-goal, but we are going to take it easy, enjoy the summer and leave the faster achievements to others who are more in a hurry.