The first excursion was in the afternoon when we took a bus to our neighbouring municipality Evijärvi. It is part of the same Geopark area as Lappajärvi. The destination was a hiking route partly along duckboards on a bog, partly on a nature trail in the woods.

The reason why we have lots of bog areas in Finland is that profile of the land is very low-lying and it's wet and cool, so the water stays on the ground because the bedrock underneath is close to the surface and the water can't pass through it.

Evijärvi Log Drivers' Route is a 4-km route following the footsteps of log drivers. A few decades ago it was still quite common to drive the logs downstream a river from the inland to the sawmills on the coast. The men worked with a pike pole from a river bank or a boat or even on the floating logs.

Along the way, we tasted some berries and breathed in the healthy fresh air. We also familiarized ourselves with typical Finnish forest flora and fauna.

The populations of big animals in the Finnish woods

• bear 1,700-1,900
• wolf 200-300
• elk 84,000 (Elk hunting season starts in October!)

 

Birdwatching

Merlin Bird ID application - identify a bird species easily! The app is free of charge.