Living and Working With Snow, Ice and Seasons in the Modern Arctic: Everyday Perspectives (Arctic Encounters) 3031364449, 9783031364440

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ARCTIC ENCOUNTERS

Living and Working With Snow, Ice and Seasons in the Modern Arctic Everyday Perspectives

Edited by Hannah Strauss-Mazzullo Monica Tennberg

Arctic Encounters

Series Editor Roger Norum, Environmental Humanities, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

This series brings together cutting-edge scholarship across the social sciences and humanities focusing on this vast and critically important region. Books in the series will present high-calibre, critical insights in an approachable form as a means of unpacking and drawing attention to the multiple meanings and messages embedded in contemporary and historical Arctic social, political, and environmental changes.

Hannah Strauss-Mazzullo · Monica Tennberg Editors

Living and Working With Snow, Ice and Seasons in the Modern Arctic Everyday Perspectives

Editors Hannah Strauss-Mazzullo Arctic Centre University of Lapland Rovaniemi, Finland

Monica Tennberg Arctic Centre University of Lapland Rovaniemi, Finland

ISSN 2730-6488 ISSN 2730-6496 (electronic) Arctic Encounters ISBN 978-3-031-36444-0 ISBN 978-3-031-36445-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36445-7 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover credit: Mauritius Images GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all our reviewers for their engagement with our work and the constructive feedback they have given. We are also extremely grateful to our diligent language adviser, Pirkko Hautamäki. Any errors that may remain are entirely ours.

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Contents

1

Everyday Practices of Adaptation in the Modern Arctic Monica Tennberg and Hannah Strauss-Mazzullo

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Part I Situated Weather Practices in Work Contexts 2

Waiting for Snow: Discrepancy Between the Demand for Snow and Actual Snow Conditions Seija Tuulentie

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Living with Baltic Sea Ice Élise Lépy

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Reindeer, Cows and People: Sustainable Human–Animal Adaptations in Finnish Lapland Nuccio Mazzullo and Päivi Soppela

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Managing Snow in an Arctic City: Urban Political Ecology Approach Birgitta Vinkka and Jarno Valkonen

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The (Snow) Garden as a Unique Space for Human–Nature Relations Hannah Strauss-Mazzullo

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CONTENTS

Part II Situated Weather Practices in Mobility Contexts 7

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When the Risk Realizes on a Wintry Road. The Failure of the Socio-technical System of Land-Based Transport in Northern Conditions Leena Suopajärvi From Everyday Work to Sensations of Freedom: Snowmobile Users’ Relationships to Snow, Ice and Weather Tapio Nykänen Winter Cycling Developments in Two Cities of Northern Finland Minna T. Turunen

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Watch Your Step: Everyday Urban Mobility in the Arctic Monica Tennberg

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Winter Wonderland: Girls’ Interactive Relationship with the Arctic Environment Varpu Wiens

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Welcome Aboard! Motorboating Encounters in Arctic Inland Waters Vesa Markuksela

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Part III Conclusion 13

Concluding Remarks: Everyday Negotiations with Arctic Weather Hannah Strauss-Mazzullo and Monica Tennberg

Index

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Notes on Contributors

Élise Lépy is an environmental geographer based at the University of Oulu. She is a docent in Arctic human–environment relationships and environmental change (University of Eastern Finland). She holds a Ph.D. in geography from the University of Caen Normandie. Her doctoral dissertation dealt with Baltic Sea ice and its environmental and societal impact on the coastal waters of the Bay of Bothnia and the Gulf of Riga. She currently applies her expertise in various international and multidisciplinary research projects related to human–environment relationships in the Circumpolar North. She has a long record of investigating Arctic environmental changes and adaptations thereto with a specific focus on the impact of climate change on traditional livelihoods. Vesa Markuksela is a senior lecturer at the University of Lapland in Finland. He obtained his Ph.D. (Management) with distinction from a thesis titled “Sense like a fish—an ethnography of troll fishing brotherhoods competition practice.” A sensory scholar at the interface of organization, marketing and tourism studies, Markuksela applies posthuman philosophical, theoretical and methodological approaches to examine more-than-human encounters in a nature-based leisure context, especially in the waterscapes. He has recently embarked on a grounded framework to study the entanglements of mountain biking and trail building. His long-term interest is to uncover novel paths toward multispecies connectedness to capture the nuances of more-than-human sensorial modes of communication. ix

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Nuccio Mazzullo obtained his Ph.D. in social anthropology from the University of Manchester, examining the perception of landscape and concepts of space among Sámi people in northeastern Finland, where his regional specialization lies. In particular, he has conducted fieldwork with Sámi reindeer herders in the Sallivaara Reindeer Association. His research focuses on people’s relations with the landscape and on its influence on how people fashion their sense of identity. General issues of perceptions of the landscape, place and mobility, oral narrative, human–animal relations, adaptation and Arctic indigenous people play a prominent role in his current research. Tapio Nykänen is an adjunct professor in political science and works as a university lecturer in the University of Lapland, Finland. His research interests include political geography, political theory, religion and politics and material culture. He has examined various northern political and cultural themes such as politics of indigeneity in Finnish Lapland, politics of the Laestadian revival movement, land-use disputes in Sápmi, articulations of nature in Sámi environmental activism and whitewater kayaking as a nature relationship. Päivi Soppela Ph.D., is a university researcher in the Arctic Centre at the University of Lapland, Finland. With a background in zoology, she is an adjunct professor (Docent) of adaptation biology at the University of Oulu. She has extensive experience on Arctic questions related to the adaptation of animals, such as reindeer and domesticated breeds, and human livelihoods to the Arctic environment and global change. Her current research concentrates on human–animal–environment relations and the revival of an endangered heritage breed, the Lapland Cattle. Her research combines biology and ethnography and includes the participation of local people and practitioners. Hannah Strauss-Mazzullo received her Ph.D. in environmental sociology at the University of Oulu in 2011. Based at the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, she has conducted research on people’s relationship with the Arctic environment, conflicting land uses and public involvement in environmental decision-making processes. This has also led her to investigate the production of scientific evidence in licensing procedures concerning extractive industries. Leena Suopajärvi works as a university lecturer in environmental sociology at the Faculty of Social Sciences of the University of Lapland. She

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is also an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Technology at the University of Oulu. She has studied large environmental projects (hydropower construction, mines) in northern Finland in terms of local people’s perceptions on social impacts and social license to operate. Her current research interests include systemic perspectives on sustainable transition in traffic as well as global drivers affecting northern industries. Monica Tennberg holds a doctorate in political sciences (University of Lapland, 1998) and has led the Northern Political Economy Research Group at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Finland, as a Research Professor since 2004. An expert in Arctic environmental social studies, she investigates issues of sustainability, natural resource governance and climate change adaptation. Minna T. Turunen Ph.D., is a university researcher and the leader of the Global Change Research Program in the Arctic Centre at the University of Lapland, Finland. With a background in biology, she is an Adjunct Professor in botany at the University of Oulu. Over the past 15 years, she has explored how nature-dependent livelihoods and activities in the Arctic have adapted to the impact of climate change and socio-economic and environmental changes. Her multidisciplinary research encompasses the participation of local people (i.e., the practitioners) and individuals serving in public administration. Minna is an enthusiastic year-round biker, and winter biking is an intrinsic part of her daily life. Seija Tuulentie D.Soc.Sc., is a research professor of Arctic sustainable livelihoods at the Natural Resources Institute Finland (LUKE) and an Adjunct Professor of environmental sociology at the University of Lapland. Her research fields include nature-based tourism, rural development, second homes and issues related to conflicting land use. She has focused specifically on the Arctic and northern questions in Finland and Scandinavia. Nature-based tourism activities such as skiing, biking and hiking are also her leisure activities. Jarno Valkonen is a professor of Sociology at the University of Lapland, Finland. His wide-ranging research interests include politics of nature, human–environment relationality and indigenous knowledge. Recently, his research has focused on waste, dwelling and infrastructures. His recent publications include the books Knowing from the Indigenous North (edited with Thomas Hylland Eriksen and Sanna Valkonen; Routledge, 2019) and Infrastructural being: Rethinking dwelling in a nature

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cultural world (edited with Veera Kinnunen, Heikki Huilaja and Teemu Loikkanen; Palgrave Macmillan, 2022). Birgitta Vinkka is a Ph.D. candidate of sociology at the University of Lapland, Finland. Her previous research interests have focused on the environmental conflicts and politics of nature in northern Finland. In her Ph.D. research, she studies the mundane intertwinements of snow and the Arctic cities. Her chapter in this collection, co-authored with Professor Jarno Valkonen, is the first published article of her Ph.D. research. Varpu Wiens is a postdoctoral researcher in the well-being for Individuals and Families in Nursing research group based at the University of Oulu. A doctor in health sciences, she concentrates on the impact of care and the natural environment on well-being, emphasizing the diversity of northern nature and its production virtually for different target groups. In her dissertation, she formed a hypothetical model of well-being of adolescent girls in northern Finland. She has written about social inclusion, adolescents’ well-being and the welfare effects of nature. With family roots that go back to seventeenth-century Lapland, Varpu Wiens lives in southern Lapland with her family and animals.

List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Fig. 2.1

Fig. 2.2

Fig. 3.1

Fig. 3.2

Fig. 3.3 Fig. 3.4

Fig. 3.5

Map of Finnish Lapland in the Arctic context. Arctic Centre, University of Lapland Seasonal division of registered bed nights in Lapland shows that May and October are the least visited months, while the peak season is from December to February (Graph Esa Inkilä) Snow is commonly made by snow guns. In Finnish Lapland, snow is produced on cold winter days, because it is more energy efficient. It is then stored under the cover of sawdust over summer (Photo Seija Tuulentie) Location map of the Baltic Sea. The gray represents the average ice cover extent on March 21st between 1965 and 1986 (Ice cover data from the Finnish Meteorological Institute) (Map Arctic Centre, University of Lapland) Traveling on the ice over the Gulf of Bothnia to Finland (Acerbi, 1802). Licensed under the public domain mark. Collections of National Library of Finland Skating on sea ice, Oulu (Photo Jean-Nicolas Louis) Sea ice and seal hunting in the Bothnian Bay. Carta Marina from Olaus Magnus, 1539. Licensed under the public domain mark. Collections of Uppsala University Library Frozen People festival on sea ice, Oulu, March 2022 (Photo Élise Lépy)

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 4.1

Fig. 4.2 Fig. 4.3

Fig. 4.4

Fig. 4.5 Fig. 7.1

Fig. 7.2

Fig. 8.1

Fig. 8.2

Fig. 8.3

Fig. 8.4

(a) Reindeer separation in northern Lapland (Photo Päivi Soppela). (b) Lapland Cows taken out for feeding in Ranua, southern Lapland (Photo Lappari elinkeino project/Marko Junttila) Feeding reindeer in the field (Photo Nuccio Mazzullo) (a) Northern Finncattle cow getting her portion of pellets in a barn, and (b) feeding on spruce twigs in the winter (Photos Päivi Soppela) New technologies in reindeer herding: (a) a herder checking the GPS positions of (b) his reindeer indicated by red dots on the map, and (c) a reindeer wearing the tracker (Photo (a) Nuccio Mazzullo, (b) Iisko Näkkäläjärvi, (c) Iisko Näkkäläjärvi) New technology in cattle farming: Robot milking station (Photo Lappari elinkeino project/Marko Junttila) Weather conditions in Finnish Lapland vary from one year to the next and from one day to another. In March 2022, the road by Lake Vietonen was easy to drive (Photo Leena Suopajärvi) Road 932 runs for 1.2 kilometers along the shores of the large Vietonen lake (Map Arctic Centre, University of Lapland) The landscape in the Käsivarsi area is not ‘empty’ but full of meanings and possibilities for reindeer and reindeer herders. Mark Nuttall calls this kind of landscape a ‘memoryscape’, referring to the presence of history in the landscape (Nuttall, 1998, 157) (Photo Tapio Nykänen) Getting a little bit stuck with the snowmobile is usual and not too hard for an experienced driver who knows how to free the vehicle efficiently and ergonomically. However, getting badly stuck in deep and soft snow may be physically very demanding. The snowmobile is heavy (about 300 kg), and wading through the deep snow is hard work (Photo Oula A. Valkeapää) The snowmobile and a sleigh have fallen off a snowy cliff due to poor visibility. Reindeer herders are working to free the vehicle (Photo Oula A. Valkeapää) Driving on a Finnish snowmobile route is often sporty. The routes are usually not flat but bumpy, icy and uneven (Photo Tapio Nykänen)

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LIST OF FIGURES

Fig. 8.5

Fig. 9.1

Fig. 9.2

Fig. 9.3

Fig. 10.1 Fig. 12.1 Fig. 12.2 Fig. 13.1

Off-trail snowmobiling typically requires that the drivers stand up and use their bodyweight to steer the vehicle. When the snow is soft, one gets a sensation of floating through ‘powder’ (Photo Tapio Nykänen) ‘Light traffic’ pedestrian and cycling pathway adjacent to one of the main streets (Koskikatu) in Rovaniemi. A wide pathway makes snow plowing easier, and metal frames protect birches between the street and the pathway from damage caused by snow-plowing service vehicles (Photo Minna Turunen) Bicycle stand in front of the Arktikum Building in Rovaniemi. Many kinds of bicycles are suitable for everyday winter cycling (Photo Minna Turunen) Recreational winter cycling in Isosyöte, northern Finland, on a fat bike designed for snowy conditions (Photo Minna Turunen) Urban walking conditions in Rovaniemi city center, spring 2019 (Photo Monica Tennberg) Racing motorboats (Photo Vesa Markuksela) Amid angry waves (Photo Vesa Markuksela) Paths beaten by skiers, pedestrians and snowmobiles across a lake near the city center in Rovaniemi (Photo Hannah Strauss-Mazzullo)

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CHAPTER 1

Everyday Practices of Adaptation in the Modern Arctic Monica Tennberg and Hannah Strauss-Mazzullo

Human–Nature Relations in Modern Lapland The overall framework in this book is the modern Arctic. The modern designates a certain historical period as ‘the modern era’, an ensemble of particular socio-cultural practices typical of that era and also, a set of subjective experiences of the conditions that such practices create (Berman, 2010). Nature, usually referred to as ‘the environment’ in the modern thinking, is seen mostly as an obstacle to human activities to be overcome, a source of natural resources and a backdrop for human affairs (Palsson, 1996). The Arctic became modernized by southern states, which extended their rationalities and practices of governance to their respective Arctic areas. While the development took place in different

M. Tennberg (B) · H. Strauss-Mazzullo Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland e-mail: [email protected] H. Strauss-Mazzullo e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Strauss-Mazzullo and M. Tennberg (eds.), Living and Working With Snow, Ice and Seasons in the Modern Arctic, Arctic Encounters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36445-7_1

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historical times in the Arctic, the Nordic—European—Arctic area became modernized relatively early and is considered the ‘Old North’, the most industrialized, developed part of the Arctic area (Keskitalo, 2019). Finland is situated in the Nordic, European Arctic. Finnish Lapland became modernized after the Second World War as a source of natural resources, in particular for forestry and hydropower development, and as a site of the state’s spatial policies and administration, including education and healthcare. By modernization of Lapland, the Finnish state extended its governmental grip to the region (Kerkelä, 2003; see also Massa, 1994; Moisio, 2012). Since the 1990s, due to the neoliberal policies of the Finnish state, the state has withdrawn from the region, resulting in rationalization of administration, loss of state employment and loss of services in Lapland. At the same time, the exploitation of nature has intensified. The main economic activities in Lapland are forestry, metal and iron ore industry, energy production and tourism, but traditional livelihoods such as reindeer herding and agriculture are still carried on. Nature is the basis for livelihoods, work and leisure in Lapland. Most of the land in Lapland is owned by the state, and much of it is a nature conservation area. Its 100,367 km2 of land represents 30% of the national territory but only about 3% of the population, as 175,000 people out of 5.5 million inhabitants live in the northern part of Finland. The demographic development in Lapland has been negative for the last forty years. Residents move to population centers in the cities in Lapland, especially to the county center of Rovaniemi and to the southern cities in Finland. Out of the 10,000 Sami in Finland, four thousand live in Lapland, and the rest mostly in the capital region in the south of Finland (Samediggi, NA). There are about 4000 people of foreign background living in Lapland. Three million tourists visited Lapland before COVID19, and tourists have now returned to the region in even greater numbers. Winter is the most popular touristic season, starting in November and continuing to April (Lapin luotsi, 2019) (Fig. 1.1). The environmental context in our book is the climate in Lapland. The region has a subarctic climate, which has features of both continental and maritime climate: summers are mild, and winters are cold and snowy. There is a saying in Finnish that ‘years are not brothers’: there are great differences in weather from one year to the next. The winter is about seven months long: the permanent snow cover arrives in October and lasts until May. The snow cover may vary between 70 and 110 cm in different parts of Lapland. In the winter, daylight is in short supply. For

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Fig. 1.1 Map of Finnish Lapland in the Arctic context. Arctic Centre, University of Lapland

example, in the city of Rovaniemi, in early January there is less than three hours of daylight. Northern lights, typically seen in the winter, color the skies at night. In January, the mean temperature varies between -8 and -16 degrees Celsius in Rovaniemi. The ice cover in rivers and lakes can be 50–90 cm thick. The rapid melting of snow and ice, and the build-up of ice jams in rivers in the spring lead to annual floods in the major rivers of Lapland. The arrival of summer varies a great deal: one may need a warm

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coat or a t-shirt in Rovaniemi in May (For more details, see Ilmasto-opas, 2022). Climate change has dominated the discussion about environmental changes, not only in Lapland, but more generally in the Arctic. In Lapland, a warming climate means shorter, delayed winters, earlier springs, more precipitation year around and more often extreme weather events, such as heat in the summer and storms in the winter, among other things, affecting both the natural environment and human activities. The issue of adaptation—rather than mitigation of emissions—dominates the regional approach to climate change. Seen as an opportunity instead of a problem, danger or threat in Lapland, climate change is envisaged to promote economic development, favor more intensive use of natural resources and possibly create new shipping routes (Regional Council of Lapland, 2015). Different stakeholders and their economic activities in Lapland are expected to adapt to changing environmental conditions rather well (Tennberg et al., 2017). For example, reindeer herders in Lapland may adapt to climatic changes by providing additional feeding for reindeers, re-scheduling reindeer-related work and focusing on development of reindeer products (Rasmus et al., 2020). Tourism might benefit from activities that are less snow-dependent (Tuulentie, 2017) and farmers might introduce new resilient grains and modified farming practices (Kuha, Hallikainen, & Hannukkala, 2018).

Everyday Perspective to Adaptation Current research on climate change adaptation in the Arctic focuses on certain economic activities, sectors and agencies. Everyday life fits poorly into the dominant approaches in climate change research and its main premises (see, for example, AMAP, 2017; Arctic Council, 2016). Moreover, the dimension of everyday life is also largely ignored in governmental policies, both at national and regional levels. For example, the Finnish national plans for climate change adaptation have very little to say about climate change in everyday life. The government assumes that the citizens’ increased awareness will improve recognition of important issues in decision-making relating to everyday life and enhances the residents’ active adaptation to the multiple climatic changes and their consequences (Ministry of Agriculture & Forestry, 2014). Global megatrends, structural economic changes and macro-politics dominate the debate, leaving everyday life by the wayside. It is perhaps no surprise that everyday life

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is characterized by increasing awareness of climate change but complacency in terms of actions to mitigate greenhouse emissions and to adapt pro-actively to changing environmental conditions (Bay-Larsen & Hovelsrud, 2020; Doan, 2014; Kothari & Arnall, 2019; Nowakowski & Osald, 2020). The mainstream approaches do not capture the diversity of adaptations taking place in everyday life. Everyday life is a problematic concept, probably as problematic as community, but changes and adaptation to changes are very much present in people’s ordinary day-to-day lives. However, ‘everyday’ life as a commonly used term has an ideological component, timeless sociality, which turns it ahistorical. According to Sandywell (2004, 174), ‘In reality, everyday experience is a wholly mediated, contested, and processual site of material and ideological struggles, a screen of unsatisfied hopes, desires and dreams as well as a nostalgic icon of value and order’. Here, it serves as an approach to study lived experiences of weather and related mundane practices of work and mobility. It is a concept that allows us to explore such weather-related practices at multiple scales. As Ford et al. (2015, 1051) note: ‘Indeed, northerners are already active agents in responding to climate change at multiple levels, and adaptations are already taking place at household and community scales’. Such adaptations are based on everyday practices. Our question is how everyday life is connected to demanding and changing environmental conditions in Finnish Lapland. Our cases show different practices in everyday life in the contexts of work and mobility in wintertime, dealing with cold temperatures, snowy and icy conditions and in the context of always unpredictable seasonal changes. An everyday perspective to adaptation in such conditions sees life as a grounded, bottom-up and local process consisting of repetitive individual and collective practices. Our approach in this book is based on different applications of practice theory (see for example, Bourdieu, 1972; Schatzki, 1996; Shove, Pantzar, & Watson, 2012). The practice theory-based approach is interested in how people in everyday life negotiate challenging situations and conditions, in our case the harsh and changing Arctic winter. Practices are both individual performances and make up the everyday life of the practitioners as collective entities. Practices are relatively stable, routinized ways of enacting and constructing the understanding of, for example, what is considered ‘normal’ or ‘ordinary’ in the Arctic. Practices consist of different combinations of meanings, materialities and skills. In our cases, the practices include

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meanings such as responsibility, safety and efficiency in difficult weather conditions, materialities such as appropriate clothing, work equipment and machinery and skills such as expertise of local conditions and available technology for work and mobility in a cold climate. Practices do change as links between their defining elements—meanings, materialities and skills—are challenged, broken and rearranged to new sets of practices. The approach thus enables us to capture the active, open-ended character of practices in the context of everyday encounters between people, their changing environments and the surrounding society. These encounters may lead to learning new practices both individually and collectively. Everyday practices are nothing if not mobile (Lave, 2009; Shove et al., 2012). According to an often-heard statement, people in Lapland have a relationship ‘close to nature’, which is formed by practical and physical connections to the natural environment. This close connection runs through the different seasons and their typical activities. Nature, as stressed in practice theory, is not something separate from everyday existence, but is rather a part of the entanglement of relations in which people carry out their daily performances of routinized activities. These human– nature entanglements, or assemblages, are produced and sustained on a day-to-day basis (Ingold 2008; Kothari & Arnall, 2019). The idea does not refer to unproblematic, uncontested or conflict-free human– nature relationships for different individuals or groups. Everyday life is a site of close encounters in entangled human–nature relations, including continuous processes of confrontation, negotiation and accommodation (Löfgren, 2014). The focus on everyday practices highlights how adaptation to changing weather conditions (rather than to a changing climate) is based on such processes. Weather pervades everyday life in many ways but in our modern times via ‘a battery of technologies and managed environments’, which moderates its force (Edensor, 2021, 3). Weather as a material entity in itself is involved in many everyday practices. Rantala et al. (2011) identify three types of weather-related practices: anticipating and coping with the weather as well as discursive practices related to weather. Furthermore, ‘weathering’ is a process through which people sense weather multisensorially and how they individually and collectively define a sense of place (Vannini et al., 2012). Weather plays an important role in identity formation, with affective and sensory dimensions and attachment to a place at different scales, such as ‘Lapland’, ‘Finland’, ‘North’ or ‘Arctic’. For those

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who are accustomed to changing weather conditions, the weather itself can be a dimension of place around which people may organize. Butts and Adams (2022) suggest that changing, difficult and unpredictable weather binds people to a place and influences how they think about themselves, their place and opportunities for adaptation. Typically, northerners consider themselves ready to ‘face whatever comes’. One possible way to understand such a fatalistic, even complacent approach from the perspective of everyday practices is that acceptance of the uncertainty of weather allows people to adapt to it by learning new practices (Butts & Adams, 2022). Our cases come from different parts of Finnish Lapland. They enlighten us about situated practices of ‘weathering’ and include both everyday negotiations consisting of human and nonhuman elements, and in particular geographical and physical contexts in different locations in Finnish Lapland (see Gherardi, 2008 for situated practices). The book has two parts: work-related and mobility-related everyday practices. Castro and Sen (2022) suggest that adaptation takes place in the context of everyday work, ranging from household tasks such as collecting wood for cooking, or fishing for dinner, to varying types of wage labor. Hence, we must look at how people’s work is changing with environmental changes. In the first chapter, Seija Tuulentie reflects on the changing snow conditions in winter due to changing climate and the way such changes require adjustments in the timing of snow-based winter activities for both locals and tourists. Many forms of outdoor recreation in Finland need snow and ice. In the context of an ongoing branding with stereotypical images, the discrepancies between the availability of and demand for snow have produced a set of techniques which are geared toward the secure provision of snow. In the market-driven dynamics of consumerist society, the natural element of snow is turned into a commodity that comes with a price tag. Élise Lépy explores how sea ice in the Baltic Sea has shaped historically local cultures and practices. She discusses the activities on the extended shore of the Baltic Sea during winter months. The frozen sea connects islands with the mainland and nations across the sea, in the past inviting trade but also intruders to cross during winter. Today, a variety of activities are being practiced, but extensive dwelling on the ice requires specialized knowledge of, for instance, the movement of ice sheets during fishing and seal hunt, or the impact of winds during kitesurfing on body temperature, the thickness, smoothness and consistency of ice and channels between ice

