It's Friday night by now, we returned from Oulanka Research Station (in Oulanka National Park) after five days of studying and hiking within our comparatively little group of 17 students (from 8 different countries).
We started last Monday, encountered first (rather stubborn!) reindeers on the way north and arrived in the park right in time for dinner (as early as 17:00 which is apparently usual in Finland) and had our first classes on Tuesday morning. We'd usually be hiking in the afternoon, making some real amazing trips (e.g.) to the Russian boarder and some real NP walkings (e.g.) at Little Bear's Circle, close to Juuma town: we spent whole Thursday for this in particular. At night, that is at about 8-10 we went to the Station's sauna and would later on play cards, read books or even have bbq in a tipi in the woods, just 50 meters from the sleeping area. Last big thing (and probably most amazing of them all) had been finally catching a glimpse of what the notorious Northern Lights (Auroral borealis) are looking like! It had been rather hard to see them with one's own eyes, but the camera caught it almost perfectly! But see for yourself...

Pictures online at facebook.









Northern lights (Aurora borealis; visible on 30sec time-exposure) above the Research Station.




Entrance to the Oulanka Research Station.






Group-photo in front of the boarder between Finland and Russia...




Pictures online at facebook.