Gottland

"As if we had real seasons in this godforsaken country," Mika had once joked during an internet conversation across the Baltic sea.

The line made me smile, although I cannot really agree with my Finnish friend on his country's fate, nor on the seasons' matter. Neither does Paul, the friend soon to share my flat and my wonder at Nordic marvels; as he wittily pointed out, it rather seems to be the land where gods come on holiday: a dramatic oscillation from one extreme to another, between the inmost light and the utmost night, a vast wilderness of trees that icing winds sweep throughout relentless winters, ever to return to life again in the most opulent lushness -- always under the shape-shifting clouds in the immense, endless sky.


'Gottland' -- the term had subtly slipped into my mind while I wandered at Mikko's side on the paths of the Vuosaari hill, unrelated to the actual Swedish island-province; somewhat in the way Asgard shifts from the physical realm to the ideal one along the lines of the Edda saga.

A crossroad: From Lille's Rue de la Clef (right) to Vuosaaren Kaatopaikka.

My first visit of the Vuosaaren huippu took place on the very night of my return, and I came back there almost each day of the following week. Twice at night, for the top of the hill is a privileged location to observe the undying glimmer at the horizon.

The white dawn

Standing perched on the highest stone of the top feels like having one's head into the sky.

Valo.

The majestic hill is too picturesque to be true in this flat land -- actually, it is man-made. No such thing existed there only a dozen of years ago. When the decision was made to transfer the most significant part of Helsinki's port activity to the recently developed neighbourhood of Vuosaari (the municipality was absorbed within the capital in 1966), the endeavour's impact on the surrounding nature was diligently assessed under the careful watch of environmental lobbies and local committees. This procedure is compulsory in Europe and increasingly stringent under the famous Habitats and Birds EU directives, but it is hardly followed in other locations along the Baltic coastline -- see the disastrous case of the Estonian port of Saaremaa.

Funnily enough, the Google Maps shot of the Vuosaari hill is so old
it shows the area before the harbour's construction started. Hardly shows.

Back to the initial stage of the Vuosaari harbour project, not only the activity on a longer term was required to leave unharmed the lush wildlife and rare species of the nearby moors, but building industrial and transportation infrastructure from scratch would carve out a whole new landscape. Tons and tons of dug up ground and waste material do not vanish into thin air.

In the land I come from, the custom is to pile up at random mining rubble, which results in the aesthetic nonsense of terrils.

This too leaves me a little speechless.

With regard to Flemish-style terrils, the Vuosaari area is quite characteristic of the positive evolution of environmental conservation, and of the attention increasingly given to all the dimensions of human and industrial activities. The project was chosen as a flagship for stopping the loss of biodiversity through the Countdown 2010 initiative, a EU-funded programme aiming at increasing awareness of this environmental issue.

It earned recognition thanks to the innovating techniques used: Layers of ground of various qualities were unloaded on the site without intermediate storage, so as to keep the soil's properties and the wildlife alive through the process; the hill was thoroughly designed, its areas according to dedicated species, its roads and paths, up to the rocks, scattered more or less densely to affect ground temperature and leave room for a type of plant or another to grow.

Nowadays trucks still drive past the barrier to discharge waste material, which will be dispatched and delivered according to the plans.

The entrance.

Caution is mandatory, as it always is at this scale of land-building. Several disquieting-looking boards warn in Finnish of the consequences of inappropriate behaviour. "It is forbidden to scratch the slightest match here, for the whole landscape could explode," Mikko joked about the methane emanations of the landfill's decaying waste.

Once I was exploring the downhill forest paths at night, deliciously deserted and creepy in the dimmed light, a strong scent of fuel coming out of nowhere assaulted my sense of smell -- I had passed through one of those gas clouds threatening to burst at the first sparkle.

Varoitus!

A bit further inside the park, piles of dirt hidden under tarpaulin are circled by fences.

Zone 51. No trespassing.
Note the graceful Vuosaari tower in the background.

Walking up the path to the top, an imposing stump is on display, that of a 200-year old willow tree which grew near to Lasipalatsi, in the very centre of Helsinki; a terrible winter storm fell it a few years ago and for mysterious reasons it was moved away to remote Vuosaari.

Along the crest, familiar yet out-of-place silhouettes stand against the blue-white tints of the dawn sky. The unusual presence of bare Lapland trees amidst flowerbeds in full bloom is also a human invention; more precisely, a sculpture made of real displaced trees whose point remains rather mysterious too...
The voice of my once Reuters colleague Agnieszka rang again in my ears, as clearly as it did on our way back from Hanko in her minuscule and recklessly driven Fiat: "Do you know what annoys me there? You are supposed to drive in the complete wilderness, but they can't help keeping tidy roadside flowerbeds. It's so artificial!"



But the sight is worth climbing.

A little tedious to piece the 360-degree panorama together, but so worth the effort!
Here below, a commented version with the landmarks I could identify.
If you know more than me, please go ahead and tell in the comments!

There is a plenty of nice things down there. Dragonflies and butterflies, pheasants and pelicans; once, a circumspect and brightly coloured male pheasant popped out of the high grass while I was standing quietly less than a metre away, only to vanish on the other side after slowly crossing the road.

Climbing the path down on the sun-exposed hillside, it is not only the silence made salient by the remote humming of the harbour's activity, not only the plenty of colours and the warmth of the light; but whenever the afternoon sun appears from behind a cloud, a wave of the sweetest scent rises from the strawberry bushes down the hill...

And strawberry upon strawberry...

So much goodness must be put to good use. I'll tell more about strawberry adventures -- and there's a lot to tell -- in another entry.

According to Mikko, the Vuosaari huippu is not so well-known, even in Helsinki; besides biking amateurs and locals walking their dogs, it is rare to see many visitors. School trips are organised there though, according to official pages, so as to educate children about environment. I guess it is better so -- I see with reluctance already other people striding the same paths, my paths.