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sheets. The breaking of ice or falling into the water around the freezing point is life-threatening, and tragic events are often the starting point of increased security measures. Nuccio Mazzullo and Päivi Soppela investigate everyday practices of animal husbandry in reindeer herding and cattle breeding in Lapland. The pastures for reindeer already suffer from the impacts of climate change but also from being increasingly encroached by other forms of natural resources use, such as tourism, mining and forestry. The aim of sustaining the native breed of Northern Finncattle while responding to the expectations of dairy industry for higher milk production is challenging for the farmers. The ethnographic description of the herders’ and farmers’ daily routines in an environment dominated by challenging conditions emphasizes the importance of local traditional knowledge. Climatic changes, government policies, new technologies and economic development produce additional challenges to both reindeer herders and farmers requiring frequent adaptation of traditional practices of animal husbandry. Birgitta Vinkka and Jarno Valkonen conducted a study of snow management practices in the city of Rovaniemi. In interviews with practitioners, the Arctic urban socio-nature reveals itself as a meshwork of relations. In the event of snowfall, a web of movements is initiated to meet the challenge of keeping city space safe and accessible for all. In the absence of a snow management strategy, urban planning often departs from summer conditions, but practices are visible in the city’s ‘wide streets and loosely structured green spaces because snow needs space’. For the city, snow is at the same time a nuisance and a budgeting problem, but also a landscape equalizer and a pull factor for the tourism industry. Snow management is easy to be taken for granted, but it is in reality embedded in and formed through multiple levels of political, cultural and economic practices. Moving from public to private space, Hannah Strauss-Mazzullo depicts the suburban domestic garden in its snow-free and snow-covered forms as a unique space for human–nature relations. While there is abundant research on the cultural, historical, social and horticultural aspects of private gardens, the time of garden ‘inactivity’ in winter is scarcely mentioned in contemporary literature. The active gardener at the Arctic Circle in Finland, however, does not become inactive during long winters. On the contrary, for six months or so, snow and ice become the target of regular outdoor activity on private premises. For the homeowner, who is

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the focus of this chapter, snow work (lumityö in Finnish) allows for physical exercise and cultural engagement. Snow work thus fulfills a variety of functions in the Arctic everyday, and while it can be minimized through hiring snow removal services, it can never be completely avoided. The second part of the book focuses on mobility in winter conditions by car, snowmobile, bike or on foot. Mobility refers to movement and ability to get from one place to another using one or more modes of transport in everyday life, and is also affected by changing weather conditions in the Arctic (Hastrup & Fog Olwig, 2012). Leena Suopajärvi explores how the calculated risk of getting stuck on a wintery road in Finnish Lapland turned into an event that halted all other commuters’ transit for hours. She describes the network of institutions and individuals involved in preventing and then resolving the breakdown of return traffic from a cottage. The features of the landscape and the current weather conditions called for intervention before the usual traffic peaks, Suopajärvi argues, rendering the shortcoming of the system visible. She discusses how a small everyday event, such as a car accident in difficult winter conditions, can reveal the complexity of an entire system of traffic roads and the problems that also arise from the system itself, in addition to natural conditions and the human actor. Tapio Nykänen investigates the relationships to the snow of snowmobile users in work and leisure contexts. Reading the snow landscape and weather conditions, being able to react quickly and to retrieve the snowmobile when it gets stuck are essential requirements of this activity, which has become a lifestyle for some. Despite the reliance on a motorized vehicle, snowmobiling is considered a nature sport by practitioners. The way in which snowmobilers perceive features of the environment is highly determined by the vehicle, in particular, its ability to move quickly and at ease through difficult terrain. Driving across swamps and over hills off snowmobile tracks, a floating experience is achieved, the snow cover turning the surface soft and velvety smooth. Minna T. Turunen reports on the possibility to commute by bicycle in two northern cities, Oulu and Rovaniemi, during winter months. The differences in bike usage are analyzed regarding the available infrastructure and its maintenance during winter, but also by examining the bicycle culture beyond, including communal efforts to encourage bike use and education toward safety. Turunen introduces two concepts—winter bikeability and bicycle friendliness—in her analysis. While winter cycling will in the future be facilitated by longer snowless periods and shorter

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frost periods, increasingly variable weather will continue to challenge the maintenance of bicycle infrastructure and the safety of cyclists. Monica Tennberg captures the routines and challenges of walking the city of Rovaniemi during winter. She describes the anxiety caused by snow and ice on the ground and the difficulties of moving on foot in changing conditions. The use of studded shoes should be understood as both enabling and limiting: they are enabling where commuters would risk slipping and falling without spikes, and limiting where the entrance to public buildings is prohibited with the equipment—a rule that is often met with creative tactics of resistance. The shoes are considered aesthetically undesirable, embarrassing for the sound they make on the flooring and difficult in indoor use but increasingly necessary in icy, slippery conditions. Varpu Wiens looks at the meanings of winter in the lives of teenage girls in the Arctic. Based on focus group discussions and individual interviews, Wiens depicts the girls’ admiration of their surroundings in a ‘winter wonderland’, but also recognizes a greater reluctance among the girls to go outside because of freezing weather and lack of daylight just below the Arctic Circle. Not only is mobility hampered by layers of clothes, but the clothes also have the appearance of children’s outfits. Spending more time indoors is critically understood as limiting the mind and the body, affecting the mood and the girls’ general sense of wellbeing. Winter is thus ‘a time of laziness, passivity, withdrawal, apathy and feelings of a reduced scope of life’. In contrast, summer is the time to meet each other spontaneously, and to connect socially and physically. Vesa Markuksela presents a sensory ethnographic account of the period between melting snow and the waters starting to ‘ice over’. His chapter focuses on iceless Arctic inland waters, specifically in the performance of water-based recreational activity, motorboating. During the summer term boaters may experience three different seasons (late spring, summer and late autumn). However, weather elements fluctuate considerably. Moreover, water is not just a static background for human actions: the case of motorboating describes the performative and changing relations between humans, things and inland water nature. As an example of methodological developments to study everyday practices, this chapter presents practices as ‘an intertwined intra-action across the elements of the boat crew, nonhuman water body and materialized weather’. The chapter illuminates ways of knowing and doing in the Arctic summer—what it is like to be on and in movement with water nature.

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References AMAP. (2017). Adaptation actions for a changing Arctic: Perspectives from the Barents area. Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP). Arctic Council. (2016). Arctic resilience report. Edited by M. Carson and G. Peterson. Stockholm Environment Institute and Stockholm Resilience Centre. Retrieved March 14, 2023 from https://oaarchive.arctic-council.org/ handle/11374/1838 Bay-Larsen, I., & Hovelsrud, G. (2020). Activating adaptive capacities: Fishing communities in Northern Norway. In G. Fondahl & G. N. Wilson (Eds.), Northern sustainabilities: Understanding and addressing change in the Circumpolar world (pp. 123–134). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-46150-2_ 10 Berman, M. (2010). All that is solid melts into air. Verso. Bourdieu, P. (1972). Outline of a theory of practice. Cambridge University Press. Butts, D., & Adams, H. (2022). Weather contracts: Capturing a sense of weather for place-based adaptation to climate change. Global Environmental Change, 63(38), 102052. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2020.102052 Castro, B., & Sen, R. (2022). Everyday adaptation: Theorizing climate change adaptation in daily life. Global Environmental Change, 75, 102555. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2022.102555 Doan, M. D. (2014). Climate change and complacency. Hypatia, 29(3), 634– 650. Edensor, T. (2021). Introduction: Placing weather. In K. Barry, M. Borovnik, & T. Edensor (Eds.), Weather: Spaces, mobilities and affects (pp. 1–22). Routledge. Ford, J. D., Mcdowell, G., & Pearce, T. (2015). The adaptation challenge in the Arctic. Nature Climate Change, 5, 1046–1053. Gherardi, S. (2008). Situated knowledge and situated action: What do practicebased studies promise? In D. Barry & H. Hansen (Eds.), Sage handbook of new approaches in management and organization (pp. 516–525). Sage. Hastrup, K., & Fog Olwig, K. (Eds.). (2012). Climate change and human mobility: Global challenges to the social sciences (pp. 190–213). Cambridge University Press. Ilmasto-opas. (2022). Maakuntien ilmasto [Climate in Finnish provinces]. Retrieved March 14, 2023 from https://www.ilmasto-opas.fi/maakuntien-ilm asto Ingold, T. (2008). Bindings against boundaries: Entanglements of fife in an open world. Environment and Planning a: Economy and Space, 40(8), 1796–1810. Kerkelä, H. (2003). Teollistuva Lappi osana maailmantaloutta [Analysis of Lapland’s industrialisation as part of global economy]. In I. Massa & H. Snellman (Eds.), Lappi: Maa, kansat, kulttuurit [Lapland: Land, landscapes, peoples, cultures] (pp. 129–159). SKS.

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Keskitalo, E. (Ed.). (2019). The politics of Arctic resources: Change and continuity in the ‘Old North’ of northern Europe. Routledge. Kothari, U., & Arnall, A. (2019). Everyday life and environmental change. The Geographical Journal, 185, 130–141. Kuha, R., Hallikainen, V., & Hannukkala, A. (2018). Aito arktinen maatalous: Lapin maatalouden nykytilanteen ja tulevaisuuden analysointia [Arctic agriculture. Analysing the present and the future of agriculture in Lapland]. Retrieved March 14, 2023 from https://jukuri.luke.fi/handle/10024/ 541549 Lapin luotsi (2019). Väestön kehitys [Demographics]. Retrieved March 14, 2023 from https://lapinluotsi.fi/lappi-nyt/ Lave, J. (2009). The practice of learning. In K. Illeris (Ed.), Contemporary theories of learning (pp. 200–208). Routledge. Löfgren, O. (2014). The black box of everyday life: Entanglements of stuff, affects and activities. Cultural Analysis, 13, 77–98. Massa, I. (1994). Pohjoinen luonnonvalloitus. Suunnistus ympäristöhistoriaan Lapissa ja Suomessa [Conquering nature in the north. Navigating environmental history in Lapland and Finland]. Gaudeamus. Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. (2014). Kansallinen ilmastonmuutokseen sopeutumissuunnitelma 2022 [National adjustment strategy to climate change 2022]. Retrieved March 14, 2023 from https://mmm.fi/kansallinen-sopeut umissuunnitelma Moisio, S. (2012). Valtio, alue, politiikka: Suomen tilasuhteiden sääntely toisesta maailmansodasta nykypäivään [State, region, politics. Governing spatial relationships in Finland since WW2]. Vastapaino. Nowakowski, A., & Osald, A. J. (2020). Do Europeans care about climate change? An illustration of the importance of data on human feelings. University of Warwick. IZA Discussion Paper No. 13660. Retrieved March 14, 2023 from https://www.iza.org/publications/dp/13660/do-europeans-care-about-cli mate-change-an-illustration-of-the-importance-of-data-on-human-feelings Palsson, G. (1996). Human-environmental relations: Orientalism, paternalism and communalism. In P. Descola & G. Palsson (Eds.), Nature and society (pp. 63–81). Routledge. Rantala, O., Valtonen, A., & Markuksela, V. (2011). Materializing tourist weather: Ethnography on weather-wise wilderness guiding practices. Journal of Material Culture, 16(3), 285–300. Rasmus, S., Turunen, M., Luomaranta, A., Kivinen, S., Jylhä, K., & Räihä, J. (2020). Climate change and reindeer management in Finland: Co-analysis of practitioner knowledge and meteorological data for better adaptation. Science of the Total Environment, 710, 136229. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv Regional Council of Lapland, Lapin liitto (2015). Lapin ilmastostrategia 2030 [The climate strategy of Lapland].

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Samediggi. (NA). The Sámi in Finland. Retrieved March 14, 2023 from https:/ /www.samediggi.fi/sami-info/?lang=en Sandywell, B. (2004). The myth of everyday life: Toward a heterology of the ordinary. Cultural Studies, 18(2–3), 160–180. https://doi.org/10.1080/095 0238042000201464 Schatzki, T. (1996). Social practices. Cambridge University Press. Shove, E., Pantzar, M., & Watson, M. (2012). The dynamics of social practice: Everyday life and how it changes. Sage. Tennberg, M., Emelyanova, A., Eriksen, H., Haapala, J., Hannukkala, A., J. K. Jaakkola, J., Jouttijärvi, T., Jylhä, K., Kauppi, S., Kietäväinen, A., Korhonen, H., Korhonen, M., Luomaranta, A., Magga, R., Mettiäinen, I., Näkkäläjärvi, K., Pilli-Sihvola, K., Rautio, A., Rautio, P., Silvo, K., Soppela, P., Turunen, M., Tuulentie, S., & Vihma, T. (2017). Barentsin alue muuttuu – miten Suomi sopeutuu [The Barents area changes – How will Finland adapt?]. Valtioneuvoston selvitys- ja tutkimustoiminnan julkaisusarja 31/2017. Retrieved March 14, 2023 from https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/handle/10024/160246 Tuulentie, S. (2017). Pohjoisen matkailun ympärivuotisuus entistä sstärkeämpää [Northern tourism needs activities year-round]. In M. Tennberg, A. Emelyanova, H. Eriksen, J. Haapala, A. Hannukkala, J. Jaakkola, T. Jouttijärvi, K. Jylhä, S. Kauppi, A. Kietäväinen, H. Korhonen, M. Korhonen, A. Luomaranta, R. Magga, I. Mettiäinen, K. Näkkäläjärvi, K. Pilli-Sihvola, A. Rautio, P. Rautio, K. Silvo, P. Soppela, M. Turunen, S. Tuulentie, & T. Vihma. (2017). Barentsin alue muuttuu – miten Suomi sopeutuu? [The Barents area changes – How will Finland adapt?] Valtioneuvoston selvitys- ja tutkimustoiminnan julkaisusarja 31/2017. Retrieved March 14, 2023 from https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/handle/10024/160246 Vannini, P., Waskul, D., Gottschalk, S., & Ellis-Newstead, T. (2012). Making sense of the weather. Dwelling and weathering on Canada’s rain coast. Space and Culture, 15(4), 361–380.

PART I

Situated Weather Practices in Work Contexts

CHAPTER 2

Waiting for Snow: Discrepancy Between the Demand for Snow and Actual Snow Conditions Seija Tuulentie

Introduction Snow has a big role in shaping the seasonal cycle of people in the north. We may live in a modernized world and our connection to nature may be somewhat detached, but snow is still important for various groups of people. In everyday life, first snow is a delight especially for children, but snow also plays a part in the economy. One of the key industries where snow makes a difference is tourism: the very image of Arctic tourism is largely built on snow. In Finnish Lapland, at Christmas time in particular, snow matters a great deal for international tourists (Hall, 2014) and active local cross-country skiers (Halonen et al., 2022), while domestic tourists tend to prefer the more snow-secure season from February to April (Visitory.io, no date; Mainio, 2020). Snow also brings light to the darkening

S. Tuulentie (B) Natural Resources Institute Finland, Rovaniemi, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Strauss-Mazzullo and M. Tennberg (eds.), Living and Working With Snow, Ice and Seasons in the Modern Arctic, Arctic Encounters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36445-7_2

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days of November. Although international tourism is the bigger player in financial terms, the cultural significance of domestic tourism should not be forgotten: many Finns from the south of the country have a long tradition of heading to Lapland to stay in their own or rental cottages (Hautajärvi, 2014). In addition to different forms of tourism, many recreational activities depend on snow conditions (Neuvonen et al., 2022). The challenge posed by climate change is likely to complicate the relationship to snow-based activities and cause difficulties especially to tourism in the early and late winter season. Northern tourism and recreation involve a range of snow-related activities from cross-country and downhill skiing to snowmobiling and snowshoeing. These have an important role not least in rural and peripheral areas (Demiroglu et al., 2019). Skiing activities support large-scale tourism development initiatives in the mountainous areas of North America, western Europe and the emerging domains in eastern Europe, as well as in Russia and China, for example. Technological development and climate change adaptation needs have a huge impact on these activities (Hudson & Hudson, 2015). In Finnish Lapland as in other northern and mountainous areas, winter tourism depends on snow. A specific international niche of Finnish Lapland is Christmas tourism built around Santa Claus (e.g., Hall, 2014), while the locals are more drawn to cross-country and downhill skiing (Neuvonen et al., 2015). A survey of Christmas tourists to Rovaniemi found that less than onefourth of the respondents considered Rovaniemi an appealing destination if it had no snow, whereas a slight majority indicated that they would not be willing to travel to Rovaniemi in January if the snow season did not start until then (Hall, 2014; Tervo-Kankare et al., 2013). Still, it seems to take more than snow to create a tourist experience. There is an obvious discrepancy between the snowiest times of spring and the presence of tourists: If snow were all that was needed, there would be more tourists— international tourists in particular—in the snowiest season of spring. In this article, I reflect on the understandings of time and seasonality based on the relationship of both the tourism industry and local outdoor recreationists to the changing snow conditions in winter. A major focus will be on the issue of first and last snow, on which climate change has the greatest impact. I will first discuss the interrelationship between climate change and tourism and recreation and will then present the discourses emerging from various data such as marketing material, media articles, blogs, grey literature and non-scientific book chapters. Most of

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the discourses followed in these qualitative materials pertain to Finnish Lapland with some references to other northern and Arctic regions. In the analysis, I will trace the discourses—ways of speaking—of snow-related practices in early winter and late spring, as these are the times of endangered snow security. Drawing on statistics, I will also evaluate the meaning of the changes for touristic and everyday practices. My main aim is thus to examine the discrepancy between the demand for snow and actual snow conditions at a time of changing climate.

Changing Snow Conditions in Relation to Tourism and Demand for Outdoor Recreation The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC (Meredith et al., 2019), declares that ‘Arctic surface air temperature has likely increased by more than double the global average over the last two decades, with feedbacks from loss of sea ice and snow cover contributing to the amplified warming’, and that the amplified Arctic warming peaks in early winter. In the words of the Swedish Commission on Climate and Vulnerability (SOU, 2007; also, Demiroglu et al., 2020), which describes the consequences of warming to winter tourism: After the year 2040, the situation for winter tourism looks more serious. The high season weeks around Christmas and New Year, as well as Easter, will be ‘green’ to an increasing extent. As far as we can judge, this trend will increase towards the end of the century. A structural shift of winter tourism towards areas that are more assured of having snow in the northernmost parts of the country may then become necessary. (SOU, 2007, 395)

This Swedish analysis is also relevant to Finland, where Christmas tourism is extremely important. As Falk and Vieru (2019, 1314) argue, Finnish Lapland is an interesting region in this respect: it is one of the few winter destinations in the world that shows a strong increase in international overnight stays in the early winter season with growth rates of 9% per year on average over the period of 1995–2014. Although climate change has already shortened the snowy season in early and late winter, the typical date of permanent snow cover in Finnish Lapland is still quite early, mid-November, which would be early enough for Christmas tourism. However, given that no two years are the same, snowless December

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may jeopardize the image of winter tourism. Permanent snow may fall already in September, but it has been known to arrive as late as after midNovember. The average time of permanent snow cover varies in different parts of Finnish Lapland from mid-October to mid-November (FMI, no date). Tourism statistics on registered overnight stays in Finnish Lapland show that the high season occurs in December, with somewhat lower numbers through January, February and March, and a rapid decrease in overnight stays in April and especially in May (Fig. 2.1). During 1991– 2020, the permanent snow cover has lasted until 30 April to 20 May (FMI, no date). April would still be a good time for snow-related activities in most parts of Finnish Lapland. To adapt to the changing climate and to the expectations of tourists, fitness enthusiasts and recreationists, the growth in snowmaking and snow storing has been rapid—not only in the Alps but also in the European north (Landauer et al., 2012). Landauer et al. (2012) have found, when comparing Finnish and Austrian cross-country skiers, that Finnish skiers are more technically oriented and therefore value artificial snowmaking and the fitness benefits of skiing more than Austrian skiers. They have also

Fig. 2.1 Seasonal division of registered bed nights in Lapland shows that May and October are the least visited months, while the peak season is from December to February (Graph Esa Inkilä)

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found that in Finland cross-country skiing is considered an important part of the everyday winter activities, and it represents less of a social occasion, as it is more frequently pursued individually than in Austria. In addition to the needs of cross-country and downhill skiers, the peak tourist season at Christmas time puts pressure on snowmaking. In the north, snowmaking is in particular demand at the beginning of the winter season. By the end of the season, snow-based activities are less attractive, even if snow conditions might still be excellent and there is plenty of daylight. As Falk and Vieru (2017) note, the timing of Easter is important for tourism in many ways. In principle, late Easter lengthens the season, but warmer and sunnier weather can turn people’s attention from winter to spring activities. The importance of snow for northern imagery used in tourism cannot be overestimated. In Finnish Lapland, the main Christmas tourism product is Santa Claus. This mythical character would not necessarily need snow, but as Hall (2014) states, the Santa place myth is built on the social construction of Santa’s winter home with snow, pine trees and reindeer, and snow security is often promised. Tourism geographers Dieter Müller and Arvid Viken (Müller & Viken, 2017) have named the contemporary tourism marketing of the north as ‘Arctification’. This, they argue, affirms the image related to winter and snow, provides greater media attention and triggers touristic demand but also reinforces the stereotypical images of the Arctic as a cold and snowy destination. As tourism is a highly climate-dependent industry, it is possible that climatic changes will have a great influence on tourism seasons both directly by changing the current attractions based on the occurrence of snow and indirectly by impacting on the socialization to winter tourism activities such as cross-country skiing. Tourism varies according to season. Many of the locals’ outdoor recreation activities are similarly highly seasonal. In the Nordic countries, cross-country skiing is a valued tradition, practiced by true enthusiasts even in snowless seasons with roller skis. For the past millennia, skiing has been a major mode of transport for commuting, herding and hunting throughout northern Eurasia (Demiroglu et al., 2020). Moving around by skis did not used to need ready-made tracks, but today it is almost exclusively a mode of recreation and sports, and as a leisure activity it demands wide tracks both for classic and skating styles. However, as such it still has a strong connection to the national identity of the Nordic residents (Ween & Lien, 2012). In addition to cross-country skiing,

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important skiing activities are downhill skiing, ski touring, freeriding and snowboarding. According to Neuvonen et al. (2022), the popularity of cross-country and downhill skiing, and other traditional winter activities in Finland, has decreased during the 2000s due to the changing climate. At the same time, new snow-related activities such as winter mountain biking and snowshoeing have attracted more enthusiasts, while walking is the most popular activity throughout the year (Neuvonen et al., 2022). Northern lights have established themselves as a growing tourist attraction. They do not depend on snow but often relate to snowy landscapes and snow-based ways of movement such as snowmobiling or snowshoeing. Also, even though the dark skies of autumn would highlight northern lights even further, snowy times seem to be more popular (Heimtun et al., 2014). The strong seasonality in tourism can be regarded as a problem from the point of view of sustainability, as it demands, for example, structures which are in full use only for a fraction of the year. Also, the touristic seasons differ from one Nordic country to another. In Norway, the high season occurs in summer, while Swedish and Finnish Lapland have long aimed to balance the winter season with more tourism also in the summer and autumn. The growth of international tourism in the Nordic countries has been most robust in early winter, which can be an issue in terms of changing snow conditions. Together with spring months, early winter months are expected to be most affected by climate change (Meredith et al., 2019).

Discourse 1: Crapland, the Fear of Black Christmas The whiteness of Christmas is an important part of Western cultural imagery at large and it also has a special place in the tourist experience in northern Finland (Hall, 2014). As is argued by Susan Hegedus (2007, 53): Snow has the ability to transform the most ordinary of scenes into something magical, and what was once mundane takes on a fairy-tale quality, imbued with purity and peacefulness. But above all it has the ability to fire up the imagination and keep us yearning for the white Christmases of yesteryear that many of us have never experienced.

