The Story of Lakka Men

Too many beautiful pictures and this time I can’t even post ‘em to Insta as my connection is so poor. I have to make the pictures really really small to be able to blip anything.

Well, anyway what an interesting day it has been to closely see what the real “Lakka Men” do here in Lapland. Lakka and hilla are the Finnish names for cloudberry.  They did wake up at 00:30 am. It took about an hour to get ready and off they went. (I continued my sleep.) Yesterday they told me that after 9 am it’s too hot to pick Cloudberries so they would be back after I wake up. Apparently they found such a good spot during the morning that it was impossible to leave it. They picked 34 kg of cloudberries (3 men). They were back after noon.

After that the berries were taken to a pond in containers near the chalet where they are kept cool. No berries for me to eat! I’m so disappointed!

Then we took a walk to the Lake near by and I tried to swim, as my father-in-law actually did swim (see extra). I think the water is around 18°C, but there’s no actual swimming area. It’s just wilderness and rocks and you have to be very careful to enter the lake. It’s still about 25°C and sunny. So the lake will be getting warmer day by day.

The Lakka Men visited sauna. Then we ate and after coffee they were able to go to sleep. They walked about 10 km when collecting berries and also you have to carry the berries to the car from the swamp. It’s heavy work. Paavo (in his 80s) said that “good catch with some playing”. He was the biggest picker. His catch was 14 kg if I remember correctly.

They saw a fox. He was very friendly. I saw a video of the fox trying to taste their water bottle. They saw some reindeers and 5 elks.

I’m wishing that after this Lakka madness we will have some days together and we can go hike on Levi or Kätkä tunturi (special name for mountain in Lapland). So before that my views are strictly near the chalet as far as I can walk with 3 dogs and infernal amount of mosquitoes and other biting or egg-laying-in-your-hair insects.