On the map Finland is like a giant who points at the Northern hemisphere.
It is neighbour to Sweden, Norway and Russia.
It is also neighbour to the Åland Islands and Estonia across the Bay of Finland.
Finland is called the land of the thousand lakes.
It does not have high mountains, but there are hills in the east regions.
Going to a sauna is a delight both in winter and summer.
As Finland has two official languages, Finnish and Swedish, many places have two names, like the capital Helsinki or Helsingfors.
Helsinki is a very modern city and famous for its architecture.Finland is a republic and a member of the European Union.

Yukka and Kylliki live in a house in the hilly part of Finland, not very far from the Russian border.Their father met their mother at Lentuo and moved from his town, Joensuu to Lentuo, where they live now.They married and got Yukka and Kylliki, who are 12 year old twins.
Yukka is tall and strong. He dreams of having a raindeer sledge when he grows up, but then he would have to move up north.
Kylliki is not as tall as Yukka, but she is very quick and could read when she was four years old.
Even if they are twins, they are quite different in many ways.
Nobody is as good a skier as Kylliki. She can almost run up a hill on her skis and then she comes flying back down, almost without touching the ground.
Yukka is more easy going and does not take as many chances as Kylliki.
Yet, greater friends can hardly be found.
They often wander about in the country on their skis. They love the winterland. In summer they help with the work at their farm.
They both go to school.
Their mother is Finland- Swedish. Yukka and Kylliki speak Swedish with their mother and their grandparents, Finnish with their father.
It is Thursday now.
Yukka and Kylliki are preparing the yearly ski tour with two classes from their school. They look forward to this winter camping.
They will be picked up early on Friday morning and are to bring their skis, sleeping bags, clothes, books and one present each for the final party.
Their teachers take care of the food supplies and have arranged the whole tour.
They will be altogether 36 from two classes for a four days´ stay in a log-cabin in the Oulu area close to the Russian Carelia border.
The teachers Elsa, Urho,Väino and Sirkka do this every year, take two classes skiing in the month of March.
It is such a long dreary month, so you may just as well have some fun.
This Friday morning Yukka, Kylliki and their parents are busy getting everything ready for the trip. The Oulu area is too far away for them
to have things brought from home once they are at the ski cabin.
Name-tags have to be put on their clothes. Everything has to be clean and in order. Their sleeping bags are made of down and they have been aired.
The homemade woolen underwear is now in their backpacks.
“It is so scratchy,” Kylliki complains.
“Not when you are freezing and want to get warm,” their father says.
”Are you taking any books with you?” their mother asks.
“No, thanks,” Kylliki says,”we´ll have no time for that.”
“What about the clothes you haven´t put in your backpack yet?” Yukka´s mother asks.
“I´ll just wear those,” he says and puts on a sweater on top of the one he is already wearing.
“You´ll be too hot on the bus,” his mother utters, but she knows that when Yukka has decided something, it has to be so.
“Let´s go,” their father says,”the bus will be here in ten minutes.”
As he says this the bus arrives full of kids and teachers. A trailer is attached to the bus where their baggage is put.
Snow flakes start falling down and the wind is blowing a bit harder than before. It is cold, a lot of snow on the roads and ice on the pond in their garden.
“I hope my babies will be allright!” Yukka and Kylliki´s mother whispers to their father.
“Don´t worry,” he says, because he knows she is worrying about the weather forecast and her children´s health.
She always imagines that they´ll catch cold or break a leg or something like that when she is not near them.
They kiss goodbye and the bus is about to leave full of happy children.
The camping trip is the highlight of winter. March is better for ski tours than Christmas time because it´s the end of a long long winter
and not as dark as December.
The driver starts the engine, hoots, takes a huge turn with the trailer and drives away with snow drifting from both sides, as if the bus had white wings.
On leaving they started singing. Elsa was a song writer and had made a folder with songs for this occasion. They sang:
“Bus, bus, drive us up north,
give us the lift of the day,
somewhere out there
is a log cabin hut
where we are going to stay.