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For many, a white Christmas is familiar only through cultural products such as songs, movies and books (Hegedus, 2007). Christmas snow is also longed for by those with first-hand experience of it—residents of the north, rural and urban alike. For tourism in Finnish Lapland, especially in terms of increased international tourism in early winter and Christmas time, snow is a lifeline. Lapland has the image of being either a winter wonderland or, if there is no snow in early winter, a ‘Crapland’ as was described by British media in November 2018 (Holopainen, 2018; Viljakainen, 2018). Even the attractions not directly related to snow, such as Santa Claus, need white surroundings. In 2018, Finnish media featured comments such as. ‘The pictures I have seen look terrible and spending 565 euros (£500) per person for one day and coming away without the magic of Christmas will be very disappointing’, said Chris Dunleavy, who paid 3385 euros (£3,000) for a family day trip from Newcastle in northern England, to Enontekiö. (Yle News, 2018)

The newspaper article by Viljakainen (2018) resulted in 51 online comments, where the discussion revolved around whether the situation had been caused by people themselves—that is, by climate change—or whether it was a natural variation of weather. The year 2018 was exceptional: snow came late. There was no snow in Finnish Lapland around 20 November, which the media reported as something of a no-snow record. Statistics collected by the Finnish Meteorological Institute show that there had not been so little snow on the ground in mid-November in the data (which is available in a digitized form as of 1961). This was a difficult situation for tourism activity providers, who were unable to offer any husky or reindeer safaris. The arrival of cold weather helped a little, for they were then able to spread the snow which had been stored from the previous year (Vaarama, 2018). There is still confidence in early winter snow. For example, under the heading ‘Snowy October in Finnish Lapland’, Visit Lapland (2021) reassures the readers: ‘usually especially in the north of Lapland, the first snow starts to stay between mid-October and mid-November’. However, Visit Rovaniemi (Ruohonen, 2022) was both more realistic and inventive on its website, suggesting ‘10 amazing things to do in Rovaniemi without it [snow]’.

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Christmas without snow is a problem not only for the tourism industry. It is a discussion topic among the locals in the north as well as in other parts of the world. In the United States, snow cannons have been used even for private gardens (Rantanen, 2007). In the words of a Finnish songwriter, the lack of snow is a crisis: ‘How do you create the atmosphere if there’s really no snow? Who wants to write songs about black Christmas?’ (Kalmari, 2021, 156–157). Most of Finnish Lapland has not seen black Christmas by the year 2022, but it has been close on occasion at the Rovaniemi latitude. During the darkest time of the year snow also has an important role as a bearer of light. While people in southern Finland feel that winter has turned into an everlasting November (Lakka, 2020), in the north the lack of sunlight is compensated by light reflected by snow.

Discourse 2: Snowmaking as an Answer According to the measurements by the Finnish Meteorological Institute, the typical starting date for a permanent snow cover in most parts of Finnish Lapland is between late October and mid-November. The equivalent time span in southern Finland is from early December to early January (FMI, no date). In all Arctic areas, the onset of the snow season has been delayed during the last decades, but changes in snow properties are not uniform across the Arctic (Bokhorst et al., 2016). In Finland, cross-country skiing is an important leisure activity, with a participation rate of over 40% of the adult population surveyed in 2009– 2010 (Sievänen & Neuvonen, 2011) and still almost 30% in the 2020 survey (Neuvonen et al., 2022). Cross-country skiing has earned a role as both a physical activity and a part of the cultural identity (Landauer et al., 2009; Neuvonen et al., 2015), in much the same way as, for example, in Norway. As a blogger (Kronsted Lund, no date) puts it: ‘Norwegians are known to be obsessed if not in love with skiing’. Not all Norwegians ski and love skiing, but it is remarkable how many ski-passionate Norwegians—talking about loving the ‘real cold’ and looking forward to skiing very soon in the new-fallen snow—there are. What happens if snow fails to fall at an expected time? It is already an established practice to make artificial snow by snow guns or use stored snow to launch the skiing season in late October, no matter what the weather conditions are. At first this was a response to the needs of professional skiers, but today ordinary skiing hobbyists also demand

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their share of early tracks. Some tourist resorts open the skiing season in early October with the help of stored snow (Maljamäki, 2022a), but in some cases this has proved to be a costly experiment, as the tracks have been leveled by heavy rain (Vaalisto, 2006). Adapting to a changing climate through snowmaking can also be something of an issue with increasing costs and environmental consequences (Demiroglu et al., 2020) (Fig. 2.2). A tourism entrepreneur from Finnish Lapland stated in a focus group discussion that the technology is there to produce winter conditions, if these do not occur naturally. At the same time, he was wondering if the companies should resort to using this technology or whether other solutions should be found. Changing the brand and the products was discussed as a possible response (Rantala et al., 2019). Making snow is an old invention and has been developed since the 1950s (Kalmari, 2021). Today, storing snow and making it at the beginning of the season are

Fig. 2.2 Snow is commonly made by snow guns. In Finnish Lapland, snow is produced on cold winter days, because it is more energy efficient. It is then stored under the cover of sawdust over summer (Photo Seija Tuulentie)

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seen as vital both for the tourism industry and outdoor recreationists (Maljamäki, 2022b). In downhill and cross-country skiing, snowmaking is regarded as a necessity not only at lower latitudes but also in the high north. Falk and Vieru (2017) have come to the conclusion that even skiing areas at the northernmost latitudes are not insensitive to variations in natural snowfall. Hence the solid investments in snowmaking facilities. Artificial snow does serve the needs of skiing, but is less useful for other outdoor activities, such as maintenance of longer snowmobiling or dogsledding tracks. However, man-made snow enables tourist companies to offer short routes for others than skiers. As one tourism entrepreneur in Finnish Lapland states: ‘We haven’t depended solely on natural snow for years. Artificial snow helps us to guarantee basic activities from the first week of December onward, reindeer rides, husky safaris and small-scale snowmobiling’ (Passoja, 2015). A news item during the snowless early winter in 2018 made the most of ‘Reindeer frolicking in preserved snow’, which enabled sleigh rides. ‘Because rubber-wheel carts haven’t been used on reindeer safaris so far, we had to come up with something else’ (Vaarama, 2018). How, then, do local cross-country skiers react to the lack of snow in early winter? The demand for artificial snow tracks is high—and frequently debated. The main issue is whether maintaining the tracks represents the proper use of taxpayers’ money, as the fees paid by the skiers do not normally cover the costs. Still, there are demands for artificial snow even in the south of Finland, supported by claims of improving the residents’ fitness, enabling outdoor activities and promoting local livelihoods, such as the sports equipment industry and tourism. A Finnish researcher interviewed by Kalmari (2021, 90–91) argues that snow-related activities have multiple meanings for ordinary people in the north: ‘The relationship to snow is partly personal but it is also constructed by the community and culture as a whole’. If we lose snow-related activities, the researcher says, it is not only a question of public health but relates to the whole culture and national identity.

Discourse 3: Spring is Best---For Those Who Know Traditionally, cross-country skiing in Finland has been practiced for free on natural tracks during winter months (Repo, 2018). In Finland, the snow cover is usually at its deepest in mid-March, and in Lapland often as late as early April. Soon after this, the snow begins to melt rapidly

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(FMI, no date) but in the northernmost areas of Finland and Norway, for example, it is possible to ski and do ice-fishing and other snow-related activities as late as the end of May (Graylingland.com, no date). Springtime, when the snow conditions are the most secure, also has more sun hours than the busy Christmas season of international tourism. There is also the fact that springtime enables long-distance skiing unlike the short early winter tracks. Around 10% of Finns have done skiing trips of more than 20 kilometers, and 1% have experience of trips with an overnight stay in the wilderness (Neuvonen et al., 2022). Around many ski resorts and national parks, cross-country skiing tracks cover hundreds of kilometers with open wilderness huts and fireplaces on the way. In a Nordic Council of Ministers’ project, Finnish tourism industry stakeholders noted that even though winter conditions are available for much longer, usually at least throughout April, the international demand and offers are limited to the Christmas season (Rantala et al., 2019). Schools’ winter holidays— which used to be called skiing holidays—take place from mid-February to mid-March, and domestic tourists commonly head to the north at this time of year. Still, we live in a fast-cycle world where summer equipment and gardening seeds are advertised as early as February. This is customary especially in supranational market chains which are not known to adjust their campaigns to local circumstances, and which thus direct our thoughts to the coming snowless season. Even though there are ski resorts open throughout the year in the Alps or until May in northern Europe (Sykes, 2022), few skiing enthusiasts avail themselves of these opportunities. As a blogger states (Keväthangilla Levillä, 2017), in April people in southern Finland have already been looking forward to the summer for some time. According to a columnist in a Lapland newspaper (Salo, 2022), the nastiest month of the year in the Arctic Circle is May, when social media posts from southern Finland are full of images of blossoming nature. When the spring flowers open their petals in the south, it is hard to get one’s head around the fact that the prime skiing season in the north has only just begun. A former Finnish professional skier praises the snow conditions of spring: ‘This is the best skiing time. You’re carried by the snowdrift, and you can ski wherever you want’ (Kalmari, 2021, 144). Thus, late spring is the time when the practices differ between some enthusiasts and the main crowds of both international and domestic tourists. It also shows that tourism to the north is not only about snow but about marketing and such attractions as darkness, Santa Claus and

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northern lights. Ski resorts in northern Finland try, however, to ensure in their marketing that March and April, replete with light and (possibly) sun, is the best time to ski (Inarisaariselka.fi, no date; Levi.fi, no date; Luosto.fi, no date). Still, even if tourists found their way to a ski resort in northern Europe in early May, they would be hard-pressed to find services open. The hotel and restaurant staff have left for their holidays, and it is difficult to find accommodation or other services. This obviously applies to the seasonality of tourism all over the world. Northern tourist entrepreneurs regard May as the most difficult time of the year: there might be great snow conditions or—instead—dry mountain biking trails (Rantala et al., 2019). A ski instructor at the Pallas resort hopes that people had more time when they come to experience nature. They could then make the most of suitable conditions (Kalmari, 2021, 115). This comment relates to the question of sustainability by adjusting tourism activities to the natural conditions and to the idea of slow tourism. Longer stays instead of more frequent shorter trips would be more sustainable, decreasing the carbon footprint of travel, and the low season could also offer rest and relaxation in a less busy setting. In addition to demand problems in late spring, the effects of climate change are more visible at both ends of the snow season. As Arctic areas rely on snow-based activities, the unreliability of the snow cover may make late spring an even more quiet time in northern tourist resorts and wilderness areas. It is possible that May becomes more difficult to move around and although mountain biking has been suggested as helping to overcome the lack of tourists during the summer seasons, it cannot increase tourism in May. New possibilities for outdoor recreation and tourism can be based on such natural phenomena as increasing light, return of migratory birds and the melting of snow.

Discussion: Life According to Natural Conditions? Adaptation to climate change can be divided into two: firstly, technical adaptation such as snowmaking and, secondly, diversification of products. Thus, one way of adapting to climate change in tourism is to create new products which fit into the reality of seasonal variation. Product diversification is considered the most promising adaptation strategy for climate change-related issues of ski tourism (Steiger et al., 2021).

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As snow conditions throughout winter are becoming more varied and unreliable, the circumstances of early winter may appear again in mid-winter. In relation to reindeer herding and the way of life of indigenous people and local residents, changing seasonal snow conditions during winter clearly cause problems (Bokhorst et al., 2016; Turunen et al., 2016). Outdoor recreation and tourism are not discussed in these contexts, but windy and icy mid-winter conditions affect them as well. Seasons continue to be important for people in many ways. Finns are said to engage with nature and the seasons particularly keenly, but so are many other nations, such as Japanese (Daniels, 2009). The critiques of consumer society presume a paradigmatic and linear shift from natural, seasonal cycles of premodern times to a commodified ‘unseasoned’ and more feverish rhythms of modern times. Shove et al. (2009, 6) argue, however, that many things in society show that commercial and seasonal rhythms are mixed. They have distinguished specific relations between coexisting seasons and cycles of consumption and practice. Seasons shape our year, but seasonal practices are also strongly commercialized. The arrival of snow or time for gardening takes place in a specific season but the marketing starts considerably ahead of this. Marketing may also create pressure to act similarly as the others at the same time. Daniels (2009) argues that seasonal and commercial rhythms are intertwined with domestic rhythms, and by referring to Henri Lefebvre she claims that in the domestic arena the cyclical, natural rhythms of bodies, days and nights, months and years, seasons and plants intermingle with linear, social rhythms of work, childcare, leisure and travel. In relation to Japanese culture, Daniels (2009) notes that the market actively articulates and stages seasonal consumption rhythms. This seems to apply widely to other than the Japanese contexts as well. Leisure and holiday come with anticipation and living in future. Planning and anticipation can be almost as important as the action itself (Hall & Holdsworth, 2016). We expect certain conditions, and the realization of ‘wrong’ kinds of conditions can lead to keen feelings of disappointment as we saw in the frustration of British tourists in Lapland in the early winter of 2018. The seasonal cycle of tourism speaks volumes about our relationship to time and nature. Setting our sights on the coming season, be it winter or summer, affects our expectations. Also, the ‘Arctification’ of tourism described by Müller and Viken (2017) associates the north with snow and cold weather, increasing the tourists’ expectations. Thus, the snow is

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expected, and desperately needed, in early winter. Snow is so important for the image of the north that there are plans to have year-round snow in Ounasvaara in Rovaniemi. This is not unique: for example, Oslo, the capital of Norway, already has a year-round ski resort (Hannola, 2022). Research on Arctic everyday life has focused on indigenous livelihoods and the traditional lifestyles of other locals. However, nowadays more and more northerners live in urban areas or population centers (Rasmussen, 2011), and their lifestyles resemble those of the southerners and Western lifestyles at large. As a growing industry, tourism directs attention to outdoor activities and snow conditions from a new point of view. Previously, the snow cover clearly mattered, but the issues were different: Colbeck noted in 1987 that the history of physical snow-cover research was related to water resources and avalanches while lately, since the 1970s, these questions have been complemented by the profitability of skiing areas and the need for artificial snow (Colbeck, 1987). Obviously, the snow cover has since attracted interest especially in relation to climate change, which is intertwined with all human activities including tourism and outdoor recreation. Above all, snow has historically been seen as a problem, especially in the urban context. For example, McKelvey (1995) describes how communities have found more sophisticated ways of dealing with the ‘snow problem’, clearing excess snow, while ski resorts need more snow and make it themselves if the natural means fall short of expectations. In the cities that are no longer accustomed to tackling the abundance of snow this is a question of too much snow in the wrong place at once, but in places such as ski resorts, there may be too little of the white stuff. The need for snow in late autumn or early winter and loving the last snow in springtime are both impacted by climate change as it hits hardest both ends of the snowy season (Bokhorst et al., 2016). However, the longing for snow at the beginning of the season is more crucial, and the demand is higher both among local northerners and among tourists and the tourism industry. This request has been answered by snowmaking and using stored snow. Snowmaking is not necessarily unsustainable if it is done by renewable energy or by other energy-saving modes (Maljamäki, 2022a). The second answer is stored snow, which can be made with less energy during the cold spells of winter. The more difficult issue is the progressively earlier need and the growing demand. During the twentieth century, it was hard to ski on natural snow even in mid-Lapland in mid-October (Oksanen, 1999). Artificial tracks now open as early as

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the beginning of October (Silvennoinen, 2022). Snow is also regarded as a free commodity. It comes at a price only after snowmaking enters the equation (Kalmari, 2021, 110–112, 138). Rantala et al. (2019) have noted that while the Arctic areas of Europe and North America will gain a competitive advantage in snow-based winter tourism in the next few decades compared to destinations located in central Europe or southern parts of the Nordic countries, a key challenge is maintaining the customer base for winter activities in the tourist-generating regions. This concern was also presented in their workshop discussions: due to shortening or lacking snow periods in the current tourist-generating regions, new generations will not necessarily learn to ski and perceive the attractiveness of such activities, for example, which channels their future tourism demand toward alternative destinations. This is also supported by the statistical survey of Neuvonen et al. (2022) showing that among the Finnish population participation in almost all snow-based activities—including such motorized activity as snowmobiling—has decreased during the 2000s although the decrease has not been drastic. Also, some non-traditional activities, such as snowshoeing and winter mountain biking, have increased in popularity. In Arctic future studies there is a lack of future images of tourism (Arbo et al., 2013) not to speak of the futures of everyday life. The idea of engaging in activities in accordance with the natural conditions needs more attention.

Conclusion Seasonality and seasonal practices are traditionally important for people in the north due to changing natural conditions and the possibilities offered by nature. This seasonal aspect has withstood modernity and is still alive in many work-related and leisure practices, which are also supported by institutional arrangements such as holiday seasons. However, living in the future perspective is an integral and necessary part of being human, and because contemporary technology allows us to affect the natural conditions, people wish to experience the coming seasons sooner, for example through artificial skiing tracks, which are available already at the beginning of October. Never mind the fact that Lapland did not necessarily have enough snow for skiing at that time in the past, either. This anticipation and future orientation are boosted by the commercial practices which are at least one season ahead of us.

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There is an obvious discrepancy between the actual snow conditions and both tourism demand and local hobbyists’ needs. The snowiest times in northern Europe occur in mid-March and early April, while the tourist season peaks in November and December, and skiing enthusiasts, too, seem to demand artificial snow in early winter. Late winter cannot cope with the competition from early and mid-winter. One reason might be the orientation to the coming seasons, further strengthened by marketing and especially the attractiveness of Christmas-related conceptions. In terms of sustainable outdoor activities and tourism practices, it would be important to offer activities that are a better fit for the actual natural conditions of each season. To clamor for snow at all costs serves neither climate mitigation nor sustainability ends. And taking time to enjoy the last snow of spring could be more fun also for other than skiing enthusiasts, and especially those living in the north.

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FMI, Finnish Meteorological Institute. (no date). Snow statistics. https://en.ilm atieteenlaitos.fi/snow-statistics Graylingland.com. (no date). About ice fishing in Kilpisjärvi wilderness area. https://www.graylingland.com/116 Hall, C. M. (2014). Will climate change kill Santa Claus? Climate change and high-latitude Christmas place branding. Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, 14(1), 23–40. Hall, S. M., & Holdsworth, C. (2016). Family practices, holiday and the everyday. Mobilities, 11(2), 284–302. https://doi.org/10.1080/17450101. 2014.970374 Halonen, J., Lahtinen, A., Rautio, M., Selkälä, E., Soppela, B., & Turpeenniemi, S. (2022). Kannattavampi ensilumenlatu [A more sustainable first-snow track]. In S. Turpeenniemi (Ed.), Arktinen lumi – Lumen merkitys [Arctic snow: The significance of snow] (pp. 55–66). Lapland University of Applied Sciences. Hannola, H. (2022). Ounasvaaran aluetta kehitetään liikunta-, hyvinvointi- ja matkailukeskittymäksi [Ounasvaara region to become a centre of exercise, wellness and tourism]. In S. Turpeenniemi (Ed.), Arktinen lumi – Lumen merkitys [Arctic snow: The significance of snow] (pp. 51–54). Lapland University of Applied Sciences. Hautajärvi, H. (2014). Autiotuvista lomakaupunkeihin. Lapin matkailun arkkitehtuurihistoria [From wilderness huts to holiday villages – An architectural history of Lapland tourism]. Doctoral dissertation, Aalto University. Hegedus, S. (2007). Dreaming of a white Christmas. Weatherwise, 60(6), 52–53. https://doi.org/10.3200/WEWI.60.6.52-53 Heimtun, B., Jóhannesson, G. T., & Tuulentie, S. (2014). Northern lights tourism in Iceland. UiT, The Arctic University of Norway. Holopainen, H. (2018, November 22). Brittimedia lyttää mustan Lapin – Laplandista tuli ‘Crapland’ [No-snow Lapland written off by British media: Lapland became ‘Crapland’]. Yle News. https://yle.fi/a/3-10520508 Hudson, S., & Hudson, L. (2015). Winter sport tourism: Working in winter wonderlands. Goodfellow Publishers Ltd. Inarisaariselka.fi. (no date). Pitkä ja luminen talvi [A long and snowy winter]. https://www.inarisaariselka.fi/fi/kevathanget/ Kalmari, H. (2021). Lumen jäljillä [On the trail of snow]. Docendo. Keväthangilla Levillä (2017) http://www.lahdetaantaas.fi/2017/04/kevathang illa-levilla.html Kronsted Lund, L. (no date). The Norwegian Love Affair With Skiing. Culture, Identity & Winter Landscapes. https://www.nexusnatura.org/sea rch?q=skiing Lakka, P. (2020, January 15). Meteorologi ennustaa loputonta marraskuuta: Talvi ei ehkä ala kaikkialla ollenkaan [Endless November forecast by meteorologist:

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Oksanen, T. (1999). Suomen lumipeitteen alueellinen vaihtelu [Regional variation of snow cover in Finland]. Master’s thesis, University of Helsinki. https:// helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/20966/suomenlu.pdf?sequence=1 Passoja, A. (2015). Luojan lumitykkiä vastaan on turha maallisilla lumitykeillä taistella [Futile to fight against God’s snow cannon with man’s snow gun]. Yle News. https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-8448189 Rantala, O., Barre, S. D. L., Granås, B., Jóhannesson, G. Þ., Müller, D. K., Saarinen, J., Tervo-Kankare, K., Maher, P. T., & Niskala, M. (2019). Arctic tourism in times of change: Seasonality. Nordic Council of Ministers. Rantanen, K. (2007). Valkoinen joulu vaikka väkisin [White Christmas at all costs]. Tiede, 10. Rasmussen, R. O. (2011). Megatrends. TemaNord 2011:527. Nordic Council of Ministers. Repo, K. (2018) First snow ski tracks – prolonging of the natural season of the cross-country skiers in Finland. Master’s Thesis University of Jyväskylä Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences Social Sciences of Sport. Ruohonen, A. (2022). No snow – 10 amazing things to do in Rovaniemi without it. https://www.visitrovaniemi.fi/no-snow-10-amazing-things-to-doin-rovaniemi-without-it Salo, T. (2022, May 13). Vuoden ikävin kuukausi [Nastiest month of the year]. Lapin Kansa. Shove, E., Trentmann, F., & Wilk, R. (2009). Introduction. In E. Shove, F. Trentmann, & R. Wilk (Eds.), Time, consumption and everyday life: Practice, materiality and culture (pp. 1–16). Berg. Sievänen, T., & Neuvonen, M. (2011). Luonnon virkistyskäyttö 2010 [Outdoor recreation 2010]. Working Papers of the Finnish Forest Research Institute, 212. Silvennoinen, S. (2022, October 6). Lapissa hiihdetään perjantaista alkaen – ei maksa mitään [In Lapland, skiing starts this Friday – it does not cost anything]. Iltalehti. https://www.iltalehti.fi/talviurheilu/a/d6910861-93fd4402-b91e-ee687b0987ce SOU (2007). Sweden facing climate change – Threats and opportunities. Swedish Government Official Reports, SOU 2007:60. https://www.government. se/49b75f/contentassets/5f22ceb87f0d433898c918c2260e51aa/sweden-fac ing-climate-change-sou-200760 Steiger, R., Damm, A., Prettenthaler, F., & Proebstl-Haider, U. (2021). Climate change and winter outdoor activities in Austria. Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism, 34, 100330. Sykes, A. (2022, November 30). Skiing in April: 20 best late season skiing destinations in Europe. Ridestore Magazine. https://www.ridestore.com/mag/ski ing-in-april-late-season-skiing-destinations-europe/

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Tervo-Kankare, K., Hall, C. M., & Saarinen, J. (2013). Christmas tourists’ perceptions to climate change in Rovaniemi, Finland. Tourism Geographies, 15(2), 292–317. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2012.726265 Turunen, M. T., Rasmus, S., Bavay, M., Ruosteenoja, K., & Heiskanen, J. (2016). Coping with difficult weather and snow conditions: Reindeer herders’ views on climate change impacts and coping strategies. Climate Risk Management, 11, 15–36. Vaalisto, H. (2006, November 27). Kallis tykkilumi sulaa hiihtokeskuksissa [Expensive cannon snow melts at ski resorts]. ‘Ilta-Sanomat. Vaarama, V. (2018, November 21). Ennätyksellinen lumettomuus piinaa Lapin matkailuyrityksiä – maa ei ole ollut milloinkaan mittaushistoriassa näin musta [Tourism enterprises hit by lack of snow: never before have we had so little snow]. Yle News. https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-10517050 Viljakainen, M. (2018, November 24). No more Crapland! Lumeton joulumaa muuttui valkoiseksi yhdessä yössä [No-snow Christmas land turns white overnight]. Ilta-Sanomat. https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000005910814. html Visit Lapland. (2021, October 19). Snowy October in Finnish Lapland. https:// www.ourlapland.fi/winter-snow-lapland-october/ Visitory.io (no date). https://visitory.io/fi/lapland/ Ween, G. B., & Lien, M. E. (2012). Decolonialisation in the Arctic? Nature practices and land rights in sub-arctic Norway. Journal of Rural and Community Development, 7(1). Yle News (2018). Tourists turned off by Finland’s unusual ‘black’ Lapland cancel holiday jaunts. https://yle.fi/news/3-10521551

