The Sound of Silence - the wilds of Finland

Zoë Sharp

  

Finland in October. I’ll be honest—I was hoping for snow. Maybe not in Helsinki itself, but certainly out in the wilds of Karelia where I spent the second half of my brief trip. Alas, it was mild, even by UK standards, and there were only a couple of days when gloves were a necessity, never mind full polar explorer wear.

Finland is known as the land of a thousand lakes, and for good reason. In fact, there are just shy of 188,000 lakes, so flying into Helsinki it was like looking down onto an intricate paper doily. I expected fir trees—nearly 70 per cent of the country is forest, after all—but not the amazing amount of silver birch, with their startling pale bark and their leaves turning shades of yellow and copper and gold.

And the silence.

The silence had a quality all its own.

Helsinki was as busy and bustling as you’d expect any major city to be. It’s easy to forget, when you’re there, that for a country that is in area the eighth largest in Europe, it has only around 5.5 million people. (To put that into perspective for me, there are over 8 million people in London alone, and 66 million in the UK.)

Out in Karelia, to the east, I was less than a hundred miles from the border with Russia. It felt remote, perhaps because I was intentionally without a car, although there was a canoe and a rowing boat at my disposal.

The small wood cabin where I was staying was incredibly well insulated, which made it very warm—and quiet—inside. But even outside there was little to be heard. Across the whole of Finland, there are only 17 people per square kilometre. I doubt I saw more than half a dozen in the time I was there, and that includes the pair fishing on the lake outside my window.

Normally, I like quiet. I’ve spent time in the middle of the Jordanian desert, and at sea where you’re days away from the nearest land and at night the stars go all the way down to the horizon in every direction. But I confess I found the isolation on this trip a little unsettling as far as getting on with writing was concerned.

Perhaps it was the woods that surrounded the cabin, or the still water of the lake, reminded me too much of all those Scandi-Noir thrillers and I kept expecting the Worst to Happen. Or perhaps I’m too used to pet-sitting on these foreign trips, so was unsettled by not having something with four legs and fur to divert my attention.

Either way, it was a fascinating exploration of another culture, and one which will, no doubt, find its way into a book in the near future…

This week’s Word of the Week is adumbration, which is to give only the main facts about something, a broad outline, particularly something that will happen in the future. From the Latin adumbratus, sketched or shadowed in outline. It can also mean to overshadow something or partially conceal it.

Events

I have been invited to take part in Noir @ The Bar London ‘Chilled To The Marrow’, which takes place on Monday, October 22 from 7:00–10:30 p.m. (doors open at 6:00 p.m.) at The Urban Bar, 176 Whitechapel Road, E1 1BJ. The line-up is Susi Holliday, William Shaw, Mark Hill, Derek Farrell, Jay Stringer, JA Marley, Alex Caan, Barbara Nadel, Zoë Sharp, Liz (Elizabeth) Mundy, Caroline (Caz) Frear, Felicia Yap, and a Wildcard chosen on the night. It’s hosted by Nikki East. There will be the usual book giveaways for the audience, and also a raffle in aid of medical expenses for Evie, daughter of crime author Duane Swierczynski.