Someone will cook us a dinner tonight,
another the table will lay.
Bus, bus, drive us up north,
give us the lift of the day.”

They sang this five times.

“I´ve made a song too,” Kylliki shouted.
Urho wrote her song on a piece of cardboard, so big that when he lifted it in front of them, they could read it. And they sang:

“Yoik, yoik and yoik a lot
throw a snowball out,
yoik, yoik, yoik the air
the wolves it´s gonna scare.”

They sang it over and over again and thought it was funny because “Yoik” is a wolf song and it was o.k. singing it on the bus where they were safe.
Urho said they should not be scared of wolves.
“They´re not where we´re going,” he said. “But you´re good at rhyming, Kylliki.”
Kylliki liked Urho very much. Besides being handsome, he was always kind, even if they were not well prepared for his class. He just helped, always.
They drove for two hours before they had a stop at a gas station where they could buy sweets and move about.
“I want ice cream,” Kylliki said to Yukka.
“You don´t eat ice in this icy weather,” he replied.
“Have some hot chocolate instead.”
“O.k,” she said.
She knew he was right. Eating ice cream when it´s minus 10 Celsius is a bit silly. So they both had hot chocolate and doughnuts.
When everybody was ready again, they drove on. The landscape rose gradually and sometimes they drove between high cliffs.
Snow ploughs were busy scraping snowdrifts off the road.
In the afternoon they arrived at the cabin where they were going to stay for four days. Everything was arranged,
so there was no question about who was to stay where or who was to do what on this first day.
Urho gave them slips with their names on where the number of their rooms and bunks were listed and what to do.
Kylliki was to wash potatoes for dinner. Yukka was to scrape snow from doors, the main entrance, the kitchen entrance and all six toilet doors behind the cabin.
At four o´clock they would gather before the hearth and have some refreshment.
The teachers together with the bus driver were busy carrying their baggage to their rooms.
After that their teachers Elsa and Urho started preparing dinner, while Väino and Sirkka started the fire in the fireplace
and two boys helped select good firewood from a huge basket.
The bus driver Esa got his own single room and needed some rest after the four hours´drive.
Everybody was busy when Seppo from Yukka´s class suddenly cried out painfully, so they thought he had hurt himself:
“Where is the tv!?”
“There isn´t any,” Sirkka said, laughing and waltzed around in the big room.
For a moment there was total silence in the cabin. – “No tv?” – “What a place!”
There were murmurs and some sulky faces until Sirkka added:
“That´s why we´re here. We want to be in nature, listen to the wind and the fire and the bristle snow when we walk on it and we want to talk together.
Tonight we´ll sing and dance.”
Sirkka loved dancing and swaying wide skirts like a tent around herself.
“Lauri has brougt his violin. Isn´t that true, Lauri.”
“Yes,” the gipsy like Lauri said, busy putting logs into the fireplace. He had played the violin since he was four years old.
It was as if he had been born with a violin in his hands, so now he was quite good at playing.
After the break the fire was in full swing in the hearth. Kylliki had finished cleaning potatoes together with her best friends Silja and Polly,
and a huge potato pot was put on the stove. Elsa and Urho now looked like real restaurant cooks with high white hats and huge aprons all around them.
They started singing and taking dancing steps while preparing dinner: boiled salmon with butter, baked potatoes and a salad. Ris á la mande for desert.
Mountain water to drink.
Olli, Erkki, Jaana and Impi had laid the two round tables in the middle of the room where they could all sit.
There were candlelights and autumn leaves as deecorations. What a treat.
When the lot had had their dinner, they seemed to be real tired and sleepy. It was about nine o´clock when the dishes were to be done and there was no dishwasher.
“This is some country life,” Seppo complained while drying the dishes.
“Life without machines is possible,” Sirkka sang.
Now the tones from Lauri´s violin filled the cabin. It was a mazurka.