CHAPTER 3

Living with Baltic Sea Ice

Élise Lépy

Wintertime, and there is the sea, the Bay of Bothnia to be more exact. From gazing at the rough waters of the English Channel, I have transported myself to be in awe of this great white vastness. The horizon has disappeared, the sea and the cloudy sky are one. It is hard to say where the shore ends and the sea starts. The foreshore has disappeared from sight. Covered by a thick layer of snow, the frozen seascape and the landscape have merged, fading the boundary line between land and sea. Footprints have shaped pathways compressing the freshly fallen snow. Snowmobiles have left their mark here and there, and when I venture onto the pack ice, there are other signs of the passage of people—holes in the ice, snow angels, cross-country ski tracks, even the odd mark of someone cycling on the ice. As a stranger to this natural environment, I am struck by the ways in which the prints of human presence cohabit with marks of deformation of pack ice like cracks and small piles of ice fragments. At that moment I knew that I was in the right place to study the interactions between

É. Lépy (B) Faculty of Humanities, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Strauss-Mazzullo and M. Tennberg (eds.), Living and Working With Snow, Ice and Seasons in the Modern Arctic, Arctic Encounters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36445-7_3

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people and the sea ice environment they are surrounded by. A myriad of questions emerged: what do people do on sea ice? how do they adapt to it every year? is it a constraint or an asset? I had just begun my doctoral studies and this was the point to launch a survey to better understand how often locals of the Bay of Bothnia visited the sea ice and what kind of practices on ice they had. To my great astonishment, some of my local colleagues questioned the relevance of such a survey: ‘why wonder about the locals’ winter practices on sea ice, this is obvious and of no interest’. This reaction says a lot about how some locals take for granted the nature with all its winter magic in the North. Locals are also surprised when I tell them that sea ice is one of the first places I take foreign relatives and friends to visit in winter. Tourists are as captivated by sea ice as they are by aurora borealis and the amount of daylight. These wonders of nature are linked to the highly marked seasonality of the region. As Jones (2007, 18) well describes, the extreme seasonality of the North is ‘something that visitors are aware of and fascinated by, yet which the inhabitants of the region often seem, through familiarity, to take for granted’. This is perhaps one of the reasons why very few studies about Baltic Sea ice have been published in the field of human sciences. Over the decades, the Baltic Sea has attracted researchers from various fields of science especially because of its strategic geopolitical position (Ekengren, 2018; Neumann et al., 2018), but also because it is one of the world’s busiest maritime crossroads (Caban et al., 2017; Kulkarni et al., 2020). Above all, there has been a major scientific interest to tackle environmental problems linked to the high level of eutrophication the Baltic Sea suffers from (e.g. Andersen et al., 2017; Gustafsson et al., 2012). The Baltic Sea also deserves greater attention from social science research to explore the seasonal sea ice, which makes it unique in a European geographical context. Only a few contemporary publications (e.g. Ahtiainen et al., 2013; Lépy, 2009, 2012, 2013) have looked at the relationships between people and ice in the context of the Baltic Sea, and yet such studies could benefit the field of ice humanities (see Sörlin & Dodds, 2022). So far, research in ice humanities has largely focused on the Arctic region. Indeed, the body of literature about sea ice and Arctic peoples has increased in the past years (Huntington et al., 2017), and a great deal has been written about the use of sea ice in the Arctic (Aporta, 2010, 2011; Aporta et al., 2011; Gearheard et al., 2013; Inuit Circumpolar Council, 2014; Laidler et al., 2010; Riewe, 1991), the impacts of climate change (ACIA, 2005; Bravo, 2009; Durkalec et al.,

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2015; Henshaw, 2009; Nichols et al., 2004) and the traditional ecological knowledge and terminology of ice (Krupnik et al., 2010). Sea ice is a crucial component of the globe, as it plays a pivotal role in governing the global energy balance and is thus a significant part of the world’s climate system (Dieckmann & Hellmer, 2003; Ogilvie, 2022; Weeks, 2010). Sea ice is often defined in geophysical terms based on its properties and behavior (Perovich, 2017; Weeks, 2010), but it is far from being only a physical cold substance (Dodds, 2018). It is much more than simply frozen seawater. Sea ice is culturally important to many communities in the Arctic, such as the Inuit, whose livelihoods depend on the ecological services provided by the ice pack in terms of food security and well-being (Dodds, 2018). But what does it mean to live with sea ice, and more, to live with Baltic Sea ice? While Arctic Indigenous peoples have a vital relationship with ice, how do people inhabiting the shores of the Baltic Sea interact with this frozen environment today? Have their experiences of, and relationships with ice changed over time? Is sea ice still part of the local culture as it was in the past when markets were organized on the pack ice, when fishermen and hunters relied on it to catch food resources and when travelers used it as a frozen bridge to cross the Åland and Archipelago seas to reach Sweden and Finland? This chapter offers a comprehensive overview of Baltic Sea ice. It explores how humans relate to seasonal changes of the Baltic Sea landscapes and how spatiality and temporality of sea ice have shaped human culture. It deals with the core concept of seasonality in relation to natural landscape changes and human responses in terms of perception, vulnerability and adaptation. In a changing climate, Baltic Sea ice is becoming a fragile environment, and this chapter raises the question of the environmental heritage that the Baltic Sea ice may represent in the near future. But hopefully it is still time for the Baltic Sea ice humanities to be an integral part of sea ice research.

From Seascape to Icescape: The Seasonal Continentalization of Marine Space Ice comes to the lives of coastal communities of the Baltic Sea every winter and disappears every spring. In the European geographical context, the Baltic Sea waters have the uniqueness to freeze every winter. Baltic Sea ice formation has a probability of occurrence equivalent to 100% annually, variably covering the 420,000 km2 of this marine intracontinental

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basin (Fig. 3.1). The ice formation can be explained by the combination of three factors: (1) the Baltic Sea is impacted by predominantly polar and continental air masses, especially in the northern parts, which result in a negative air temperature; (2) the Baltic Sea is one of the world’s biggest brackish seas with a salinity of 3‰ in the Bay of Bothnia and 10–13‰ in the Baltic Proper (Kullenberg, 1981), the low rate of salinity contributing to the ice growth; and (3) the Baltic Sea is a semienclosed sea, which limits the water exchange through the Danish Straits and makes the average renewal time of waters 30 years (Mohrholz et al., 2015). The Baltic Sea ice is subject to a high level of variability. To describe the Baltic Sea ice climate, scientists commonly use three variables (Vihma & Haapala, 2009), whose intensity is a good indicator of the severity of the winter. The spatial ice extent varies from year to year as does the annual maximum, which covers from 37,000 km2 to 420,000 km2 (1720–2021), i.e. 9–100% of the surface. The maximum ice thickness can sometimes reach more than 100 cm in the northernmost parts. The ice season lasts on average 175 days (1937–2005) in the north, where the average ice freezing starts in November and the average ice melting occurs in May (Lépy, 2009). The duration of the ice season is more variable in the southern parts of the Baltic Sea. As the formation of sea ice is spatially and temporally variable, the seasonal change of landscape also varies spatially and temporally. Not all regions of the Baltic Sea see the seascape changing into icescape in winter. This change is more dominant in the Bay of Bothnia than in other parts of the Baltic Sea, which is why the relationship people have with sea ice differs within the entire Baltic Sea region and is clearly stronger on the shores of the Bay of Bothnia. It is not even certain that the waters of the Gulf of Riga will freeze in the coming winters (Lépy, 2009). When seascape changes to icescape, the movement of water stagnates and transforms the scenery into a white plain which can act as the continuation of land. Indeed, the line between sea and land disappears and the pack ice can be seen as an extension of the land in terms of both visual aspects and activities. Living with Baltic Sea ice means living within a cold environment for a number of months in a year and therefore requires seasonal adaptation by people living in this environment.

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Fig. 3.1 Location map of the Baltic Sea. The gray represents the average ice cover extent on March 21st between 1965 and 1986 (Ice cover data from the Finnish Meteorological Institute) (Map Arctic Centre, University of Lapland)

Sea Ice and Accessibility One of the most intriguing aspects of the seasonal continentalization of the Baltic Sea marine space is accessibility. While the sea icescape could previously act as an obstacle, especially for shipping, it could also enable the movement of people and animals (Palang et al., 2007). This is illustrated in detail in Olaus Magnus’ Carta Marina published in 1539 which depicts the geography of northern Europe with real and imagined animals from Nordic folklore. Magnus’ map was the first

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regional map of Fennoscandinavia with representations of winter features such as sea ice (Jones, 2007; Magnus & Balzamo, 2005), describing, for example, people crossing the Quark in a reindeer-drawn sleigh. Indeed, sea ice was at the time used by travelers and animals to move between Sweden and Finland. Travel accounts on the discovery of northern far-off lands are a great source of information on how travelers coped with the diverse seasonal physical environments (e.g. Clarke, 1838; Coxe, 1784; the Mauperthuis expedition in Outhier, 1744; Skjöldebrand, 1801). Acerbi, for example, narrates how he crossed the Gulf of Bothnia on ice from Stockholm to Turku through the Åland islands (Fig. 3.2) in horsedrawn sledges (Acerbi, 1802). He also mentions that wolves were the wild animals chiefly found on sea ice from Finland (Acerbi, 1802, 200).

Fig. 3.2 Traveling on the ice over the Gulf of Bothnia to Finland (Acerbi, 1802). Licensed under the public domain mark. Collections of National Library of Finland

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Sea ice has also given direct access to the enemy territories during wars. At times it became a battle scene as illustrated in Olaus Magnus’ Carta Marina, where knights are fighting on the ice pack of the Gulf of Finland. Another good illustration is the Finnish war of 1808–1809, when the Kingdom of Sweden and the Russian Empire clashed over the Baltic Sea. In March 1809, the Russian army attacked the Åland islands over the ice before making raids against the Umeå area from Vaasa, marching over the ice of the Sea of Bothnia from Finland (Lappalainen et al., 2008). The freezing of waters continues to provide faster access also today, sometimes to ‘places that cannot be reached during some other time’ (Palang et al., 2007, 10). In some circumstances, it can speed up transportation compared to the use of ferries. This is the case of the ice road between Oulu on the mainland and the island of Hailuoto in the northern part of the Baltic Sea. Every year, the official opening of the ice road is a long-awaited event by the Hailuoto residents, who are eager to save time by driving on the ice. This eight-kilometer ice road runs not far from the course of the ferry line, which cannot always keep the schedule when there is a need to break the ice. The winter ferry traffic opened in 1968, when vessels were strengthened to cope with the frozen waters. The traffic was nevertheless closed for two to three months every winter until 1989, when a more powerful ferry enabled all-year operations (Leppäranta, 2013). This did not stop people crossing the bay by driving on ice, especially at the time when it was the only possibility to reach the mainland during the closing of the winter traffic. In 1973, the ice road from Hailuoto to Oulu was officially opened with a set of safety measures regarding the ice thickness and weight of vehicles. The number of days when the ice road is open has varied from 49 to 131 days with an average of 98 days until 1988. From 1989, the average number of days dropped to 46 days. It is only recently, in 2015 and 2020, that the ice road had to remain closed. This was down to two factors: the high variability of ice formation and stricter safety measures. To the residents of Hailuoto, the formation of sea ice is a significant time of the year, as they are no longer islanders and become geographically attached to the mainland. Sea ice is perceived as an asset also used before and after the official opening period of the ice road. Some of the residents report aesthetically pleasing experiences when driving and they tell about perceiving the icescape on the sea in more vivid colors. This is not without its dangers. A few kilometers off the island of Hailuoto, a rescue worker died while attempting to extract a partially-submerged piece of ice road equipment (Yle News, 2022a). After

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this tragic accident, decisions to open the ice road to traffic in the winter of 2023 have not been made yet (Yle News, 2022b). While sea ice has the power to facilitate access to certain places, it has always been a major challenge for busy shipping areas such as the Baltic Sea, for example, and parts of the eastern seaboard of Canada and the northern United States (Dodds, 2018). There has been busy trading in the Baltic since the Middle Age when major ports were part of the Hanseatic League (Dollinger, 1988), but in winter, sea ice habitually prevented trading vessels from landing and ships would get stuck (Ogilvie, 2022). Most of the winter ports became accessible only in the 1970s. Until then, winter navigation was almost inexistent in the Bay of Bothnia and limited to the southern parts of the Baltic Sea. Changes in the shipbuilding structure, the development of cold weather technologies and the increasing number of icebreakers have been critical to shipping operators (Dodds, 2018; Lépy, 2013). Nowadays, harbors are operational all year round. Seasonal variations in winter traffic belong to the past. This is thanks to improved administrative, legal and technical control of winter navigation by ice class rules and regulations and the efficient icebreaking cooperation between Sweden and Finland (Lépy, 2012, 2013).

Sea Ice and People: Seasonal Use and Adaptation Ice formation in the Baltic Sea could lead to a total cessation of all marine environment-related activity, but coastal communities have always adapted to seasonal sea ice through traditional practices. People have also changed their attitudes toward winter through time and have adopted new practices with the development of technology (Jones, 2007). In the northern parts of the Baltic Sea, sea ice provides popular recreation possibilities among the local populations (Ahtiainen et al., 2013; Lépy, 2009). According to Ahtiainen et al. (2013), Sweden and Finland have the largest proportion of the population participating in ice sports on sea ice in the Baltic Sea region. Winter visits to the sea make up about one-third of annual visits to the sea for both countries. Also, according to a survey conducted in winter 2009 (Lépy, 2009), 86% of the local population of the city of Oulu reported visiting the seashore every winter.

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Winterization of Activities Increasing technological development has fostered a process which could be identified as the winterization of activities. This means that some activities which are practiced on ice-free waters are also practiced on the ice cover. A case in point is fishing. In the Bay of Bothnia, it is common to see whole families digging holes in the ice hundreds of meters away from the shore to catch fish. The hole is made using an ice auger which enables drilling through half a meter of snow and ice. The amateurs and experienced non-professionals are equipped with short fishing rods of some twenty centimeters long with a hook hanging at the end of a line. The catch is not always abundant, but people find pleasure in dwelling on the ice. Amateur ice fishing is a winter leisure activity practiced with family or friends to relax on beautiful and cold winter days. Professional ice fishing requires the use of fishing nets that fishermen install after making holes in the sea ice, and the use of snowmobiles to reach the fishing location. Fish farming is fairly established in the Baltic Sea. In order to cope with the formation of sea ice, fish farms must adapt their strategies. Depending on their license, operators may have multiple fish-rearing locations used in different seasons. During the ice season, net pens should be placed in the most favorable locations for rearing. If the operator has a site protected from the winds and the pressures exerted by the ice, it is possible to work all year round by maintaining cages regardless of sea ice. Operators generally use flux generators to prevent ice formation in and around the cage. It is thus possible to empty the cages and move on to processing and selling the fish during the winter. In general, the cages are located not far from the places of processing. If the fish farms do not benefit from favorable breeding places in ice conditions, the cages are emptied before the waters freeze. The financial stakes can be significant. Indeed, if the cages are emptied before winter, the price of the fish can temporarily drop because a large quantity ends up on the market at the same time. But if the fish farms operate during the winter, the prices remain more stable. The winterized open sea sports are becoming more popular. Imported from other countries, kiteboarding on ice is derived from kitesurfing. This gliding sport is not yet widespread, but is increasingly popular in the Baltic Sea region. The winterization of this sport occurred in the 2000s after kitesurfing established itself elsewhere in Europe. One needs

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to know the local environment to practice this sport. Certain ice characteristics such as the thickness and quality of the ice cover, the presence of deformations and open channels must be checked, as well as the weather conditions, especially since this sport requires favorable wind conditions. From March onward, the increasing amount of daylight enables much more regular practice, but this extreme sport does carry significant risks of injury due to low temperatures and ice conditions, which can lead to fatal hypothermia. Spatial Expansion of Land Activities The grand and most distinguished feature in the locality of that city [Stockholm], namely, being situated on islands amidst gulfs and lakes, is destroyed by the ice. The same water which divides the inhabitants of the different quarters in summer unites them in winter. It becomes a plain which is traversed by everybody. The islands are islands no longer: horses in sledges, phaetons, and in vehicles of all sorts placed on skates, scour the gulf and lakes by the side of ships fixed in the ice, and astonished as it were to find themselves in such company on the same element […] They walk, slide, fly about in sledges, or glide along on small skates. In the exercise of skating, they display great dexterity and address, and amuse the spectators with the ease and quickness of their various movements; darting forward with the speed of arrows; turning and returning, and balancing their bodies according to inclination and circumstances, in such a manner that it is sometimes difficult to imagine what can be their principle of motion. (Acerbi, 1802, 39–40)

This quote from Acerbi illustrates very well the change of landscape, and how the seascape becomes an icescape that is difficult to recognize from a snowy landscape. It gives the image of all scapes merging into one. Land activities are then practiced on sea ice, either as extended to the ice cover or displaced from land to sea ice. Nowadays such activities mainly refer to cross-country skiing, ice skating (Fig. 3.3) and snowmobiling. Obviously, practicing an activity on sea ice implies taking a risk, partly by exposure to meteorological and ice-related hazards and partly through mechanical and technical problems. Every winter snowmobiles get stuck in the ice, and cross-country skiers and walkers lose their way in the white immensity once darkness falls (Lépy, 2009). Risks on the Baltic Sea ice are real.

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Fig. 3.3 Skating on sea ice, Oulu (Photo Jean-Nicolas Louis)

Sea Ice, a Traditional Seal Hunting Ground For many coastal communities of the Arctic and subarctic regions, the use of marine resources has been and still is of great economic significance. Sea ice plays a particular role in this, as it serves as a hunting ground and therefore as a food resource (Gearheard et al., 2013; Glykou, 2020). Baltic Sea ice is the breeding ground for two seal species mostly settled in the Bay of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland: the Baltic ringed seal (Phoca hispida botnica) and the gray seal (Halichoerus grypus ). Ringed seals are greatly dependent on ice and snow for reproduction. They usually dig a lair into snowdrifts on the pack ice while gray seals typically give birth on

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the ice floes close to the pack ice (Maa- ja mets¨atalousministeri¨o, 2007). There is also a small number of seals in the Gulf of Riga. In the Baltic Sea, the seal has been hunted since prehistoric times. Evidence on this has been found in many archaeological sites from the Early Mesolithic (Glykou, 2020; Ukkonen, 2002). Historically, seal hunting was considered an activity of vital interest and an important source of income for some coastal communities particularly in the northern Baltic Sea (HELCOM, 2018b; Ylimaunu, 2000). Fishing and seal hunting enabled hunters to seasonally supplement their food supply (Clark, 1946). Baltic seals were also hunted for their skin, fur and fat (HELCOM, 2018b). Different hunting strategies were used over time to exploit the ice-dependent seals (Glykou, 2020), as is again illustrated by Olaus Magnus’ Carta Marina in an image of the breeding season and the northern edge of the ice barrier (Fig. 3.4). The scene features two seal hunters equipped with pikes, kneeling on ice floes, their boats carrying the prey. Also, a seal on an ice floe is feeding her pup (Clark, 1946; Glykou, 2020). Other methods, too, have been used for seal hunting such as fishing nets, clubs, harpoons as well as bow and arrow (Glykou, 2013). At the beginning of the twentieth century, hunters’ reasons to hunt on sea ice changed as the Baltic Sea became a conflicting area between seals and fishermen. An international campaign was initiated to exterminate seals, as their large number affected fish stocks and fishermen registered increasing damages on fishing gear. This led to reduced catches and major economic losses for the livelihood. The conflict incited governments to use hunting as a management tool of the seal population and to exert some control over natural resources. Bounty systems were then introduced in Denmark, Sweden and Finland (HELCOM, 2018a), which reduced the seal population dramatically in the Baltic Sea. For decades, governments conceived the overhunting as a ‘fight against seals’. Also, serious environmental problems were made public in the 1970s. The collapse of the seal population was caused not only by excessive hunting but also by hazardous substances in the Baltic Sea (HELCOM, 2010). These toxic chemicals rendered many females infertile and made the reproduction and survival of the species uncertain (Räsänen, 2022). At the turn of the century the seal population had recovered. The last management plan for the Finnish seal population released by the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry dates back to 2007 (Maa- ja mets¨atalousministeri¨o, 2007). Seal hunting now requires a

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Fig. 3.4 Sea ice and seal hunting in the Bothnian Bay. Carta Marina from Olaus Magnus, 1539. Licensed under the public domain mark. Collections of Uppsala University Library

license, and regional quotas of animals to be hunted are set annually by the Ministry. In 2009, for the purpose of animal welfare, the European Parliament and Council adopted a regulation which bans the trade of seal products on the EU market (Regulation (EC) No 1007/2009). This implies the cessation of commercial seal hunt, but the Inuit are exempt from the ban (Sellheim, 2015). Seal hunting is a risky enterprise for the hunters. Indeed, in the context of a changing climate, the hunters need to be aware of the increasing variability of the sea ice environment. They have to be knowledgeable about the changes and the hazards which may take place. Seal hunters do not usually venture out alone but are rather accompanied by persons they often share the hunting permit with. Hunters must be permanent residents in Finland or be accompanied by a Finnish hunter and pay the

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Finnish game management fee. Extensive knowledge and understanding of weather and sea conditions—especially wind direction and marine currents—as well as ice movements is absolutely vital. Access to NASA satellite images and national ice service data is a part of this knowledge. It is crucial to be extremely vigilant, as the hunting areas of the gray seal are located at the edge between the ice pack and the ice-free water. In this unstable area, sea ice conditions may be affected by external factors such as the wind and currents, and massive sea ice floes can get fragmented. One seal hunter from Oulu remembers that in 1993, in six days, the ice pack moved northeast for over 250 kilometers. To transport themselves, seal hunters use boats which need to be pushed on the ice pack. The same seal hunter explains that it is extremely important that one of the hunters should always stay with the boat and never leave it behind. Incidents might occur, and the consequences might be severe (Lépy, 2009): While two men were hunting a seal, they were moving away from the boat to shoot down the animal. During that time, the ice pack started to break up and the boat started to float and slowly move away. The two men were staying on an ice floe of about sixty metres wide. Quickly, a decision needed to be taken and one of them removed his boots and started swimming to chase the boat which moved slowly. The water temperature was close to 0 °C and the wind blew enough to keep the boat away from the swimmer. The man managed to get to the boat and climb it all the same. But when they returned, they had to call the ambulance as the swimmer was in a state of hypothermia and had to spend a couple of days in hospital.

New Forms of Working with Sea Ice: Development of Ice Tourism Ice has proved to be productive for recreational and touristic activities from ice skating to snow festivals in different parts of the world, including Canada, the United States, Japan and the Nordic countries (Dodds, 2018). In the Baltic Sea region, ice tourism is still under development. From the literature of the sixteenth century, it is clear that sea ice was used as a platform for recreative activities. At the end of the month of December, horse races on ice were organized when the snow enabled it. These competitions offered the fastest horses to the gods, and entertained the population (Magnus, 2004). Also, it was not rare to organize trade fairs and markets on ice, and to find inns built for travelers, peasants and

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their draft animals for the winter season. These practices are now obsolete, and ice tourism has had to find new ways to continue existing. For over three decades, the only tourist attractions on the Baltic Sea ice shores were the Kemi Snow castle, partly built of ice extracted from the sea, and the Sampo icebreaker, a Kemi-based cruise ship for tourists who desire to experience ice cruising and ice floating. Sea ice has been at the heart of the marketing strategies of these attractions, which are advertised as unique Arctic experiences in the Baltic Sea. The winter tourism market has become well established in the region and has led to other and similar attractions offered by a variety of companies. The change in the market has responded to the needs of a growing number of visitors by tailoring activities to different income levels and by supporting entrepreneurial innovation in ice tourism. Recently, two other icebreakers, the Polar Explorer, based in nearby Kalix, and the Arctic Explorer, based in Piteå have launched similar activities on the Swedish coasts of the Bothnian Bay. While ice tourism has firmly established ice festivals in many countries (such as Japan with the Sapporo Snow Festival) (Dodds, 2018), it is becoming more popular around the Baltic Sea, too. A good example is the Frozen People festival (Fig. 3.5), organized for the first time in 2022 in Oulu by a young NGO named Oulu Urban Culture. Most festivals on the Baltic shores take place in the summer, whereas the Frozen People festival is uniquely organized on sea ice. Beyond attracting people to sample art installations and performances on ice, the festival has the ambition to increase environmental awareness by making visitors realize the uniqueness of ice. Indeed, with climate change, the future of the festival is compromised. As already mentioned, sea ice is also used for car transportation. Some municipalities of the Bothnian Bay use it to promote tourism in the region, such as the municipality of Luleå, which has developed a network of ice roads on sea ice to connect the islands of the archipelago. Every year, about 30 kilometers of ice roads are ploughed in the Luleå archipelago and advertised as a touristic attraction. More recently, a new form of ice driving has taken place in the northern parts of the Baltic Sea, the rally on ice as illustrated by the Race of Champions competition and hosted for the first time on snow and ice in Piteå in 2022 and also in 2023. More modestly, smaller initiatives have been introduced here and there, an igloo café on the shores of Oulu or a dinner on ice near Luleå.

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Fig. 3.5 Frozen People festival on sea ice, Oulu, March 2022 (Photo Élise Lépy)

On the southern coasts of the Baltic Sea where sea ice does not form every year, ice tourism relies on ice phenomena along the shore. Relying on the severity of winter, these phenomena are becoming rarer and, as such, an asset for tourism. Tourists visit the Polish coast to see ice ridges, hummocks and pancake ice (Girjatowicz, 2015) before it is too late. Can it be considered as a form of ‘last chance tourism’ before climate warming prevents waters on the Polish coast from ever freezing again?

Baltic Sea Ice as a Future Environmental and Cultural Heritage? It is true that climate projections do not promise a great future for Baltic Sea ice. The projections driven by the Representative Concentration Pathways RCP4.5 and RCP8.5 suggest that water temperatures will increase, while the sea ice cover is expected to decrease significantly. The mean annual change in sea surface temperature between 1978–2007 and 2069– 2098 is projected to be 2 °C and 3 °C, respectively (Meier et al., 2022b). The interannual ice variability will continue to be large but the probability of severe and very severe winters will likely decrease (HELCOM and Baltic Earth 2021, 2021). As in the Arctic Ocean, the maximum ice

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extent and thickness are both estimated to decline in the future, but some sea ice will still form every year by the end of the century according to most scenarios. The one notable exception is that of RCP8.5, which forecasts Kemi to be ice-free (Meier, 2022a). Thinking of the ‘cryosphere as a critical zone of global environmental change’ (Sörlin & Dodds, 2022, 27) and given that northern and Arctic communities are bearing the brunt of a warming climate, what would a reduction of the ice extent and a shortening of the ice season mean for coastal communities of the Baltic Sea? How will their relationship with sea ice be affected? Climate change puts pressure on the marine ecosystems of the Baltic Sea. Ice fields that serve as seal breeding grounds will be restricted due to shorter and warmer winters. As a consequence, ringed seals will be the most severely affected by future ice conditions, even leading to the wipeout of the southern populations (HELCOM, 2018a). The habitats of the ringed seal could decrease in surface area and thus move to the northernmost regions of the Baltic Sea (Meier et al., 2004), disappearing from the Archipelago Sea and the Gulfs of Finland and Riga. Gray seals, on the other hand, are not expected to undergo such changes but a transfer of breeding to land sites is probable (HELCOM and Baltic Earth 2021, 2021). In this context, governments will have to redouble their efforts to protect the endangered Baltic seals. A shortening of the ice season would affect winter shipping and would necessarily lead to a longer navigable season in open water. The speed of ships would then increase with the reduction in the ice cover (Kubat et al., 2007). Changes to winter traffic restrictions would also be made, as low ice class ships would be authorized to sail in winter. Finally, a reduction in sea ice would lead to less need for icebreaking operations and reduced icebreaking costs. However, the risk of accidents or incidents could remain or even increase in the north of the Baltic Sea due to the growth in traffic. As Sörlin and Dodds argue (2022, 5), ‘for most people who live close to [sea ice], ice is just not an element of alarm, but also a daily interaction integral [to their] cultures’. In the case of the Baltic Sea, diminishing sea ice would probably mean the disappearance of the local culture—cross-country skiing, ice fishing, ice kitesurfing, etc.—and would require continuous adaptation from locals to prevent risks arising from the instability of the fragile pack ice. Islanders of the Bothnian Bay would probably remain islanders also in the winter as the ice roads would not exist anymore.

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The question of the Baltic Sea ice becoming an environmental and cultural heritage—a thing of the past—in the near future is a pressing matter that should make people aware of the uniqueness of this exceptional and beguiling environment. To borrow Dodds’ words (Dodds, 2018), it is premature to issue a farewell to the Baltic Sea ice, but it is time for people to realize that the seasonal Baltic Sea ice is evolving toward an ephemeral icescape. Acknowledgements My deepest thanks go to Salla Rahikkala, resident of Hailuoto, and Heikki Myllylahti, initiator of the Frozen People festival for the time they took to exchange their experiences of and with sea ice. The local Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment is also acknowledged for providing data on the opening and closing dates of the ice road between Oulu and Hailuoto. The writing of this chapter was supported by the University of Oulu and The Academy of Finland Profi4 Grant 318930 ArcI.

References Acerbi, J. (1802). Travels through Sweden, Finland, and Lapland, to the North Cape, in the years 1798 and 1799, Vol. I . Printed for Joseph Mawman, in the poultry. ACIA. (2005). Arctic climate impact assessment. Cambridge University Press. Ahtiainen, H., Artell, J., Czajkowski, M., Hasler, B., Hasselström, L., Hyytiäinen, K., Meyerhoff, J., Smart, J. C. R., Söderqvist, T., Zimmer, K., Khaleeva, J., Rastrigina, O., & Tuhkanen, H. (2013). Public preferences regarding use and condition of the Baltic Sea: An international comparison informing marine policy. Marine Policy, 42, 20–30. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.marpol.2013. 01.011 Andersen, J. H., Carstensen, J., Conley, D. J., Dromph, K., Fleming-Lehtinen, V., Gustafsson, B. G., Josefson, A. B., Norkko, A., Villnäs, A., & Murray, C. (2017). Long-term temporal and spatial trends in eutrophication status of the Baltic Sea. Biological Reviews, 92, 135–149. https://doi.org/10.1111/ brv.12221 Aporta, C. (2010). The sea, the land, the coast, and the winds: Understanding Inuit sea ice use in context. In I. Krupnik, C. Aporta, S. Gearheard, G. Laidler, & L. Kielsen Holm (Eds.), SIKU: Knowing our ice (pp. 163–180). Springer. Aporta, C. (2011). Shifting perspectives on shifting ice: Documenting and representing Inuit use of the sea ice. Canadian Geographer, 55, 6–19. https://doi. org/10.1111/j.1541-0064.2010.00340.x

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Aporta, C., Taylor, D. R. F., & Laidler, G. J. (2011). Geographies of Inuit sea ice use: Introduction. Canadian Geographer. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.15410064.2010.00339.x Bravo, M. T. (2009). Voices from the sea ice: The reception of climate impact narratives. Journal of Historical Geography, 35, 256–278. https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.jhg.2008.09.007 Caban, J., Brumerˇcík, F., Vrábel, J., Ignaciuk, P., Misztal, W., & Marczuk, A. (2017). Safety of maritime transport in the Baltic Sea. In MATEC web of conferences. EDP Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1051/matecconf/201713 400003 Clark, J. G. D. (1946). Seal-hunting in the stone age of north-western Europe: A study in economic prehistory. Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society, 12, 12–48. Clarke, E. D. (1838). Travels in various countries of Scandinavia, Vol. II . Cadell and Davies. Coxe, W. (1784). Travels into Poland, Russia, Sweden and Denmark. Printed for S. Price, R. Moncrieffe, W. Colles, T. Walker, C. Jenkin, W. Wilson, L. White, R. Burton, J. Cash & P. Byrne, Dublin. Dieckmann, G. S., & Hellmer, H. H. (2003). The importance of sea ice: An overview. In D. N. Thomas & G. S. Dieckmann (Eds.), Sea ice: An introduction to its physics, chemistry, biology and geology (pp. 1–21). Blackwell Publishing. Dodds, K. (2018). Ice. Nature and culture. Reaktion Books. Dollinger, P. (1988). La Hanse: XIIè–XVIIè siècles. Aubier. Durkalec, A., Furgal, C., Skinner, M. W., & Sheldon, T. (2015). Climate change influences on environment as a determinant of Indigenous health: Relationships to place, sea ice, and health in an Inuit community. Social Science and Medicine, 136–137 , 17–26. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2015. 04.026 Ekengren, M. (2018). A return to geopolitics? The future of the security community in the Baltic Sea region. Global Affairs, 4, 503–519. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/23340460.2018.1535250 Gearheard, S., Kielsen Holm, L., Huntington, H., Leavitt, J., Mahoney, A., Opie, M., Oshima, T., & Sanguya, J. (2013). The meaning of ice: People and sea ice in three Arctic communities. International Polar Institute Press. Girjatowicz, J. (2015). Ice phenomena as a tourism asset on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea. Turyzm/tourism, 25, 77–84. https://doi.org/10.2478/tour2014-0022 Glykou, A., 2013. Seal hunting at the Baltic Sea coast. In O. Grimm & U. Schmölcke (Eds.), Hunting in northern Europe until 1500 AD—Old traditions and regional developments, continental sources and continental influences (pp. 101–111). Wachholtz Verlag.

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Igloolik, Pangnirtung). In I. Krupnik, C. Aporta, S. Gearheard, G. Laidler, & L. Kielsen Holm (Eds.), SIKU: Knowing our ice (pp. 45–80). Springer. Lappalainen, J. T., Ericson Wolke, L., & Pylkkänen, A. (2008). Suomen sodan historia 1808–1809 [History of the Finnish war of 1808–1809]. Finnish Literature Society. Leppäranta, M. (2013). Land–ice interaction in the Baltic Sea. Estonian Journal of Earth Sciences, 62, 2–14. https://doi.org/10.3176/earth.2013.01 Lépy, É. (2009). Les glaces de mer en Mer Baltique. Étude géographique et implications environnementales et sociétales à partir de l’étude comparée de la Baie de Botnie (Oulu, Finlande) et du Golfe de Riga (Lettonie). Doctoral Thesis, University of Caen/Basse-Normandie. Lépy, É. (2012). Baltic Sea ice and environmental and societal implications from the comparative analysis of the Bay of Bothnia and the Gulf of Riga. Fennia. https://doi.org/10.11143/4403 Lépy, É. (2013). The recent history of Finnish winter navigation in the Baltic Sea. Polar Record, 49, 33–41. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0032247411000593 Maa- ja mets¨atalousministeri¨o. (2007). Management plan for the Finnish seal populations in the Baltic Sea. Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Magnus, O. (2004 [1555]). Histoire et description des peuples du Nord. Les Belles Lettres. Magnus, O., & Balzamo, E. (2005). Carta Marina. Corti. Meier, H. E. M., Dieterich, C., Gröger, M., Dutheil, C., Börgel, F., Safonova, K., Christensen, O. B., & Kjellström, E. (2022a). Oceanographic regional climate projections for the Baltic Sea until 2100. Earth System Dynamics. https://doi. org/10.5194/esd-13-159-2022 Meier, H. E. M., et al. (2022b). Climate change in the Baltic Sea region: A summary. Earth System Dynamics, 13, 457–593. Meier, H. E. M., Döscher, R., & Halkka, A. (2004). Simulated distributions of Baltic sea ice in the warming climate and consequences for the winter habitat of the Baltic Ringed Seal. Ambio, 33, 249–256. Mohrholz, V., Naumann, M., Nausch, G., Krüger, S., & Gräwe, U. (2015). Fresh oxygen for the Baltic Sea: An exceptional saline inflow after a decade of stagnation. Journal of Marine Systems, 148, 152–166. https://doi.org/10. 1016/j.jmarsys.2015.03.005 Neumann, A., Göke, L., Holz, F., Kemfert, C., & von Hirschhausen, C. (2018). Natural gas supply: No need for another Baltic Sea pipeline. German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). Nichols, T., Berkes, F., & Jolly, D. (2004). Climate change and sea ice: Local observations from the Canadian western Arctic. Arctic, 57 (1), 68–79. Ogilvie, A. E. J. (2022). Writing on sea ice: Early modern Icelandic scholars. In K. Dodds & S. Sörlin (Eds.), Ice humanities (pp. 37–56). Manchester University Press.

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CHAPTER 4

Reindeer, Cows and People: Sustainable Human–Animal Adaptations in Finnish Lapland Nuccio Mazzullo and Päivi Soppela

Introduction The climatic conditions in northern Finland allow only a limited growing period, as most of the year the ground is frozen. Hence, apart from cultivating grass for animal feeding, vegetables and a few crops such as barley and oats, the main agricultural activity is animal husbandry. Two main types of animal husbandry are successfully practiced in northern Finland: reindeer herding and cattle farming. Reindeer herding is a traditional livelihood of the Sámi across northern Fennoscandia and is practiced exclusively by the Sámi in Norway and Sweden, whereas in Finland the right to practice reindeer herding is extended also to the

N. Mazzullo (B) · P. Soppela Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland e-mail: [email protected] P. Soppela e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Strauss-Mazzullo and M. Tennberg (eds.), Living and Working With Snow, Ice and Seasons in the Modern Arctic, Arctic Encounters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36445-7_4

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local residents who are members of the herding districts. The reindeer domestication process is thought to have started in the ninth century, but it became a well-established practice among the Sámi only in the seventeenth century (Lehtola, 1997; Salmi et al., 2021). Sámi scholar Israel Ruong described reindeer herding as being among the possible adaptations to the geo-ecological condition of the North, and emphasized that it is a ‘relatively new type of livelihood’ (Ruong, 1969, in Aikio, 1971, 8). The agrarian populations resident in northern Finland have herded and used reindeer for transport from the eighteenth century onward (Kortesalmi, 2008). Reindeer herding is practiced in all parts of northern Finland, and—along with other seasonal natural livelihoods such as fishing, hunting and gathering—it has been central to keeping small villages and remote settlements liveable and inhabited. Similarly, cattle farming has long roots in the region, also among the Sámi (Itkonen, 1948; Kaltio, 1958; Kantanen, 2016). The heyday of native cattle farming in Finland occurred in the first half of the 1900s. The Lapland Cattle was the most common dairy cow in northern Finland until the 1950s (Kaltio, 1958). This breed belongs to the ancient Scandinavian native cattle breeds together with the Swedish and Norwegian mountain cattle and the Icelandic cattle. It has a long shared cultural history with humans in the North (Bläuer et al., 2016; Kantanen et al., 2000). The breed was raised even in the northernmost parts of Lapland at least since the Middle Ages (Itkonen, 1948). The Lapland Cattle were very important for past households’ subsistence farming until the 1950s (Soppela & Mazzullo, 2017). The breed, as its tenders know, is healthy, adapted to modest nutrition and is able to graze in many kinds of landscapes (Soppela, 2018; Soppela & Mazzullo, 2017; Soppela, Mazzullo et al., 2022). The import of highly productive dairy breeds in the 1960s and 1970s replaced the Lapland Cattle, driving it almost to extinction. It was not until the 1980s that the breed slowly began to recover thanks to the efforts of a few farmers, scholars, officials and the government recovery programs (Karja & Lilja, 2007). The size of the Lapland Cattle population in Finland, based on the number of reproducing females or milking cows, is now around 860 in total (FABA, 2020). The numbers are at their lowest in Lapland, with around 100 cows today. Starting from the 1950s, major changes in agricultural policies have paved the way for intensified food production. The technological innovations in herding and farming, new policies and modernization process

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as a whole as well as the severe recession in the 1970s led to the migration of people from the countryside and to a gradual loss of small farms in Finland (Häkkilä, 2002; Vihinen, 2004), as elsewhere in northern Europe. In Finland, this change was most pronounced in the north. Mass migrations emptied entire villages, when the residents headed to industrial jobs in southern Sweden (Korkiasaari & Söderling, 2003; Snellman, 2005) or to large population centers within Finland. It was hard to earn one’s living in small farms in rural communities (Vihinen, 2004) or sustain oneself as a herder. This also applied to the Sámi population (Mazzullo, 2017; Müller-Wille et al., 2008). The change from an agrarian to an industrial society was further accelerated with technology being increasingly adopted into traditional livelihoods and into society in general (Lehtola, 2015; Mazzullo, 2017; Pelto et al., 1968). In the 1990s, the migration within the country reached high levels again and led to further depopulation of the countryside, but this migration to growth centers has since slowed down (Vuori & Voutilainen, 2012). Presently, farmhouses are still mainly family enterprises focusing on cattle farming or mixed economies and are vital for small communities and villages. In this chapter, we show how reindeer herding and the farming of native breeds, such as the Lapland Cattle, can still be understood as sustainable livelihoods in the Arctic North (Fig. 4.1a–b).The Lapland Cattle, formally the Northern Finncattle, is Lapland’s heritage breed, well adapted to the cold climate and the harsh seasonal conditions (Pokharel et al., 2019). There has been an increasing interest in native breeds in the past few years, promoted by accelerating climate change, extinction of species and loss of biodiversity but also due to the revival of traditional knowledge and the cultural heritage associated with them (Kantanen, 2016; Karja & Lilja, 2007; Soppela, 2018; Soppela & Mazzullo, 2017). Reindeer herding and Northern Finncattle farming make an interesting comparison as they are both niche livelihoods and cultures based on longterm adaptation of humans and animals to very demanding conditions while facing intense pressure from globalization, climate change and the market economy.

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Fig. 4.1 (a) Reindeer separation in northern Lapland (Photo Päivi Soppela). (b) Lapland Cows taken out for feeding in Ranua, southern Lapland (Photo Lappari elinkeino project/Marko Junttila)

Methodological and Theoretical Framework This chapter refers to the results of several research and development projects that have focused on human–reindeer (Soppela, Kynkäänniemi et al., 2022) or human–cow relations (Soppela, 2018; Soppela & Mazzullo, 2017; Soppela et al., 2018; Soppela, Mazzullo et al., 2022). The common aim of the latter projects has been to increase awareness of the Lapland Cow and to enhance its revival and culture, as well as to empower the keepers and get their work acknowledged. The approaches of these projects have been participatory and have aimed at engaging practitioners and their knowledge in the co-production and use of the results. In this chapter, then, we rely on our long-term experience of working both among reindeer herders and farmers. The work involves a multidisciplinary perspective drawing from biology, genetics and anthropological participant observation. In addition, we refer to other literature related to domestication (Salmi et al., 2021; Weldenegodguad et al., 2020) and adaptation (Pokharel et al., 2019; Weldenegodguad et al., 2020) of reindeer and cows. From the theoretical point of view, our focus is on a post-humanistic approach: there should be no rigid separation and opposition between the human and animal categories (Anderson et al., 2017), including humans and domesticated animals. Instead, the entanglements of animals and people demonstrate how they constantly interact and affect each other, and how these entanglements shape their relationship (Beach &

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Stammler, 2006). Anderson et al. (2017) have featured this human– animal interaction as a relation in which the two parties ‘come together and move away from each other in a type of communicative dance that acknowledges the other but also maintaining the differing preferences of the various participants who share a landscape’ (Anderson et al., 2017, 412). In our previous research it became clear how close and crucial the understanding is of shared lives, as well as shared places of co-residence between reindeer herders or cattle farmers and animals (Soppela, 2018; Soppela & Mazzullo, 2017; Soppela et al., 2018, Soppela, Mazzullo et al., 2022). What we witnessed supports the view that both herders and farmers are not just controllers, they are co-dwellers of the same architectural dwelling place (Anderson et al., 2017). Humans are relative newcomers in the Arctic environment, as are bovines. Reindeer, as a native circumpolar species, have adapted to these conditions for thousands of years (Pokharel et al., 2019; Weldenegodguad et al., 2021). Both humans and animals have different adaptation traits and capacities but together they have developed highly sustainable Arctic lifestyles and livelihoods. Krupnik (1993) and Beach and Stammler (2006) also make the point of the shared Arctic and how humans and animals are indeed co-dwellers. We also want to highlight another important framework of analysis: the social and cultural capital of the practitioners versus the influences of drivers such as the market economy and state politics (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992). In our interviews we saw that there is a relentless struggle between the market economy that demands continuous updating of the modes of production and practitioners who resist and sometimes oppose those demands. Their resistance stems from the view that they know best what is appropriate for their animals and that they have the appropriate skills and know-how to deal with them (Soppela & Mazzullo, 2017; Soppela et al., 2018, Soppela, Mazzullo et al., 2022). Local and national institutions are instead asking the practitioners to comply with indices and parameters generated far from or outside the communities of practitioners. In this respect in his work on the Algerian farmers, Bourdieu (1983) remarks that relations of power are distant and overlap with existing systems based on customary practices that often follow separate or different paths. The customary practices of herders and farmers play an ever more important role in the present-day societies, as the most

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prominent changes in herding and farming happened as a result of the socio-economic changes from the 1950s onward. Bourdieu’s definition of the concept of social capital and habitus used in the analysis of the Kabyle farmers of Algeria (1983) can help to explain the changes experienced by farmers and herders in Lapland. In Bourdieu’s perspective, social capital is a resource obtained individually through the control of ‘more or less institutionalised relationships of mutual acquaintance and recognition’ (Bourdieu & Wacquant, 1992, 119). It is through such networks that farmers would then be acknowledged and exert influence. In their daily practices, the farmers follow their own judgments in accordance with the habitus, that is, the ensembles of customs and practices they have developed based on their experiences and in relation to their position within their social network. The habitus works individually with respect to rules and expectations given by institutions (Bourdieu, 2000). We argue that the changes of social capital equally apply to farmers and herders in Lapland, and the loss of control over the economic group dynamics will inevitably weaken their social capital and position held within each respective group and will eventually prevent the expression of their habitus.

A Day in the Life of a Reindeer Herder During Winter A typical winter day for a herder starts with visits to the pasture areas where the reindeer are grazing. This is to monitor, at an interval of a few days, how well the reindeer are digging (Northern Sámi: guohttut; Finnish: kaivaa) to reach for the lichens under the snow and to check whether there are weak reindeer that are unable to dig. Every time the herders spot reindeer that are weak they approach and catch them with the lasso that they always carry across the chest, and load the reindeer on the sled towed by the snowmobile, tie them up safely and take them to the home corral for supplementary feeding. Another task that the herders perform in winter is the maintenance and repairing of the reindeer fences around the cooperative’s territory and between the internal seasonal pastures. The home corrals are usually built by fencing suitable areas of forest, and may be located in a private or state forest. The feeding takes place every couple of days, depending on the amount of feed based on pellets and fodder. The pellets are laid in large plastic pipes cut in half or in

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tailor-made wooden plank containers, so that the pellets can be easily found and do not melt in contact with the snow. The hay is distributed from a sledge towed by a snowmobile over a large area of the corral so that the reindeer do not fight over it (Fig. 4.2). Reindeer have a hierarchy in the herd (NS: eallu, FI : tokka) or smaller group (NS: cˇora, FI : parttio). This can have negative effects over the weaker ones who may not be allowed to feed enough and hence lose weight. Thus, it is very important for the herder to know the social dynamics of the herd to prevent such behaviors that may result in the loss of the weaker animals (Mazzullo, 2010; Soppela, Kynkäänniemi et al., 2022). The artificial feed quantity estimated by herders is about one kilogram a day per reindeer. However, the actual amount depends on different variables, such as age, fitness, environmental conditions and so on. The pellets are cheaper to buy loose than in sacks. That is why an increasing number of herders, also among the Sámi, consider purchasing silos for loose pellets, though the 25-kilo sacks are useful when feeding is needed in remote corrals or distant forest areas. At the arrival of the snowmobile inside the fenced area, the reindeer slowly flock in, sniffing the pellets and trying to be the first in the queue to enjoy the taste of the fresh pellets. At the sight of the pellets, reindeer lose their fears and suspicions and come close to the sledge where the pellets are being distributed. Upon distribution they start eating with intensity and do not stop until another reindeer pushes them aside. The herders

Fig. 4.2 Feeding reindeer in the field (Photo Nuccio Mazzullo)

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then check around for the integrity of the fence and make sure before heading home that there is enough fresh snow available as drinking water for the herd. If there has been no recent snowfall and the snow is dirty and has been badly trampled, it is necessary to fence a new area to provide clean snow. Some areas are commonly sealed from the reindeer with the aim of reserving clean snow when needed. Another important task for the herders is to build and maintain the relation with the herd (Anderson et al., 2017). These relations are close even when herders have large numbers of reindeer. The richness of the Sámi language highlights the centuries-long relation. Normally, reindeer are recognized not only by the earmark but also by their age and gender, colour, the shape of the antlers, behavior and even by their personality (Helander-Renvall, 2010; Mazzullo, 2010; Soppela, Kynkäänniemi et al., 2022). Thus, the herders follow the development of their reindeer individually, remembering the different animal biographies. For example, they are able to report the fertility rate and how many times a reindeer has been rescued from the forest. These and other characteristics will influence the herder’s decisions at the winter separations, when animals are gathered to be sold, slaughtered or to be kept and released back in the forest. Talking with a Herder in His Herd Herders’ thoughts and feelings about their livelihood are directly associated with the topical challenges regarding reindeer herding. The overall worry is for the future of reindeer herding in general. Herding is nowadays increasingly under pressure not only from the natural predators but from other forms of land exploitation that are in direct competition with reindeer herding, namely mining, forestry and tourism. One of the main concerns is the high cost of feeding the animals. Feeding is a necessity in the increasingly difficult winter conditions such as ice-layering of the snow cover. In the past, the artificial feeding practice in winter was the last option to keep the herd alive. Many herders now start feeding the weaker animals already in February and go on to at least the end of April. The herd is fed also to keep it together and protected from predators, such as wolverines, eagles, bears and wolves. Finland has a strict conservation policy regime that requires permission for the hunt of predators even when they have attacked the herd. Although the loss of animals is balanced by a state compensation scheme, it requires much work from

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the herders when finding dead animals to identify whose reindeer it is, which predator killed it and to document the finding (this requires that the reindeer earmarks are still in good condition).