Polly and Silja ran out on the floor and started dancing. They didn´t know how to dance a mazurka, so Urho had to teach them and they all had great fun,
because of this strange dance with strict rules. They were used to dancing individually the modern way.
Soon many of the other kids started trying and some of them found this so strange and funny that they laughed too much to be able to learn it the right way.
So Lauri played a waltz which most of them could manage, especially Sirkka.
After dancing they sat in sofas and chairs in front of the fire and each and everyone was to tell a little story. It was great fun because every one of them had experienced something worth telling about.
Yukka told them about his grandfather´s sauna.
“My grandfather is 70 and he has his own sauna in his little garden. His little house is in Helsinki and he has been living there all his life.
He has always been able to make his sauna ritual in his ownh garden, but now times seem to be changing.
The problem is that there´s a new apartment house just across the street, so his garden isn´t as private as it used to be.
When he goes to his sauna he starts by runnig naked around in his garden beating his breast and bottom with a tree branch until he is red and blue all over.
Then he runs into his little sauna hut and warms up, until he has a finishing run in the garden.
Somebody in the new apartment house has called the police and asked them to have him quit this running around naked.
So now grandpa has to wear a trunk in his own garden. He says that modern life is filled with prejudice and that people were much freeer in olden times.”
There was quite a pause after this story, until Urho said that Yukko´s grandfather could probably have his sauna rounds in the Club House by one of the lakes where the old tradition is still possible.
“That´s where I go for a sauna when I´m in the city,” Urho said.
At 10 o´clock this evening Elsa announced that they were all going to bed now because tomorrow they were going skiing after breakfast.
“Breakfast is at 8 o´clock,” he said.
“There goes my good morning sleep,” Seppo sighed because he liked going late to bed and sleeping late at weekends.
Morning came with a beautiful clear sunshine and the frosty surface on the snow all around looked like silver.
After breakfast they were to divide into four groups of nine pupils with a teacher as their leader.
Strict instructions were given that nobody was to leave her/his group.
“Never go alone anywhere in the hills. Stay with the group, always,” he demanded.
“I´m not well,” Seppo said to his leader Urho.
“What´s wrong?” Urho asked.
“My throat,” Seppo said with a hoarse voice.
“Open your mouth,” Urho demanded.
So did Seppo, but Urho couldn´t see any signs of a bad throat.
“Do you want to stay in your bunk all day long and have our driver Esa look after you?” Urho asked.
“No,” Seppo answered. “I´ll come with you.”
The plan was to go to the hills around the cabin for skiing. Beginners were to join Urho; those with some training joined Elsa and Sirkka
and the last group of really skilled slalom skiers were to have Väino as their leader. Kylliki was one of the best ones, so she followed him.
They skied to their chosen hills. Väino and his group headed for the highest one. He had a whistle in a chain around his neck.
“When I blow the whistle,” he said and did so, “I want you to come to me. We are never to go far away from each other.
We are a group who stay together until we leave for lunch at our cabin at two o´clock, o.k? ”
“Yes, o.k,” they murmured.
Kylliki was already a few paces ahead of them and gradually she gained such speed, even on her way uphill, that they couldn´t follow her.
She was at the top when the rest of them were halfway up. She waited for them.
“You are like a feather,” Väino said to her when he reached the top short of breath.
“I wish I were a bird,” she said and pushed herself downwards while she swayed and almost flew the whole way down.
“What a girl,” Väino uttered and tried to make a slow start downhill.
“Why isn´t there a ski lift?” Jaana complained while venturing downhill and falling right away.
She rolled and rolled down until she almost diasppeared in a heap of snow. Only her boots stuck out. The skis were somewhere else.
They all laughed.
They kept on climbing and skiing, up and down and sideways, until Väino said it was time to go back to the cabin in order to prepare lunch.
They skied downhill and headed for the cabin.