A Day in the Life of a Farmer of Lapland Cattle In this section we provide a general description of the practices on a typical small-scale dairy farm in Lapland as seen during fieldwork among the farmers. Our aim was to feel our way through to better understand what it takes to accomplish all the tasks and how it feels to be a farmer of a small native breed—the Lapland Cattle—in the North. We usually arrived at a farm in the evening or early in the morning. Though we had already agreed on our visit over the phone, we first met the farmer in person to introduce each other over freshly brewed coffee and cinnamon buns and chat about the day’s program. Dairy farms have a fixed daily routine. The days start early in the morning, as early as four, when the farmer walks into the barn. There is a general mooing as a good morning welcome. The farmers interact with their cows by patting them, catching their attention by calling them by their names or pet names and chatting with them while moving around in the barn. This is the time to check that the cows are comfortable and to clear the dung. We usually took part in the cleaning and feeding. The cows are fed with some hay or silage and often a small amount of pellet feed sprayed on top of the hay or silage (Fig. 4.3a). The cows which are kept in traditional-style stables must be taken outdoors for a minimum of 60 days each year. The cows are usually taken out for grazing in the summer until autumn but some farmers take their cows out for feeding also in winter (Fig. 4.3b). There is no similar obligation to take cows outdoors in new types of open cowhouses (FI : pihatto), a fact that is criticized by many. The animals in open cowhouses usually get out to a small fenced area outside the house and they do not necessarily get to graze in the fields at all. After they have been fed, the cows are prepared for milking. The milking process on small farms typically makes use of the pipeline milking system though at times some cows may need to be milked by hand. The cows are first divided into two groups, first milkers and last milkers. There is a strict hierarchy that cows follow when it comes to food access and milking. After the milking, the cows are left to ruminate, and farmers take a rest. The farmer walks home around noon to prepare lunch and to

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Fig. 4.3 (a) Northern Finncattle cow getting her portion of pellets in a barn, and (b) feeding on spruce twigs in the winter (Photos Päivi Soppela)

catch up with home chores and with the news. In the afternoon, after a break, work in the barn starts again with the evening cycle consisting of cleaning, feeding and milking. The cycle will take until the early hours of the following day when there will be a few hours of sleep and then the new working day will start all over again. Every three days a dairy truck comes to the farm and collects the milk that will be taken far away to be processed and packed. As mentioned earlier, in our fieldwork we joined the farmers in the stables and interviewed them. The care of cows by the farmers we saw and heard suggested a very close relationship between them and their cows. The cows had names and farmers knew them and their biographies as individuals. It became evident that in farmers’ views the cows were understood as persons and family members. The farmers had numerous stories describing the mutual interaction and the personalities of the cows. The farmers had interaction with all cow breeds in their herd but the Lapland Cattle were often mentioned as being even more social or asking for more attention than the other breeds. (Soppela & Mazzullo, 2017; Soppela, Mazzullo et al., 2022). At a Dairy Farmer’s Coffee Table The coffee breaks are crucial moments for catching up with, and discussing, news. The everyday perspectives of dairy farming highlight farmers’ topical concerns and, among others, their frustration with the support policies and the practicalities of milk collection. The farmers of purebred Lapland Cattle are entitled to a special government subsidy for

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breeding the native breed but the regulations are strict, for example, when applying for the subsidy the first time, or finding a substitute cow if eligible cows are struck by an illness or accident (Soppela et al., 2018, Soppela, Mazzullo et al., 2022). New farmers of the Lapland Cattle complained that it was difficult to get this support as the resources are fixed and the subsidy tends to prioritize those farmers who have already been subsidized previously. The farmers also felt that they have not received due recognition for preserving the breed (Soppela & Mazzullo, 2017; Soppela et al., 2018, Soppela, Mazzullo et al., 2022). Dairy farms are typically expected to produce as much milk as possible. The only recognition the farmers get is thus on the basis of the amount of milk produced, which forces farmers to push for greater milk-producing cow breeds instead of native Finnish breeds. It is only recently that high fat and protein contents, typical of native breeds, have regained value and are used as a basis for a higher milk price. Finland has a centralized structure of milk logistics and dairy processing. The farms in Lapland sell their milk to big dairy companies to be transported to central dairies outside of the region. Regional or local dairies very nearly disappeared 20 years ago. The farmers also have difficulties getting the semen of their choice for artificial insemination of the Lapland Cattle (or other Finncattle). They were concerned about having it at all in the future, as the companies providing semen are getting ever bigger and international and may not consider small native breeds (Soppela, Mazzullo et al., 2022). It was also mentioned as problematic that male calves (young bulls) can only be sold at a very cheap price to meat processing companies that consider Finncattle calves small and unprofitable for meat production. In the past subsistence households, bull calves were used for meat but the practice has almost disappeared. In Sweden, the meat of native mountain breeds is highly appreciated as local food and is served even in top restaurants. The dairy farmers, who were mainly middle-aged or older, felt that farming is no longer considered an attractive occupation by young people (Soppela, Mazzullo et al., 2022). They did not expect their youth educated in cities to return to the farms.

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Technology and Its Impact on People and Animals Technological changes have influenced the ways in which reindeer herding and farming are practiced. They have affected both the nature of work, and, in Bourdieuan terms, its habitus (Bourdieu, 2000). While the technologies have made work less heavy and demanding, and fewer people are needed, the economic costs of the livelihoods have increased. At the same time, the introduction of technologies has increasingly created more physical distance between people and their animals. In reindeer herding, these developments have been continuous and go hand in hand with the introduction of advanced technologies and increasing maintenance costs. This started in the 1960s with the introduction of the snowmobile (Ingold, 1980; Pelto et al., 1968) and continued with artificial winter feeding that has increased to improve calving and compensate for the loss of pastures (Helle & Jaakkola, 2008; Turunen & Vuojala-Magga, 2014). It has also been a response to accelerating climate change and rain-on-snow events that result in ice-layering on the pastures and make it difficult for reindeer to dig through the snow for lichens (Serreze et al., 2021; Turunen et al., 2016). Since the introduction of the snowmobile in the 1960s, reindeer herding has seen an exponential increase in the use of technology from snowmobiles to motocross and all-terrain vehicles, and from GPS collars and online maps to drones. Reindeer herders are keen to test and accept new technology such as GPS trackers, smart phones and their applications (Fig. 4.4). Herders have advanced professional and technological knowhow in Finland, which has promoted their ability to cope with ongoing changes (Soppela & Turunen, 2017). In adapting to changing weather conditions, and, for example, in order to work long hours outdoors during reindeer separations that often occur in the coldest period of the year, herders combine traditional skills and the latest techniques in a flexible manner (Turunen et al., 2021). Technology helps but it is expensive to acquire and maintain, and in most cases, it is not environment-friendly. Still, GPS trackers and drones have shortened the time it takes to locate reindeer in the forest, thereby saving vehicles, fuel and labor. Similarly to farming, the introduction of technologies in reindeer herding has contributed to creating and maintaining increased physical and emotional distances between people and animals. As Mazzullo and Strauss-Mazzullo have argued:

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Fig. 4.4 New technologies in reindeer herding: (a) a herder checking the GPS positions of (b) his reindeer indicated by red dots on the map, and (c) a reindeer wearing the tracker (Photo (a) Nuccio Mazzullo, (b) Iisko Näkkäläjärvi, (c) Iisko Näkkäläjärvi)

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Nowadays, the herds are still being supervised, however, this is done increasingly remotely, and with the help of most recent technology. Interaction between reindeer and herders has decreased to a minimum and the herder’s relationship to the animals no longer resembles the close nomadic connection that was prevalent one hundred years ago. (Mazzullo & Strauss-Mazzullo, 2022, 247)

At the same time, when learning and using the latest techniques, both herders and farmers can increase their professional capacities and social capital to deal with varying conditions (Bourdieu, 2000). Modern technology has spread to all branches of agriculture with a wide variety of vehicles and machines such as cleaning, milking and feeding robots. Current European and Finnish policies favor large dairy farms with open cowhouses where cows can move, eat from automatic feeding dispensers and access milking robots when they need (Fig. 4.5), increasing the farms’ financial dependence. Traditional dairy farming was affected by motorization such as pipeline milking machines already in the early twentieth century, but old stables have remained in use in many parts of the countryside in Lapland. On traditional small farms, the cows are kept in individual pens, fed by hand and milked by milking machines. As a result, a farmer spends a lot of time with cows. However, current legislation on animal welfare no longer allows these types of barns to be built. Despite some resistance, milking robots have become common on large and more technologically advanced dairy farms (Fig. 4.5). In this type of milking, there is no contact between the farmer and the cow. Instead, cows visit the robot, day and night, as often as they want. Their milk output records and even their health and well-being parameters are followed outside the barn from a computer screen. There is now less physical work on the farms. While the need for labor in milking itself has decreased, there is more need to supervise the robots and provide maintenance. During our fieldwork we noticed (Soppela, Mazzullo et al., 2022) that even if the Lapland Cattle seemed to get accustomed to robot milking, like other breeds, the robot inevitably increased the physical and emotional distance between farmer and cows. Where the cows used to have names, they are now identified by code numbers, and farmers have fewer intimate encounters with the cows and fewer stories to tell about their biographies. This is a fundamental change in the previously close human–cow relationship (Butler et al., 2012), even

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Fig. 4.5 New technology in cattle farming: Robot milking station (Photo Lappari elinkeino project/Marko Junttila)

if the cows’ behaviour and welfare still needed to be observed regularly and not only followed from the computer screen.

State Politics and Power Relations The dairy farmers we met during our fieldwork were planning either to continue tending Lapland Cattle in their herds or, if possible, to increase their number—despite all the challenges. The most common reasons for tending these cows were: preserving the endangered breed and its genetic heritage; reviving the cultural heritage associated with the breed; and appreciating the appearance and personality of the Lapland Cattle (Soppela et al., 2018). The farmers felt, however, a constant conflict between the economic emphasis of efficiency and their own preferences for tending this native breed (Soppela, Mazzullo et al., 2022). They also commented that their work was not valued by other farmers, professional associations nor by the dairy companies governing the markets. The general attitude of these actors was that the Lapland Cattle are not productive enough, and if anything, they should be systematically bred

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to produce more milk. This action is in contrast to the nature of the Lapland Cattle and the diversity of traits the breed has acquired during its long adaptation in the North (Pokharel et al., 2019; Soppela & Mazzullo, 2017; Soppela, Mazzullo et al., 2022). The Lapland cow will retain those traits as long as it is not bred as purely a commercial breed. As noted by Karja and Lilja (2007), it is a major ethical question whether one should be allowed to breed native breeds to improve their yield. Our earlier projects (Soppela et al., 2018, Soppela, Mazzullo et al., 2022) show that Lapland Cattle are well suited to small farms and dairies. The overall trend is, however, toward establishing bigger herds, facilities and new services. When running a small farm, there is not enough time and resources for diversifying farm activities, and present legislation makes it difficult to establish small-scale processing plants or small dairies where dairy products could be developed to be economically profitable (Kuha et al., 2014; Soppela et al., 2018). It has also been noted that small rural entrepreneurs are not heard and sufficiently taken into account in the implementation of EU directives and their Finnish interpretations (Kuha et al., 2014). This is in contrast to the recently EU-approved ‘Countryside renewing with the times—Rural policy programme 2021–2027’ on the redevelopment of rural communities that makes little or no difference between different localities of the remote European rural regions. In terms of Finnish conservation politics, the national programs aim to protect native breeds as economically, scientifically and culturally important breeds and to preserve their special traits (Pehu et al., 2020). In the case of the Lapland Cattle, for example, the program refers to the cultural heritage and landscape, but in practice the policy does not specifically support the revival of the breed in its traditional environment in northern Finland. Presently, only 40% of the Lapland Cattle are tended in the northern Finnish provinces of Lapland, Northern Ostrobothnia and Kainuu (with the smallest numbers in Lapland), and the remaining 60% are kept in southern Finland (Soppela et al., 2018). The slow but steady increase in the number of the purebred Lapland Cattle from the 1980s shows that the policy has managed to maintain the breed genetically though it is still endangered. However, the breed’s situation in northern Finland shows that the national policy has so far failed in terms of reviving the breed in its traditional northern region and cultures. In a sense, Finnish state politics and policies governing dairy markets are also contradictory. While there are legislative tools to support and protect the low-yielding yet highly sustainable local breeds, there is also

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relentless pressure toward higher milk production, bigger farms and herds and increased efficiency overall. As noted by tenders of the Lapland Cattle, the agro-environmental subsidy does not sufficiently compensate for the lower milk yield. This means that the farmers can afford only a few Lapland Cattle cows in their herds. Tending the Lapland Cattle also means that the farmers face higher standards for milk and meat production. Although farmers are represented by associations such as the rural advisory organization ProAgria and are consulted by the authorities, in reality they are heavily regulated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Also, the Finnish dairy markets are governed by three big dairy companies. Small local dairies in Lapland are few and far between. A similar situation prevails in reindeer herding, with support policies in favor of larger reindeer herds, also in order to meet the increased costs such as feeding, vehicles and fuel. All herders are represented by the cooperatives in the Reindeer Herders’ Association. Sámi herders also have representation in the Sámi Parliament, particularly when important decisions are taken on, for example, the highest number of reindeer allowed in each herding cooperative’s territory. All the same, the herders have no power of decision, as that power rests solely with the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry. Sustainability cannot focus only on the economic aspects but has to address questions of social and cultural sustainability as well. For instance, the rule that herders must own at least 80 reindeer to qualify for state subsidy undermines their possibility of continuing to pursue the traditional reindeer herding culture in the North. Most herders own only a few dozen reindeer and pursue other livelihoods, too. Not all need to be big herders but they all need to be allowed to maintain the links with the socio-cultural dynamics of reindeer herding.

Local Food Production---Why Not Local Processing? Reindeer meat production is highly seasonal when compared to daily milk production. In Finland, reindeer are rounded up only in autumn and winter and slaughtered in local slaughterhouses and then sold, except those for home consumption, to big meat processing companies in the south of Lapland. However, the meat market has improved particularly through direct sales of the meat online by the herders themselves and with the consequent establishment of small local companies and networks.

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A considerable number of reindeer herders have developed their own processing facilities and sell the meat directly to consumers and have got more power over their products. Reindeer meat, in addition to mutton, lamb and turnips, is one of the few products where Lapland is selfsufficient in terms of local production for consumption (Kuha et al., 2018). Reindeer meat is a high-quality local product, and herding has a good reputation in animal welfare issues. Moreover, reindeer herding has a strong cultural and economic link to small local and indigenous communities. Currently, the milk of the Lapland Cattle is not separated from another breeds’ milk but is mixed together. During the past twenty years many regional dairies have closed in Finland. Today there are only a couple of small local dairies in Lapland that are processing local milk to make traditional oven-baked cheese. Most of the milk produced on Lappish farms is transported to big Ostrobothian dairies or even further to the south. Thus, there is little local dairy production and choice for farmers to support local food production. This also means that in terms of regional economy the additional value and income of the milk produced in Lapland is lost, when the milk is first transported away from the province, processed and then shipped back to consumers and markets in Lapland (Kuha et al., 2018). Despite these challenges, dairy farming is still the central sector of agriculture in Lapland before other types of farming (Kuha et al., 2014, 2018). There is increased interest and demand for local foods among food developers, companies, restaurants and consumers. It is generally acknowledged that in order to increase profitability of the farms and decrease costs, food chains should be shortened. That is, local food systems and markets need to be developed and revived (Lapin elintarviketalo, 2022). There are good examples of the promotion of local food systems even in the public sector. Sodankylä, a medium-sized municipality in Lapland is a forerunner and an internationally and nationally recognized example of such developments. Today, more than one-third (33%) of Sodankylä’s public food service to schools, health care and elderly people is based on local food purchases, such as reindeer meat, other meat and fish, potatoes, vegetables and berries (Sodankylän kunta, 2020). There is considerable interest in local foods also among the general population. Sustainable welfare farming including local breeds has become a better-known concept. A previous project of ours showed that farmers were strongly in favor of a small local dairy that would collect and

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process the milk produced by their Lapland Cattle (Soppela et al., 2018). Farmers also asked to be trained for the processing of dairy products (Soppela et al., 2018). As a result of this process, there are now some local entrepreneurs who process solely Lapland Cattle’s milk, and many more who are interested in producing traditional and novelty products based on the milk of this native breed. Rural villages have a decreasing number of herders and farmers, but the residents have still managed to keep these villages alive. There are many possibilities to further develop and extend such local resilience, the products and services of which can be made more visible, promoted and available through, among others, digitalization.

Conclusions In this chapter, our aim has been to show how the traditional and local knowledge of reindeer herders and farmers related to their environment, animal selection and desired animal characteristics, is crucial to supporting sustainable animal husbandries in the Arctic. Our research indicates, for instance, that farmers’ breeding strategies for the Northern Finncattle, a domesticated native breed of Lapland, are still necessary in order to guarantee the successful adaptation of the breed to the extreme northerly conditions. This is not entirely the case for the reindeer herders, as the reindeer is a native species naturally adapted to the Arctic. Nevertheless, a selective breeding process takes place at each separation, which runs under the guidance of the herders who are selecting between the animals that will be used for breeding and those that will be sold in accordance with their traditions and local conditions. These livelihoods should be considered more from the cultural point and less from the premise of meat or milk production. It is more sustainable and ethical for the animals and their tenders that they can maintain a closer relationship. Fundamentally, these reindeer herders and dairy farmers yearn for their lives to be based on a personal commitment rather than on work as an extension of big corporations solely emphasizing high productivity. In our research and development projects we have encountered practical and theoretical reflections on shared lives of humans and animals living in the North side by side. These have great implications in terms of adapting to present and future challenges in this environment, connected to climate and technological changes.

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We argue that (1) the Arctic conditions are extremely challenging and that people and animals have developed particular adaptations and skills to these conditions; (2) reindeer herding and cattle farming are facing many new challenges due to climate change and globalization and major changes in the political and economic society; (3) despite being culturally and socio-economically important to small local communities, they are being pushed aside by the demands for efficiency and higher productivity expectations at the expense of ethics, cultural values and sustainability, (4) because local food production is fundamental for the cultural and economic well-being of local communities in the North, the food processing should be kept and improved locally, (5) this would in turn guarantee another fundamental aspect, the local communities’ food security and viability. However, it seems that the current policies do not fully support the maintenance of these livelihoods as part of concerted action to sustain the local economy, rural society and viable and sustainable communities. For example, to sustain the Lapland Cattle only genetically, regardless of the geographical region and culture where they are bred, undermines the characteristics of the breed itself and its biological adaptation to cold climate conditions that sustains the biocultural biographies of the people and animals in the region. A future challenge for any policy regarding reindeer herding would be to maintain it as a livelihood based on free ranging of the animals in their natural environment. This also and particularly touches upon the users of the same environment, including forestry, energy and the mining industry. Acknowledgements We are deeply thankful for conversations and stories informants shared with us, and for their friendship. Fieldwork for this chapter was conducted by the authors in the north of Finland as part of the project ‘Lapparielinkeino; How specialization on products and services based on the Lapland Cattle can support northern livelihoods’ (2020–2023), funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) (project no. A76243), at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Finland. For the writing of this manuscript, Nuccio Mazzullo also wishes to acknowledge the project ‘WIRE: Fluid Realities of the Wild’ (2021–2025), funded by the Academy of Finland (decision no. 342462) at the Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Finland.

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Serreze, M. C., Gustafson, J., Barrett, A. P., Druckenmiller, M. L., Fox, S., Voveris, J., Stroeve1, J., Sheffield, B., Forbes, B. C., Rasmus, S., Laptander, R., Brook, M., Brubaker, M., Temte, J., McCrystall, M. R., & Bartsch, A. (2021). Arctic rain on snow events: Bridging observations to understand environmental and livelihood impacts. Environmental Research Letters, 16. https:/ /doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ac269b Snellman, H. (2005). The road taken: Narratives from Lapland. KustannusPuntsi. Sodankylän kunta, Municipality of Sodankylä. (2020). Malli julkisen joukkoruokailun mahdollisuuksista edistää lähiruoan menekkiä. Case SodankyläPudasjärvi lähiruoka [How institutional catering can serve as an example of promoting sales of locally produced food. Case Sodankylä-Pudasjärvi locally produced food]. https://www.sodankyla.fi/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/ raportticase-sodankyla-pudasjarvi-1.pdf Soppela, P. (2018). Looking to Lapland’s past for a sustainable food source. The Circle: WWF Magazine, 2018(2), 18–20. https://lacris.ulapland.fi/ws/portal files/portal/5458662/Soppela_The_Circle_article_218.pdf Soppela, P., Kynkäänniemi, S.-M., & Wallén, H. (2022). Reindeer as a draught animal in tourism: Human–reindeer relationship and collaboration. Arctic Journal (in review). Soppela, P., & Mazzullo, N. (2017). The Northern Finncattle, the cow that almost disappeared—Arctic adaptation, folk strategies and state politics. Poster presentation. The Academy of Finland, Arctic Research Program, Arktiko Seminar, May 9–10, 2017. Soppela, P., Mazzullo, N., & Tuomivaara, A. (2022). Lappari elinkeino project ‘How specialization on products and services based on the Lapland Cattle can support northern livelihoods’. https://www.arcticcentre.org/FI/ Lappari/Lapland-Cattle Soppela, P., Tuomivaara, A., & Honkatukia, M. (2018). Pohjoissuomenkarjan maidon omaleimaisuuden hyödyntäminen [How to utilize Northern Finncattle’s milk in local production]. Arktinen keskuksen tiedotteita 63, 1–62. https:/ /urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-952-337-130-9 Soppela, P., & Turunen, M. (2017). Sopeutuuko porotalous kasautuvien muutosten paineessa? [Will reindeer herding survive the pressures of cumulative changes?] In Barentsin alue muuttuu: miten Suomi sopeutuu? [The Barents area changes—How will Finland adapt?] (pp. 68–85). Valtioneuvoston kanslia (Prime Minister’s Office). Turunen, M., Soppela, P., & Ocobock, C. (2021). How reindeer herders cope with harsh winter conditions in northern Finland: Insights from an interview study. Arctic, 74(2), 188–205. Turunen, M. T., Rasmus, S., Bavay, M., Ruosteenoja, K., & Heiskanen, J. (2016). Coping with difficult weather and snow conditions: Reindeer

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herders’ views on climate change impacts and coping strategies. Climate Risk Management, 11, 15–36. Turunen, M., & Vuojala-Magga, T. (2014). Past and present winter feeding of reindeer in Finland: Herders’ adaptive learning of feeding practices. Arctic, 67 (2), 173–188. Vihinen, H. (2004). Maatilatalouden rakennemuutos [Structural change in farm economy]. In V. Rasila, E. Jutikkala, P. Markkola, A. Mäkelä-Alitalo, J. Niemelä, T. Nygård, M. Peltonen, & J. Burman (Eds.), Suomen maatalouden historia III [History of Finnish agriculture]. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura (Finnish Literature Society). Vuori, O., & Voutilainen, O. (2012). Rural development within the context of agricultural and socio-economic trends: The case of Finland. European Countryside, 4, 283–302. Weldenegodguad, M., Pokharel, K., Ming, Y., Honkatukia, M., Peippo, J., Reilas, T., Røed, K. H., & Kantanen, J. (2020). Genome sequence and comparative analysis of reindeer (Rangifer tarandus) in northern Eurasia. Scientific Reports, 10, 8980. Weldenegodguad, M., Pokharel, K., Niiranen, L., Soppela, P., Ammosov, I., Honkatukia, M., Lindeberg, H., Peippo, J., Reilas, T., Mazzullo, N., Mäkelä, K. A., Nyman, T., Tervahauta, A., Herzig, K.-H., Stammler, F., & Kantanen, J. (2021). Adipose gene expression profiles reveal novel insights into the adaptation of northern Eurasian semi-domestic reindeer (Rangifer tarandus ). Communications Biology, 4, 1170.

CHAPTER 5

Managing Snow in an Arctic City: Urban Political Ecology Approach Birgitta Vinkka and Jarno Valkonen

Introduction In the urbanized Arctic, the extended periods of snow cover, movements of snow, and its eventual melting continuously transform and recreate the city landscapes and affect the life of its dwellers. Located at 66 degrees north, the Arctic inland city of Rovaniemi, Finland, has learnt to live with the everyday circumstances of masses of snow. The relatively harsh wintry and snowy conditions prevail for a whole half of the annual cycle. Because of the climatic conditions, the Arctic city has been obliged to create systems of snow management over and above the mandatory day-today snow plowing, snow removal, distribution of sand, and ice crushing.

B. Vinkka (B) · J. Valkonen University of Lapland, Lapland, Finland e-mail: [email protected] J. Valkonen e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Strauss-Mazzullo and M. Tennberg (eds.), Living and Working With Snow, Ice and Seasons in the Modern Arctic, Arctic Encounters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36445-7_5

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There is also year-around preventive work to consider, such as zoning and urban planning with an emphasis on controlling the meltwater. Snow is a central element in an Arctic city, fundamentally intertwined with the socio-ecological production of urban Arctic space. The snow and the city are tied together, materially and symbolically. While there is expanding research in the arts and social sciences on urban water management and infrastructures, snow and its management as a set of practices co-producing the urban space await to be explored in the field of environmental studies and the humanities. In this chapter we apply an urban political ecology approach to snow management, starting with the notion that snow—as belonging to the ecological world—enters the spheres of cultural and social through the city’s snow-related cultural, material, and discursive practices (see Linton, 2010, 24–29). In our case, we narrow these practices to urban environmental management and planning, and ask the following questions: 1. What kind of socio-natural negotiations does the management of urban snow entail? 2. How do snow and the city become intertwined through these negotiations? By seeking answers to these questions, we create an understanding of snow through its management in Rovaniemi. We draw on the ways in which snow and thinking with water are conceptualized in the work of Neimanis (2012, 5–9) and others (e.g. Kaika, 2005; Linton, 2010), and recognize that snow, as a watery element, carries an element of unknowability. Snow, too, is a matter that facilitates plurality, making it an element that can be known in multiple ways but which also defies total epistemological containment. Regardless of the tremendous amount of work on different levels of city management, snow cannot be entirely tamed. To manage and live with snow is to constantly learn. Thus, to manage snow work on a city level is just one way of knowing and establishing relations with snow in the urbanized Arctic. In this chapter we begin exploring one angle to snow’s epistemic pluralities to contribute to the discussion of the multiple relational ontologies of snow in the Arctic city. Empirically, the research is based on interview data collected from the municipal architects and designers who work on the planning of the city’s snow management. By looking into the meanings and implications these

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people associate with urban snow in their white-collar jobs, we create an understanding of how the practices of snow management in an Arctic city produce and mold the socio-ecological relations.

Snow and the Urban Arctic To an outsider, the darkness and the cold of long Arctic winters may be associated with monstrosity and hostility. The traditional Arctic narratives tend to overrepresent winter, and the wintry imaginary of the North is foregrounded by tough, uninviting, and potentially deadly features (Hansson & Norberg, 2009, 6–7). In these narratives the snowy, icy, and dark conditions can become almost unbearable to humans. To defeat such conditions, one has to obtain heroic moral, physical, and spiritual strength (Spufford, 1996, 33, 269). The romanticized imaginaries are further echoed in the general public and academic discourses of the Arctic as an ‘untouched’ and ‘empty’ landscape, which is now being threatened by rapid climate change as well as by growing and tightening geopolitical interests. These discourses share the agreement of the Arctic as subject to profound change, one that is driven by forces located outside the region. The Arctic appears as a showcase of such global phenomena as climate change, habitat loss, expanding exploitation of oil and minerals and increased commercial and military shipping (Arbo et al., 2013, 163; Dodds & Nuttall, 2019, 11–13). Despite these discursive practices that tend to locate the Arctic ontologically as separate from the experienced, nuanced everyday lives, the region is home to millions of people. As a result of the global megatrend of urbanization, more than half of these people dwell in urban settings, and 75% live in settlements with more than 10,000 people (Jungsberg et al., 2019, 8). Still, research has not paid much attention to the Arctic urban life forms. Arctic urbanism has rather been seen as an artificial and external import to the ‘untouched’ and ‘empty’ region, and has thus been neglected in research (Laruelle, 2019, 1). We propose to look closer into an Arctic city that we both sense and experience in our everyday, and seek to contribute to a further understanding of the city through our chosen angle of snow management. Rovaniemi is located right at the Arctic circle, built in the valleys of two intersecting rivers that gift it a seasonal rhythm of the freezing, melting, flooding, and flowing waters (see e.g. Krause, 2013). The summers are short, while the winters, with all the distinct sub-seasons, take up to six

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months of each year. Instead of mountains or glaciers, the landscape of Rovaniemi is made up of forested hills, wetlands and bogs, and the city suburbs stretch along the rivers to north, south, and east. Rovaniemi has approximately 60,000 inhabitants, which makes it a medium-sized city in the Arctic region. The history of the University of Lapland goes back to 1979, a university of applied sciences was established in the 1990s, and the students continue to enliven the city life especially through autumn and winter. The economic structure and the industrial sectors in Rovaniemi are similar to those in any other Finnish university town. In this relatively high-income city, the biggest employers are found in the service industry. Rovaniemi is also a well-known Christmas and winter holiday destination. The tourists crowd the city from mid-November to mid-March. Because of the rapidly growing tourism industry, the city’s economic structure is starting to get firmly annexed to the annual presence of snow. Snow has become such a pivotal material both economically and culturally that it is artificially produced during winter and then stored over summer to secure the following winter season in terms of tourism and snow sports. Beyond the tourist gaze, snow bears multiple roles in the everyday lives of the Arctic city dwellers. Snow work done by the dwellers in their own gardens and around the house creates esthetic and social environments that in their mundanity compose an important, shared routine to the Arctic urban life (Strauss-Mazzullo, 2020). The lack of winter sun is a significant experience for the winter city dweller. ‘Doing living with snow’ (Strauss-Mazzullo, 2020, 1) is subdued by a distinctive Nordic light that during the winters is characterized by the ‘low slant of the sun […] long shadows and strikingly refracted colours’ (Plummer, 2012, 6–7). Snow serves as an important illuminator, giving the short days a little more length, and creating reflections of city lights. The importance of snow linked to the people’s livelihoods in the Arctic region is also evident in the spoken vocabulary. For instance, as Eira (2012, 105) points out, the Indigenous reindeer herding Sámi just in the Guovdageaidnu area in the High North of Norway use around 318 different words to designate various types of snow and snow conditions. The Finnish language has been reported to have around 100 words to distinguish the light and feathery types of snow (Takala, 2006). Different regional dialects naturally have their own distinct words for snowscapes in all languages throughout the Arctic region.

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In Finland the whole country has been accustomed to at least some snow cover during the winter, and snow maintenance work in the Finnish municipalities is regulated by law. The municipalities have the responsibility to ensure that a certain level of safety and accessibility is asserted for all the inhabitants. As Caoimhe Beaulé and Patrick Evans (2020, 147– 148) in their comparative ethnographic work in snowy countries have noted, the Nordic cities in general seem to be on top of their game when it comes to living with snowfall in a city. Many winter hobbies are also made freely available along with the roads and pedestrian paths maintained in a relatively good condition throughout the winter. While everyday commuting is definitely affected by snow, it is very rarely totally restricted.

Theoretical Approach: The Metabolic City and the Relationality of Snow To deal with the snow–city relations as our subject of interest, we apply the theoretical discussions of urban political ecology. Urban political ecology (UPE) is a multidisciplinary school of thought emerging from the late 1990s as a sub-category of the research field of political ecology. Central to UPE thinking is to seek beyond the hegemonic epistemological dichotomy categorizing nature/culture into two distinct entities, which has led to the ontological understanding of cities as spaces separate from nature (Heynen et al., 2006, 4–6). Instead, UPE theorizes the city to be a processual entity that consists of historically and geographically changing and evolving socio-natural relations. The city is a co-creation, an intertwinement of both cultural and natural worlds. The socio-natural enmeshing in UPE is approached by utilizing the concept of metabolism. Metabolism has its foundations in the thinking of Karl Marx, who used the concept as a metaphor for labor and the relationship between human and nature. Metabolic interactions are made when ‘man (sic) through his own actions, mediates, regulates, and controls the metabolism between himself and nature’ (Marx, 1970, 283). The concept describes a material process—metabolism implies circulation, exchange, and transformation of material elements—that is profoundly a social one, characterized by the acts of labor. As a concept, metabolism grapples with the dynamics of socioenvironmental change. Through the metabolic movement new assemblages of socio-nature are created, which embody the complex processes

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and histories of their making. In urban political ecology, the notion of metabolism refers to the socio-material processes producing and maintaining flows of socio-nature. These processes are understood to exist under capitalist social relations (Swyngedouw, 2006, 107–108). That is why the metabolic processes are a critical dimension to the past and present production of urban space (Gandy, 2004, 373–374). UPE scholars Erik Swyngedouw (1999), Maria Kaika (2005), and Matthew Gandy (2014), for instance, have shown in their studies of the urban water infrastructures how the metabolic processes transforming and utilizing natural resources, such as water, are never neutral but always include political, cultural and economic negotiations. The metabolic transformations constituting the urban space carry, create and maintain the often-unequal power relations. Understanding the city–nature relations as metabolic interactions enables us to grasp the spatial–temporal makings of the city. It also encourages to take a relational approach to the nature-cultural assemblages emerging in the urban. Relationality here refers to the interconnectedness among all living things, human and more-than-human, and highlights the diverse ways communities interact with and depend on one another. Entities’ and beings’ existence is understood and studied through the process of mutual becoming, and through their connectedness to the surrounding spatial–temporal social structures (Latour, 1993). Jamie Linton (2010, 1) in her book of the history of water abstraction seeks to condense and simplify the relational approach to a phrase ‘water is what we make of it’. In this chapter, snow too is what is made of it. By the relational way of seeing, snow is not a thing but rather a process of engagement. Snow exists and affects within and among the interactions it engages in (see Linton, 2010, 30). We already know that snow takes and requires space and time. It binds resources, enables things, spreads joy, and brings light. Snow is not an abstract entity of a straightforward nature that exists merely, say, as something to be managed. Instead, snow is always already many and interconnected with many other things. It is a relational entity the existence and manifestation of which is determined in relation to other things. As we problematize the ways in which snow becomes enrolled with Arctic urban space, we can begin to understand the nuances of the cultural, political, and economic relations snow of the Arctic urban embodies.

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Data and Method The notion of relationality provides us with the practical tools to understand the metabolic city. In our analysis we utilize the relational approach to look for the ways in which the interviewed urban planners understand snow in the city. This chapter makes snow take its shape in the city’s environmental management. The relationality of snow emerges in multiple ways and can, for some parts, be grasped in our interviews. Yet, we also claim that this is just one way of knowing snow, even when this particular way has very tangible implications to all the city dwellers. This is because the way snow becomes enrolled with practices of the city management has its effects on the everyday of the Arctic city. We conducted five thematic interviews with urban planners and city architects of Rovaniemi during the first months of 2022. As the Covid19 pandemic was still on-going and restricting our social encounters, the interviews were done via Zoom. The interviewed people, three men, and two women, all within the age range of 40 to their late 50s, are city officials whose work includes the planning and maintenance of the built environments, and especially the preparatory work related to urban planning and development. They are also responsible for administrating the city’s environmental management budgets. They work in positions where Rovaniemi’s urban infrastructure is for most parts zoned and planned, and the development and maintenance work organized. The snow management in an Arctic city is embedded in all stages of urban planning, simply due to the physical properties snow has and the demands it sets for the city. The interviewed people are given voice throughout this text under pseudonyms. The pseudonyms we gave them—Korkala, Pallari, Rautio, Autti, and Tervo—are all surnames that have a long history in the Rovaniemi region.

Snow as Relational Matter Given the starting point that the interviews were done in the midst of winter, one would expect snow to be a topic that people working in snow management could talk about easily. Rather surprisingly this turned out not to be the case. When asked what snow does to the city, the interviewees were hesitant to answer. This might be because living with snow in Rovaniemi is absolutely, completely inevitable. With such a long snow

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season, snow management is a necessity, and living in an Arctic city would be nearly impossible without it. Snow management is a day-to-day routine that must be maintained every winter. For the interviewees, snow is a selfevident thing, something they have got used to. In order to come around the issues that were associated with the self-evident character of snow, the interviewees often stressed its status as a purely ‘technical issue’. As the interviews went on, snow started to have more to it, and its multiplicities started to reveal. The interviewees largely shared the view of snow as one of the defining characteristics of the city, as an enabler of things, and as a burden to be managed by the city. In our analysis we were able to locate three different snow–city relations that we will present next: the ontology of a winter city, the obligatory nature of urban snow management, and snow as an opportunity. We will unravel these findings to create a conclusion of how the metabolic relations of snow and the city are presented and gain existence in the work and talk of the city officials. Ontology of the Winter City In the interviews, the city employees reflected a great deal on how snow determines what Rovaniemi is—or could be—as a city. They noted, however, that this has not always been properly understood. Discussing city planning, one interviewee pointed out that the presence of winter and snow in the city has not necessarily been considered when planning city development. According to the interviewee, architectural renderings, for example, often represent the city in its summer look. It is important for us that our living environment is as interesting in winter as it is in summer. We can’t draw summer images and make plans based on the idea that everything will be beautiful and green. […] In wintertime, snow brings added value and it is a really important part of our living environment. In winter the light is entirely different, and it is a whole new visual world, and we have quite different possibilities for moving around in our environment when snow and ice make it interesting. (Rautio)

According to the interviewees, summer-centered city planning not only undermines our understanding of Rovaniemi as a winter city, but also presents concrete obstacles to the city’s snow management practices. For example, when a great deal of value is attached to green spaces in the city

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and its development, this can lead to spatial decisions that are less optimal in winter conditions. When greenery is what we need in summer, and snow management is what is needed in winter, there is [the aspect] that if you, for example, place a row of trees along a street, in winter the [snow removal] machine operator has to really keep it up and break a little sweat to complete the work within regular working hours. (Autti)

When an image of the city in summer informs city planning, snow and the challenges of snow management in winter draw attention to the structure of the summer city, giving rise to the question of whether city space should—as one interviewee put it—rather be ‘optimised from the perspective of snow’ (Autti). This would mean, for example, increasing spaces intended for snow storage in the city, and planning road networks and other spaces so that they enable appropriate snow management such as snow clearing and snow hauling. The interviewees pointed toward a need for creating a snow strategy for the city, which they say has so far not been done. However, they viewed the planning of a distinct snow strategy as challenging in that snow and snow management are by far not the only factors guiding city planning. Discussions around condensing the city structure exemplify situations in which questions of snow management are generally not brought up. Plots located in the city center are of considerable economic value, and the city is thus hesitant to designate spaces to snow storage. Moreover, a dense city structure is generally seen as more ecological because it allows maximized use of spaces and reduces the need for moving. Still, a dense city structure presents real challenges when removing snow from the streets and other spaces. According to an interviewee, discussions around condensing the city structure fail to recognize that a dense urban structure increases the need for snow removal, which not only increases the costs of snow management but also its environmental impact. Although all our interviewees see the optimizing of city space from the perspective of snow as necessary, they do not believe that it would be possible in practice. For them, reflecting on an issue like this is ‘more like philosophising’ (Korkala). The municipal employees responsible for snow management see the legal obligations regarding snow management as limiting the city’s leeway to act within its own area. For example, the interviewees often mention

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the residents’ wish to be able to move in the city on a kicksled or skis, or the wish that the city would maintain a snow-covered slope for sledding in the city center, that is, not to add gravel on the streets for some parts. The interviewees noted that such wishes cannot be granted, given the fact that the city must ensure the safety of its spaces. [S]ometimes there has been talk of leaving a small part of the cycleway unsanded to enable kicksled [traffic], but I do understand totally that the authorities who are responsible for the safety of people moving [within the area] are not willing to take that risk, or willing to be held accountable, should something happen. (Rautio)

The interviewees’ hesitant attitude toward the city’s prospects of adopting a snow strategy may also stem from their potential thinking that it requires reconfiguration of the political imagination of urban spaces. Optimizing city space from the perspective of snow would call for novel thinking and courage to experiment with different kinds of solutions for living with snow. The interviewees do not believe in such change in urban snow policies, because the city’s snow management work is, ultimately, dictated by necessity. The practices of city planning can be seen to attach affordances to snow that may make it useful or challenging, especially if the presence of snow as part of the city is not actively taken into consideration. The extent to which urban planning recognizes and pays attention to the ontological difference of the city in winter, compared to the other seasons, influences the possibilities of snow to impact practices of the city in winter. When snow is viewed as an integral part of the city and the functions of the city are adjusted—both spatially and temporally—according to the presence of snow, forms of coexistence with snow are created, and snow does not interfere in the regular flow of city life. Snow Management as an Obligation The interviewees are rather unanimous in their views of snow as something to be managed (and we were the ones who decided to talk with those who work on snow management ). What characterize the interviews are references to snow removal and hauling, handling snow, and other ‘snow work’, all of which fall within the scope of snow management in the city space.

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When reflecting on the significance of snow in city life, the interviewees took as their unquestioned starting point the idea of snow as a challenge. Snow was declared to be ‘a nuisance in the sense that it requires a lot of work and there are high costs involved in removing snow’ (Korkala). The interviewee associates the challenging nature of snow first and foremost with maintenance and accessibility of the city space, road networks, streets, and other passages. The same idea emerges in the other interviews. [Snow removal] is of course a matter of safety, traffic safety is the starting point, and the responsibility to keep roads maintained. Removing snow and [preventing] slippery conditions starts from there; [they] have to be in an adequate condition at all times, the roads. (Pallari)

The criteria and requirements for snow management originate in the legal obligation of a city to maintain its street space and road network. The law states that the city is obliged to provide adequate removal of snow and ice to keep the public roads even-surfaced and non-slippery (Finlex, 31.8.1978/669). One interviewee also sees it as a political question: Maintenance of all areas or roads in the city is not a municipal obligation, but the city may decide whether it will take it as its responsibility. By this the interviewee meant, above all, private roads. Another interviewee also mentioned that the city could exercise a policy option that assigns different forms of snow management to different areas of the city. The city can, by means of zoning, for example, effectively determine snow management requirements by area: We have certain boundary conditions concerning dimensioning, that the width of street spaces should be dimensioned from the perspective of winter for the purpose of snow ploughing, and snow removal areas must be [planned]. The basic things that have to do with the presence of snow. Then there is of course [the question] that if we don’t haul snow away, in land use planning it is possible to designate spaces [for accumulated snow] where snow can be stored because [conditions must be provided] to enable its absorption, because it turns to water and it must be absorbed […] Regulations related to safety and responsibility set certain limits to what can be done, impose certain dimensions on activities, but on the other hand, it leaves us with a kind of [idea of] snow as a reserve and an opportunity. It depends on the part of the city structure we are looking at. (Rautio)

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The above quotations illustrate the ways in which the necessity of snow management is determined both by practical reasons (snow must be removed, pushed into piles, moved and hauled in order to enable an adequate level of dwelling and living) and different laws and provisions obliging a city to maintain its space in winter. What snow is—or could be—in an Arctic city is widely determined in relation to law, politics, and practical necessity. While laws and regulations condition a city’s snow management work, it is also affected by the quality criteria set for the maintenance of the road network and spaces of the city. In the interviews, the city employees talk about the connection between the amount of snow management work and trigger depth—the agreed upon amount of accumulated snow wherein snow management services will be provided—in the road network and city spaces. A couple of years ago there was an immense amount of snow, the winter before the last we got a terribly large amount. If we have a five- or threecentimetre rule, which is to say that if we set limits as to how clear [of snow] the roads must be, and if it is set out in an agreement, roads must always be so that they have no more than a maximum three or five centimetres of snow. When this has been agreed upon, it means that in order to comply with the agreement, the company must operate all the time, which, of course, involves costs if the form of agreement is not appropriate. (Rautio)

The agreed trigger depth for road networks and city spaces determines the way of living with snow in a city. Whether snow is perceived as useful or challenging is not solely dictated by necessity, but is also based on agreement, where questions of acceptability, mainly regarding cost effectiveness and practicality, become central. The interviewee cited above mentions that the maintenance of road networks is always also ‘a question of safety’: With 10 centimetres of snow, we are not able to drive even a four-wheel drive [vehicle], and what’s more, we cannot possibly assume that all people even have such a four-wheel drive [vehicle], or that the elderly can move in deep snow or that children will be able to ride a bicycle to school. (Rautio)

Discussion of snow in city spaces from the perspective of quality criteria defined in contracts illuminates why the interviewees see snow management as a ‘technical issue’. With clearly defined criteria in place for safe

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movement in the city’s snowy conditions, snow indeed becomes something to be processed technically through removal, moving, or hauling. Looking at it from this perspective, snow falling in the city is not much more than matter in the wrong place, just as one of the interviewees put it: But snow in the wrong place is a bit like house dust, in the sense that it is too much, or it is more than too much, it presents a downright obstacle. If a street is not properly cleared [of snow], good luck trying to drive an emergency vehicle through it. (Autti)

The comparison between city snow and house dust is particularly illuminating because it lays bare the order underlying the city’s snow management as defined in contracts. From this follows that there can be too much snow in some place, for example from the perspective of hauling, whereas the same amount of snow elsewhere is not perceived to be a problem. Whether the amount of snow is small or large is determined by what is considered proper, desirable, or useful. For instance, snow hauled from the city to the designated snow dumps makes snow problematic, because what gets stored at the dumps is not only snow but many other substances as well. A snow dump breaks the idea of snow merely as a natural phenomenon in an Arctic city environment. While freshly fallen snow is considered an integral part of the dynamics of the city’s natural environment, its properties change when snow is taken over by snow management. It may become hazardous waste that requires treatment, which further emphasizes snow as something that needs handling. Although the city’s snow management work is determined by quality criteria defined in contracts, inhabitants of the city also have their own views about it. The interviewees often mention the recurring criticism voiced by the city dwellers regarding the city’s ability to keep the streets clear of snow during and after any snowstorm. One of the interviewees notes that there are many views as to what constitutes a reasonable level of maintenance of streets, and refers to a regularly done survey on the municipalities’ maintenance work across Finland. Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that the grade [given] is poor, but compared to the other cities, it would be possible to get better grades for winter maintenance, and… We have become used to good [quality], which in itself is a good thing, but sometimes you reflect on the… the negative

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feedback, and think that we probably should give some thought to it and determine what exactly is meant by a reasonable level. And, of course, we must think about it all the time in terms of economic aspects, for example when should we [our snow management fleet] get on the road, so that it will be effective enough while the costs remain reasonable. (Korkala)

The interviewee compares winter street maintenance in Rovaniemi to that of cities in southern Finland, suggesting that the inhabitants of Rovaniemi have become used to such good quality that they can no longer appreciate the city’s contribution to snow management. According to the interviewee, the level of winter maintenance of the city’s streets and spaces is high, considering the city’s possibilities to contribute to snow management, or with regard to what is financially possible. In addition, it is not only about costs, but there is a range of environmental factors that have to be taken into consideration, such as the impacts of snow dumps. Snow as an Opportunity The third way in which snow forms relations in the city comes with the opportunities it offers. The interviewees largely shared the view that snow is an opportunity for an Arctic city. Snow was seen to embody the kind of northernness that is representative of the city, and further to have a profound impact on local life. As an inhabitant of Rovaniemi, here you can see that people groan in the absence of winter. [It seems] that something is missing if winter is not coming. It is such an in-built element in [local] living, which of course may involve problems connected with lower energy levels and coldness, but it also offers a great deal of variation. […] Our winter is entirely based on the idea that we have seasons, and we have a distinguishable winter […] the image of Rovaniemi is based on the idea of winter, because our focus is very much on tourism. It is things such as auroras and darkness and snow cover, it is these things that make up the visual world that is usually associated with Rovaniemi. (Rautio)

As illustrated by the above citation, the interviewees associated snow, winter, and northernness with what Rovaniemi is as a city. Winter and snow are also viewed as defining what it means to be an inhabitant of Rovaniemi. Snow is seen as offering inhabitants ‘opportunities to engage

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in activities about and around it [snow], whether physical exercise, recreation or something else’ (Pallari). It is ‘daily physical activity in the form of snow management work. It is recreational activities such as skiing and hunting’ (Autti). Although the interviewees talked about the significance of snow to the city life to some extent, they place the most focus on what snow, winter and northernness mean to tourism in Rovaniemi. The interviewees share the view that snow is, above all, ‘an enabler of tourism as a livelihood’ (Autti) or an opportunity for tourism as a livelihood. In the interviews, talk about things such as ‘if we lose snow, this will be a different place’ (Korkala) soon leads to talk about ‘snow as the element that attracts a lot of tourists’ (Korkala). It indeed seems that the dominant position of tourism in the economy of the city of Rovaniemi effectively outweighs many other opportunities offered by snow. The interviewees, for example, see snow as having a great deal to offer to the inhabitants of the city, but they still emphasize the role of snow in developing tourism in the city. In the interviewees’ speech, snow-covered slopes for sledding, cross-country skiing tracks, downhill skiing facilities and different kinds of structures made of snow gain particular significance as tourism activities. As one of the interviewees states, snow may involve costs for the city, but through tourism, the advantages are greater: During winters of heavy snow, the maintenance and clearing of city streets and roads [of snow] involves extra costs. However, from the perspective of tourism it is a really good thing. You could say that the crops of a snowy winter will be harvested the next year, no matter how little snow there will be then, meaning that Instagram and the like will generate the future […] For tourism, snow is a free investment, a production tool. (Autti)

For tourism, snow is many things simultaneously: a product, a backdrop, an operational environment, and a pull factor. When talking about tourism, meanings such as damaging effects, strain, or exertion that can be associated with snow do not emerge. When reflecting on snow from the perspective of the tourism industry, the interviewees see it in purely positive terms, without mentioning factors of insecurity, for example, the fact that the city’s tourism is highly dependent on the actual snowy winters. Interestingly, snow offers opportunities to the city in yet another way. One of the interviewees recognizes that snow unifies the city and, in a sense, gives it a more uniform structure. Snow ‘rescues the city image’:

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In a way it [snow] unifies. It makes residential areas off the city centre more uniform, with the snow banks and piles of snow as playgrounds, play system services. Something that is hard to beat. (Autti)

This quotation can be read as entailing an assumption that the city should provide a uniform service structure everywhere. According to the interviewee, snow evens out the differences in service structure between areas, because snow in itself is seen as providing services the areas perhaps would otherwise lack. The interviewee argues that ‘recreational use [of snow] overcompensates’ for all the effort involved in snow management work. Snow is seen as a free service with a significant recreational value. The interviewees view the opportunities snow offers to the city as related to the residential attractiveness of the area: It brightens up the darkness, it enables recreational outdoor activities including children’s play, evens out differences between areas and makes them visually more uniform. Seen in this way, snow is not only a factor pertaining to the city’s environmental conditions in winter, but also becomes verbalized as part of the service structure and residential attractiveness of the city.