Kylliki stood far above on the hill and waited for Jaana to ski down before her. Jaana was so eager that she almost fell forward,
but managed to ski downhill at a considerable speed. Then she fell. She became invisible because of all the snow she whirled up.
Kylliki waited. But nothing happened. Jaana didn´t move. Kylliki hurried downwards, until she was right there where Jaana lay,
eyes closed, pale and as if asleep. Then Kylliki saw some blood sift out where her arm was supposedly under the snow.
Kylliki knew that you may never touch or move someone who is badly hurt. She yelled for help, but the others from her group were busy skiing to the cabin.
- Why didn´t Väino look back? Where were the others?
Could she leave Jaana alone unconscious and probably badly hurt? –
She felt she had to and hurried downhill to get help. Finally she reached Väino who was helping Timo loosen his skis, while his sister Eila was waiting.
Kylliki told them what had happened to Jaana. Väino told Timo and Eila to help Timo loosen his ski clasps and hurried with Kylliki uphill.
Jaana´s eyes were still closed and there was blood in the snow around her left side.
Väino called the cabin from his cell phone and asked them to arrange for help, a doctor and an ambulance, right away.
The wait felt like an eternity.
It had started snowing heavily. Huge snowflakes settled on them and on Jaana´s face. Väino wiped them from her eyelids and wanted her to open her eyes.
“Is she dead?” Kylliki asked.
Väino felt Jaana´s pulse.
“No,” he said.”She is probably in a shock. We need help immediately. Hurry down to the cabin and tell them. I´ll stay here.”
“O.k.,” Kylliki said and almost flew downhill to the cabin.
“The ambulance is on its way,” said Esa, the busdriver who had received the telephone message from Väino.
“It will be here in half an hour.”
Kylliki felt her heart sink.
- Half an hour! – Jaana would freeze to death up there in the snow. -
Esa comforted her and said that the dry and loose snow would keep her warm for some time.
And Väino would stay with her. He would know what to do, if he thought there was an immediate danger.
They would not want to move her or carry her downhill, because they didn´t know about her back.
“First aid has to be given by people who know what they are doing and have the facilities in case of danger,” Esa murmured.
Half an hour seemed endless.
“Where are all the others?” Kylliki asked and looked out of the window.
“They are probably behind the first hill where you were. That´s where the slopes are a bit lower and easier.” Esa replied.
Finally they saw the blinking lights of the ambulance. It was a huge thing on wheels and it had some skis attached to its sides.
“Wow!” Kylliki muttered.
Esa went out to guide the driver to the hill where Väino and Jaana were waiting. He went with them and Kylliki followed them on her skis.
She was at the scene before the ambulance.
The ambulance people conferred with Väino before they put Jaana on a stretcher. Väino drove with them to the nearest hospital.
Jaana´s eyes were still closed and Kylliki asked:
“Is she dead?”
“No,” Väino said and closed the door of the ambulance.
Kylliki stood behind and was sad and worried, yet happy that her friend Jaana was alive.
She wanted to find some of the other kids and join them, so she hurried uphill and looked in all directions.
She had forgotten the rule that no one was to go anywhere in the hills alone.
“Where can they be?” – she thought, while skiing up and down some hills. They were nowhere to be seen, so she decided to go back to the cabin.
However, no matter how much and far she skied, she had lost her orientation.
There were endless hills, most of them just alike and some small frozen lakes in between, but no cabin.
-”I have lost my way,” – she thought.
“What am I to do?” -
It was already afternoon and she had some hunger pangs, but there was a chocolate bar in her pocket which she ate while thinking about what to do,
where to go.
“I am not going to panic,” – she decided and in order not to be afraid, she started singing while skiing onwards.

“Yoik, yoik and yoik a lot,
throw a snowball out,
yoik, yoik, yoik the air,
the wolves it´s gonna scare.”

“Wolves?” – she thought,
“Oh, my god, I never thought they were real, but out here, they´re probably wandering about, just as I am.”
Kylliki tried not to think about any dangers. She felt sure that sooner or later she would find the cabin or someone from the excursion.
She skied faster than ever and now there were not as many steep hills as before. Down below was some flatland and a river but no houses.
“There must be houses somewhere,” – she thought singing and singing, louder and louder, so as not to hear her own thoughts.
“Yoik, yoik and yoik a lot,
throw a snowball out,
yoik, yoik, yoik the air,
the wolves it´s gonna scare.”
Then she heard it – a howl. And saw a little black dot on the horizon.
Kylliki rushed downhill away, away, away, but stopped singing. She must have attracted some animal with her singing.
The animal had definitely seen her, but seemed to be in no hurry, just ran gently in the same direction Kylliki was skiing.
It was a question of time who would come first to a bridge over the river. She did and as if by a miracle a house came into view,
a little cottage and a man stood there in front of it with binoculars. She skied as fast as she could over the bridge and headed for the man and the house.
He had a rifle in his hands and shot twice in the air.
On looking back Kylliki saw that a wolf had stopped at the bridge.
Kylliki skied right into the man´s arms. He stood there ready to grasp her, but her speed was such that he almost fell backwards.
The wolf did not cross the bridge but seemed to be waiting to see what would happen. More wolves could now be seen on the hilltop.
The man hung the rifle on his shoulder. Kylliki thought he was very very old, with a lot of white hair and beard all over his head and face.
He said something which Kylliki didn´t understand.
“Is he Santa Claus?” she wondered.
The man pointed at her skis, a sign for her to take them off and another sign for her to follow him into the cottage.
The wolf was still standing at the bridge as if waiting to see, if Kylliki would come back.
She followed the man into a room with a big wooden table, a big bench and some chairs around it and at the further end of this room was a little kitchen.
Everything in there was beige and brown.
A woman, just as old and grey as Santa Claus stood in the kitchen preparing dinner.
Also she said something which Kylliki didn´t understand.
Santa Claus laughed and then the woman started talking Finnish to Kylliki.
“Welcome little girl,” she said in a very high pitch voice.
Kylliki said “thanks” and waited.
“Are you hungry?” the woman said.
“Yes,” Kylliki whispered.
“Don´t be afraid,” the woman said.
“I am Katinka and this is Jury. He only speaks our Eastern Finnish dialect, but I can speak both that and the most common Finnish.
What is your name?”
“Kylliki,” was the answer.
“Like my sister in Helsinki,” Katinka said smiling.
“We heard you calling the wolves with your yoik song. So Jury went out to see if the wolves would catch up with you.
You´re such a tiny girl far away from home.”
Katinka laughed loud and for long.
Kylliki couldn´t see what was so funny.
She told Katinka about the winter camping, the cabin, the accident and her running wild in the hills, until she escaped from the wolve, thanks to Jury.
Katinka translated the whole thing for her husband who wrinkled his forehead, shook his head, looked at Kylliki as if she were no good,
but finally smiled and said something.
Katinka translated: “Jury says that you young people of today think you can do anything. You just go ahead until you are in trouble.
He says you probably attracted a whole pack of wolves that would now be lingering in the area waiting for her to come and sing for them.”
Finally they both laughed, so the cottage seemed to shake all over.
They had a delicious dinner, a stew with everything in it, meat, vegetables, spices. Kylliki felt a lot better now,
but she was so tired that she almost fell asleep at the table.
“We have no telephone,” Katinka said, but Jury will ride to the village in the morning and try to contact your teachers,
so they can come and fetch you and bring you back to your group.”
Katinka led Kylliki to an alcove, helped her take off some of her winter clothes, gave her a shirt which was far too big for her
and smelled of something strange. She didn´t mind and as soon as she was comfortably under a heavy woolen plaid, she fell asleep.
Morning came and Kylliki woke up warm and rested. Jury had already left for the village.
Breakfast was wonderful with fresh milk and butter from Katinka´s cow, homemade bread, cheese and marmelade.
“Do the wolves often come here?” Kylliki asked.
“No, only if we tempt them somehow. Our chicken have to be locked up most of the time.
The wolves are lone beings who are just as afraid of people as we are of them and they know Jury and his rifle,
so they don´t cross the bridge.” Katinka said.
“We didn´t see them at the cabin where we stayed,” Kylliki said.
“They keep away from people, except those who tempt them somehow or sing the wolf-song, The yoika song, you know.” Katinka replied.
“There´s this sad tone in the song that attracts them, because their life in the wilderness is very hard in wintertime.”
“When will they go away?” she asked.
“They may stay here for some days and we have to be very careful, because they´re probably hungry.” Katinka answered.
“I´m sorry about that.” Kylliki said, “It´s my fault.”
“We´ll manage,” Katinka said in a friendly tone and brought Kylliki a cup of warm chocolate.
Now Jury came back in his snowploughlike jeep. Three wolves walked into the middle of the bridge,
until he fired a shot from his rifle very close to them and they all ran back up the hill.
He walked all around the house and stable to see if any of them were in hiding.
But -”no”- everything was safe, so he came in where Kylliki and Katinka sat chatting.
“Good morning to you yoika-girl,” he said smiling. “I called the rescue guard and told them about you
and they said they´d contact schoolgroups in the area where you came from and have them come and fetch you.”
Katinka carefully translated what he said.
Jury hadn´t had any breakfast yet and Katinka gave him porridge and bread, cheese and butter and then a big jug of coffee.
Kylliki was a bit ashamed of having attracted the wolves.
“It´s o.k.,” he said and Katinka translated a story he told them.
When he was a boy, he had to go skiing in all weathers to school every morning. Once when it was clear and frosty and he was somewhere in the middle of his way to school, two wolves came from the opposite direction and headed straight for him. He had heard that if you show that you are afraid, the wolves will sense it and become frightened too and then anything could happen. So he just continued skiing as if nothing were more natural than meeting two wolves on your way to school. He discovered that they were a mother wolf and her little cub and he was sure that they were hungry. So he took his lunchpacket up from his big pocket, opened it and threw the food on the crystallike surface of the snow on the side of the tracks. The mother wolf immediately stopped, as if preparing a fight, but her baby hurried to the food which was spread over the snow and started eating eagerly. Then the mother went over to her cub and got some bites too. Jury skied as fast as he could onwards to his school and reached it without being followed by them. He told his teacher about this and after that he was never allowed to go alone to school. They lent him a horse and a gun and that´s how he could continue his studies for two years. At least he learnt how to read, write and shoot.
“I only read Tolstoy now,” he said and his huge laughter shook the little wooden house.
Kylliki was sure that Jury was a giant like the ones she had seen in children´s books. He was strong and happy and not afraid of wolves.
“Just teach them to stay away from humans, because humans are much more dangerous than wolves,” he thundered.
Kylliki didn´t really think so and she was right, because two hours later a big snow scooter arrived and landed close to the hut. Urho stepped out and gave her a hug.
“What a great surprise,” he said.
“We thought you were lost.”
“Do you want a cup of coffee?” Katinka asked and rubbed her hands together.
“Yes, please,” Urho said, so he went into the house.
They got a huge jug of old fashioned boiled coffee with thick cream and some wonderful cookies.
“What happened to Jaana?” Kylliki wanted to know.
“Oh, she´s fine,” Urho said.
“Only a broken leg and arm.”
“Only?” Kylliki echoed.
“Yeah, but thanks to you that she came soon enough to a doctor. Had noone noticed her lying covered by snow in the middle of the hill, something worse might have happened to her. In fact I thought she had come to the cabin before us.”
After the coffee and cookies, Katinka and Jury saw them them to the scooter.
When they drove off this car on skis hurled a lot of snow in their faces, but they kept waving and smiling, until it was out of sight.
It swung towards the hills on its way to the cabin where Kylliki´s class was waiting.
No wolves were seen anywhere.