Conclusions In this chapter we have looked into the meanings and implications snow bears in an Arctic city when studied from the point of view of environmental management practices. We set out to study snow management as a metabolic interaction in the Arctic city, and wanted to create an understanding of how snow and city intertwine through these interactions and negotiations. As our theoretical approach of urban political ecology suggests, the processes of organizing and utilizing natural resources are never neutral but are always characterized by political and cultural motives and aims (see Heynen et al., 2006). Our interviewees shared the view that snow makes the city a different kind of living environment compared to what it is during the other seasons. To them, Rovaniemi is essentially a winter city. The snowiness of winters changes the appearance and practices of the city and has an impact on living and dwelling in it. Snow is part of the city—its image, practices, and life—and takes on distinct appearances depending on the perspective from which it is examined. The interviewees were keen to point out that managing snow is strictly a technical issue. However, the properties of snow in the city amounted

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to more than that. Our interviewees showed that the ecological properties of snow make the city take action on multiple levels of management and governing. Snow challenges the already existing city structure but also defies the global trends of urban planning, as the densification of city zoning illustrates. In his book on the history of Arctic urbanism, Peter Hemmersam (2021) shows that the architecture and planning of the Arctic cities often derive from the southern perspective. One of our interviewees described snow as house dust, as matter out of place. This could also be seen the other way round, snow as an indicator of urban planning and design out of place. However, when falling in the urban environment, snow was seen to land within a certain ready-made framework defined by political, legal and administrative systems, and the socio-technical management practices. To alter this framework in any way was perceived as a difficult, if not even an impossible task. This notion tells a story where snow management is not only a local and short-term temporal issue but is rather heavily bombarded with multi-level and scalar expectations that cannot be renegotiated with any ease. Snow is also embedded into negotiations where socially accepted levels of safety and maintenance meet the economic limitations of the city’s budgeting. In this sense, snow is a nuisance, even though it was also seen as lending the city free services of landscaping and creating playfulness that some parts of the city might otherwise lack. Snow was also viewed as an important creator of monetary flows through tourism. The economies of snow were in our interviews highly emphasized, which further underlines the notion of snow being more than its ecology. Snow in an Arctic city is characterized by its simultaneously occurring ecological, cultural, political, and ecological dimensions.

References Arbo, P., Iversen, A., Knol, M., Ringholm, T., & Sander, G. (2013). Arctic futures: Conceptualizations and images of a changing Arctic. Polar Geography, 36(3), 163–182. https://doi.org/10.1080/1088937X.2012.724462 Beaulé, C., & Evans, P. (2020). Living in the near North: Insights from Fennoscandia, Japan and Canada. In T. Jokela & G. Coutts (Eds.), Relate north: Tradition and innovation in art and design education (pp. 140–161). International Society for Education Through Art (InSEA). https://doi.org/ 10.24981/2020-7

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Dodds, K., & Nuttall, M. (2019). The Arctic: What everyone needs to know. Oxford University Press. Eira, I. M. G. (2012). The silent language of snow: Sámi traditional language of snow in a time of climate change. [Doctoral dissertation, UIT The Arctic University of Norway]. https://gtsvn.uit.no/freecorpus/orig/eng/science/ uit/phd/inger_marie_gaup_eira.pdf Finlex 31.8.1978/669. Laki kadun ja eräiden yleisten alueiden kunnossapidosta [Act on the maintenance of roads and certain public spaces]. Retrieved October 30, 2022 from https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/1978/197 80669 Gandy, M. (2004). Rethinking urban metabolism: Water, space and the modern city. City, 8(3), 363–379. https://doi.org/10.1080/136048104200 0313509 Gandy, M. (2014). The fabric of space: Water, modernity, and the urban imagination. MIT Press. Hansson, H., & Norberg, C. (2009). Cold matters: Cultural perceptions of snow, ice, and cold. Umeå University and the Royal Skyttean Society. Hemmersam, P. (2021). Making the Arctic city: The history and future of urbanism in the circumpolar north. Bloomsbury Academic. Heynen, N., Kaika, M., & Swyngedouw, E. (2006). In the nature of cities: Urban political ecology and the politics of urban metabolism. Routledge. Jungsberg, L., Turunen, E., Heleniak, T., Wang, S., Ramage, J., & Roto, J. (2019). Atlas of population, society and economy in the Arctic. https://doi. org/10.30689/WP2019:3.1403-2511 Kaika, M. (2005). City of flows: Modernity, nature, and the city. Routledge. Krause, F. (2013). Seasons as rhythms on the Kemi River in Finnish Lapland. Ethnos, 78(1), 23–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2011.623303 Laruelle, M. (2019). The three waves of Arctic urbanisation: Drivers, evolutions, prospects. Polar Record, 55(1), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1017/S00322474 19000081 Latour, B. (1993). We have never been modern. Harvard University Press. Linton, J. (2010). What is water? UBC Press. Marx, K. (1970). Capital, Vol. I. Penguin. Neimanis, A. (2012, May 25–26). Thinking with water: An aqueous imaginary and an epistemology of unknowability [Paper presentation]. Entanglements of New Materialisms, Linköping University, Sweden. Plummer, H. (2012). Nordic light: Modern Scandinavian architecture. Thames and Hudson. Spufford, F. (1996). I may be some time: Ice and the English imagination. Faber and Faber.

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Strauss-Mazzullo, H. (2020). Shovelling snow in Finnish Lapland: Social and aesthetic perspectives on an everyday activity. Polar Record, 56, e32. https:// doi.org/10.1017/S0032247420000339 Swyngedouw, E. (1999). Modernity and hybridity: Nature, regeneracionismo, and the production of the Spanish waterscape, 1890–1930. Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 89(3), 443–465. https://doi.org/10. 1111/0004-5608.00157 Swyngedouw, E. (2006). Circulations and metabolisms: (Hybrid) natures and (cyborg) cities. Science as Culture, 15(2), 105–121. https://doi.org/10. 1080/09505430600707970 Takala, U. (2006, December 14). Synonyymit Suomen murteiden sanakirjassa [Synonyms in the dictionary of Finnish dialects]. Institute for the Languages of Finland. https://www.kotus.fi/nyt/kolumnit_artikkelit_ja_esitelmat/artikk elit/synonyymit_suomen_murteiden_sanakirjassa

CHAPTER 6

The (Snow) Garden as a Unique Space for Human–Nature Relations Hannah Strauss-Mazzullo

Introduction: The Private Garden in the Arctic Winter The garden has been considered ‘an occasional arena’ (Alexander, 2002) and may be understood as abandoned during the ‘time of inactivity’, which tends to be winter. Alexander argues that ‘because of the wet and cold, for a large portion of the year, the garden almost disappears as part of the domestic space altogether, unused, unseen, and unworked’ (Alexander, 2002, 861). In the Finnish city of Rovaniemi at the Arctic Circle, closer observation reveals the opposite. Here, at latitude 66 degrees North, winter is the time when plant growth comes to a halt, but people continue to move around and work in the same space, on top of the now frozen ground, separated from the brown, fertile soil and green plant cover by increasing layers of snow and ice. Starting in September with the first frost, and closing in May with the last residues

H. Strauss-Mazzullo (B) University of Lapland, Lapland, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Strauss-Mazzullo and M. Tennberg (eds.), Living and Working With Snow, Ice and Seasons in the Modern Arctic, Arctic Encounters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36445-7_6

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of melting snow, the frequented outdoor space gradually acquires new physical dimensions and grants a variety of new affordances, all of them temporary, to be wiped out and re-initiated in the next winter season. For instance, for the duration of continuous frost (December to March), an otherwise wet and soft lawn can be used as parking space; accumulating snow piles can be used as visual barriers (particularly welcome where visually protecting trees and bushes have lost their leaves), perhaps used as slides and caves; tramped or shoveled paths take new routes through the property; a creek can be crossed for a couple of months until melting water fills up holes and lower areas; snow is used as an extra layer of insulation for the walls of the house and it serves to protect plants during spring melt, when hares, mice and, on the outskirts of the town, reindeer roam the garden for edible stuff. Snow, ice and melting water affect people’s rhythms and routines and require society to organize itself around them as environmental properties change with temperatures. Throughout the winter, people continue to move by vehicles as well as on foot. In the facilitation of everyone’s everyday mobility, snow removal becomes a matter of regular disagreement over responsibilities and duties between family members, neighbors and institutions commonly maintaining infrastructure, especially in years of above-average amounts of snowfall. Because of its crystalline state and local climatic conditions, fallen snow does not disappear by itself for many months. Regular, methodical snow shoveling activity (called ‘snow work’, lumityö in Finnish) is unavoidable in urban, suburban and rural dwelling of the Arctic, as the paths for vehicles and people and not least parking spaces need to be kept functional. It requires tools, human labor and societal organization of infrastructure maintenance. Snow is collected and moved over relatively long distances to be disposed of in temporarily unused spaces around the private yard. At the municipal level, following the clearing of streets and pavements, large snow loads are moved onto the outskirts of town by truck. More recently, the increasing lack of snow storage space and the accumulating melting water in the city environment has been problematized in local media (Haapakangas, 2020a; Heikkonen & Kähkönen, 2022; Vasara, 2021). In urban areas, the sealing of surfaces such as driveways with asphalt, the removal of water-absorbing tree flora and the subsequent channeling of (melting) water away from the built environment regularly contribute to damaging flood events. To tackle this development requires counteraction from the individual as well as administrative institutions and amendments in building regulation.

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In this chapter, the focus lies on the private, suburban space surrounding detached houses, adjoining other private or common spaces at the border, often delineated by fences, bushes and trees. Empirical data is derived from long-term participant observation in snow work in the city of Rovaniemi, the capital of Finnish Lapland. Here, everyday conversations with neighbors, passers-by and acquaintances frequently circle around the topic of manual labor in private and public winter and summer spaces, provoking the author’s interest to investigate the meaning of snow work in recent, living history. Informants of up to 85 years of age from the city of Rovaniemi shared their personal experiences, determining the time frame and local focus of this research. In this research context, generational differences can be observed in the commitment to diligently go about snow work or delegating responsibilities to paid services, raising questions of how people conceive of their connection to the land and community responsibilities. Theoretically, I will follow up on the argument by Bhatti and Church (2001, 366) that ‘everyday spaces act as important sites for lay knowledges of, and connections to, nature’. Lay knowledge of ecosystems becomes a crucial factor as scientists and decision-makers around the world are trying to understand the role of human intervention in causing and subsequently alleviating the effects of droughts, floods, soil erosion and biodiversity loss. The future of sustainable land use, one can argue, lies in our everyday encounter with the land. Macnaghten (2003) maintains that the experience of nature in one’s daily routine determines trust and the perception of personal agency in the resolution of global environmental problems. It has been observed that, in comparison to intensive agriculture with monocultural production of crops, the private garden is more biodiverse (Bhatti & Church, 2001) and functions as a lab for personal experience and experiments with plants, soil, weather conditions and animals. Considering their cumulative size, urban yards represent an essential factor in providing benefits to society as a whole. They are the location of individual learning and potentially significant contribution to the mitigation of climate change and biodiversity loss (Hanson et al., 2021). Waldeyer (2019) argues that the private garden constitutes a unique space for human–nature relations, which has no resemblance to public green space or rural landscape. This chapter aims to depict the social, cultural and environmental importance of private gardening regarding its continuation or substitution in Arctic winter weather. It is based on the empirical observation that

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in Rovaniemi, people’s regular garden activity does not come to a sudden halt during winter months. Beyond observable contemporary action, I argue that in order to fully grasp the meaning of snow work, we need to look at the history of the private, domestic garden (or yard in the American context) as a means to self-subsistence and survival. The cultural heritage of Finnish Lapland is constituted by the experience of severe hardship during the reconstruction in the aftermath of WWII, when more than 100,000 returnees had to rebuild their homes. In addition, people’s work around the house needs to be understood in the context of agricultural heritage, an overall absence of green urban space (but forest all around) and specific gardening paradigms promoting the idea of a peaceful and undisturbed retreat in the outdoors.

Arctic Gardening This chapter aims to demonstrate that the heritage of gardening (and snow gardening) in Finnish Lapland is culturally and historically unique. Comparison between garden and snow work across the Arctic makes it clear that the practices in focus amount to the heritage of an agricultural society. The self-subsistence garden is an agricultural practice and thus foreign to the indigenous peoples of the Arctic who pursued a nomadic livelihood in the past, relying on the hunting, trapping and gathering of food. The land which they depended on for food was vast and accessible to everyone, and in the indigenous legal system, owned by no one. Cultivating a small plot in a permanent location has been pursued mostly under the pressure of external forces and in spite of the difficulties to grow crops in this climatic context. Learning about the low consumption of vegetables among the Sámi, the Swedish government established an advisory for the cultivation of gardens in the 1930s, a time of forced relocation of the indigenous people from northern to southern Swedish Lapland (Nilsson et al., 2011). In more recent campaigns aiming at food security across the North American Arctic, former camp sites in the vicinity of contemporary Alaskan towns have been deemed rich in nutrients thanks to the ashes from fireplaces, which has made these towns suitable as garden sites (Busby, 2016). Due to the lack of expertise in growing vegetables among the indigenous population, however, many gardening projects need coordination and often external supervision. The gathering of weeds and

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berries would be an excellent source of nutritious elements, but it is an irony that indigenous knowledge holders are becoming increasingly fewer. Cultural revitalization events are appreciated as an opportunity to learn the practices of traditional food collection such as inner bark harvest in Finnish Sevettijärvi (Magnani, 2016). Where crucial knowledge and routines for the gathering of wild plants and hunting of game are lacking, Western vegetables need to be grown under imported guidance, reminding us of the difficult history of colonization where forced settlements included the teaching of gardening skills (Sipola, 2019). The benefits of gardening in the Arctic have been praised even in places where vegetable gardens have been introduced only recently as a food resource. For instance, among indigenous peoples of rural Alaska, gardens are seen as a way of reducing screen time and avoiding poor nutrition (Busby, 2016). Food security in the Arctic means that efforts are made to prevent obesity through active outdoor time and healthy food choices. Busby reports that ‘[s]tudies have proven that time spent outside leads to lower stress and clearer thinking’ (Busby, 2016, 13), which relates not only to the green time of the year but to any outdoor engagement through the seasons. The notion of food sovereignty thus crucially refers to people’s well-being: ‘Gathering and gardening promote wellness through movement, nutrient dense food, spending time outside, and strengthening bonds between generations’ (Busby, 2016, 16). In the Canadian North, experiences from community-run greenhouses have been collected to create an inventory of greenhouses as part of the ‘local food procurement strategy to improve local access to high quality and low cost vegetables’ (Chen & Natcher, 2019, 149). Climate change may provide an opportunity for an extended gardening season in cold Arctic climates. As indigenous peoples of the Arctic have (previously) relied on vast areas for food supplies, with no permanent camps as in the central European tradition, the relationship to the immediate vicinity of contemporary housing is still a reminder of this nomadic livelihood. The yards seem functional in the sense of constituting a base or storage, but they may be one among several, dormant or active, scattered over the land where they are needed to be taken back into use. These spaces are devoid of the somewhat opposite bonding work of a central European home gardener who pays exclusive attention to the arrangements and interactions within the comparatively highly limited and confined garden space around a single location, the one and only permanent home (of course,

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in the Nordic tradition, there is the second home, the summer cottage, ideally located in the forest with access to a lake). Making this space one’s own means to remove all flora and soil, refill the hole in the ground, implant permanent structures to lay a concrete fundament, build a house and arrange the garden. In the previously nomadic cultural context, however, housing continues to resemble camps that can be moved quickly as needed. While the relationship of indigenous peoples of the Arctic to these practices of growing their own vegetables may remain ambivalent, the case has general implications for the social community in terms of health and sustainable living. Involving the children in garden work and foraging practices has been understood as increasing understanding of environmental processes and as an opportunity to teach communal work, which fosters both social and cultural sustainability (Bergan et al., 2021). Gardening practices require long and repeated exposure to nature, as it takes time and a good teacher to get to know the cycles of plant growth as well as animal behavior. The cheap and ubiquitous availability of factory foods has estranged people from the environment and, looking through a distant and detached lens, has led to devalued natural surroundings. The greenery around the house is decoration, a space maker (keeping the distance to the neighbor), a symbolic message, but hardly ever a place for subsistence and the reason for one’s own survival. And yet, in the agricultural tradition, the garden remains the place of safe and intimate interaction with nature.

Private Gardening in Finland The private garden has been depicted (Waldeyer, 2019) as a space for reconciliation between nature and culture as two irreconcilable domains. Humans expose themselves directly to nature in their gardens, whereas the inside of their homes is protected from the elements and contains mostly cultural artifacts. The border—usually a fence, a hedge or a solid wall—excludes untamed nature as well as the city landscape. The private garden allows for frequent and intense engagement with the natural environment but also finds room for interim and abandoned or failed projects as well as alternative uses (think of a greenhouse full of spare car tires, a private yard that is used as a machine park or storage for entrepreneurial activity). The intense engagement of the private owner ends at the garden borders where a fence or a hedge, trees or other obstacles regulate the entry of neighbors and passers-by, who are excluded from participating in

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the private gardening performance. However, they are bound to see, hear and smell. They are not unaffected, and their presence is always considered. Yet only the like-minded passionate or similarly experienced other will be invited to join a guided tour and become a temporary protagonist with whom knowledge is exchanged. Beyond this etiquette and ambivalent connotations (Bhatti et al., 2014) that segregate outsiders and insiders, the private garden has important cultural manifestations. In Finland, the private enclosure grew to be the center of creative attention in the 1930s, when design trends became popular within a ‘functionalist’ paradigm, defining content and arrangements according to purpose and usefulness (Donner, 2016). A growing number of garden designers advised the public on the adaptation of plants and their useful and esthetic arrangement in popular magazines. Such common gardening efforts had previously been limited to the mansions of the affluent and to the public gardens around urbanizing centers, administered exclusively by professional gardeners. Photographs from Rovaniemi in the 1930s give the impression of an idyllic atmosphere (Takanen, 2014, 13). Fencedin gardens in the center of Rovaniemi were a combination of vegetable beds and flower gardens, together with decorative stone arrangements and flower-growing stone walls. At the same time, meadows continued to exist in the center of town, alongside the urban garden trends of front yard cultivation and decoration. In 1909, a fire ravaged Rovaniemi and burned one side of the popular main street. Altogether 63 destroyed residential and business rooms were counted by the newspapers, requiring large-scale reconstruction in the center of town. Most of the cultivated plants were locally adapted and considerable through-traffic regularly brought new species to Rovaniemi that were experimented with—at least for a season (Takanen, 2014). Influenced by trends and more temperate climates, gardening in Finland is, however, restricted by long, cold and dark winters. The development of new, coldresistant plant varieties was pursued after the exceptionally cold winters in 1939 and 1940, during which many fruit trees died across Finland (Larinkari, 2016). Nowadays, specific sorts of apple trees grow at the Arctic Circle. In the aftermath of WWII, which left most housing in Finnish Lapland destroyed, as I will explain in the following section, influential garden designers understood that the role of private gardens was going to be a fundamental part of modern Finnish identity, where they were acting as aides. Paul Olsson, a famous garden architect, depicted

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the private garden as the herb garden of paradise, finding transcendental purpose in this mundane and essential practice (Paul Olsson 1947, Suomen puutarhataidetta [The art of Finnish gardening], cited in Donner, 2016, 24). Etymologically, the word paradise is derived from the earliest descriptions of fenced-in spaces that were arranged to protect crops or production animals, with religious meaning added only later (Turner, 2011, 13). The term’s religious connotation of the original garden as peaceful, rich and lush exclusive outdoor space encouraged the efforts of home gardeners to fulfill the image as much as possible (Aaltonen, 2016). Apart from providing transcendental refuge, access to whatever parcel of land was available meant survival in the past. During the time of industrialization and urbanization, the survival of masses of poor migrants arriving in cities from rural areas was possible only because the masses were able to grow their own vegetables in undeveloped areas in shanty towns around the city; there, they often used plots for generations before official town planning moved on to develop the space (Meller, 2016). Most migrants came from agricultural backgrounds and still possessed the knowledge of how to grow crops. The possibility to cultivate a plot, even if that plot was not owned by the cultivator, constituted independence. Today, the cultivation of vacant and public spaces to which an individual has no right is called guerrilla gardening, which is becoming increasingly popular in cities. Commonly managed space in so-called community gardens still requires some kind of rental agreement, although the idea is that everyone can participate. At least walking through community gardens is allowed on a path. Hence, ownership, right or possibility to access, but even more so, the relationship to the land seem to manifest in the attention the immediate environment of housing receives by its inhabitants. In their analysis of domestic gardens, Bhatti and Church (2001, 366) emphasize the importance of everyday practices in which ‘human agency […] connects with the sensory presence of nature’. This opportunity to engage with nature is not available in any of the public spaces, making the private garden a unique space for human–nature relations. ‘[T]he garden is a place in which—on a personal level—to engage, confront and understand the changing natural world’ (Bhatti & Church, 2001, 379). The authors conclude that the garden has to be understood ‘as a natural world rendered more comprehensible’ (Bhatti & Church, 2001, 380–381). Furthermore, the private outdoor space is the location of everyday place-making activities (Bhatti et al., 2014). It is designed and

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filled with meanings according to the garden dwellers. In this context, childhood memories are crucial in the individual’s motivation and strategies to engage with nature in the garden and certain corners or objects are often associated with social relationships. While the garden retains a fundamental position in the everyday life of homeowners, one can observe that across urbanizing society, the proportions between green area, built area and sealed area have changed (see the graphic in Hanson et al., 2021, 3, where the green area has been decreasing and the built and sealed areas have increased when comparing houses built in Sweden pre-1960s, in 1960–1970 and post-1970s). Where gardens were supposed to supply a family with vegetables, this was made redundant by intensive agriculture and modern supply chains over the last fifty years. However, this development was temporarily reversed during the COVID-19 pandemic, when gardening became a safe, contagionfree hobby and mental refuge, especially for the affluent in employment relationships that allowed for home office arrangements. The trend toward growing vegetables in the private garden may have been reinforced by the Russian attack on Ukraine in February 2022. At Finland’s national level, measures are developed to increase national food independency, even if most agricultural machines and of course fuel are procured from abroad. Rising fuel and food prices are helping, however, to continue the trend set off by the COVID-19 pandemic to grow crops in the home garden.

Reconstructing Lapland’s Towns In 1944, almost 50 percent of all buildings in Finnish Lapland had been set on fire or bombed during the German retreat. When the evacuated Finnish population returned, they had to live in makeshift solutions, sometimes in the basements that had remained of their former homes. During the ‘reconstruction time’ ( jälleenrakennusaika), houses had to be rebuilt quickly and for a rapidly industrializing and urbanizing society. War reparations to Russia had to be paid within a very short time frame and not only in money but as iron (ships), for example. The reconstruction of destroyed homes had priority, and the shortage of materials led to the banning of other than the immediately required buildings to give people shelter. The standard house designed to host a family in town was branded rintamamiestalo (‘frontman’s’ or ‘veteran’s house’) or also asevelitalo (‘fellow soldier house’). Its design was

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influenced by contemporary tendencies of giving the nuclear family a home in a suburban environment (Soikkeli, 2004). The wooden structure of the veteran’s house was adapted from building trends in the United States, and the formerly dominant log-house became marginal (HeininenBlomstedt, 2013), also because of natural processes: the logs used in log-house building required the raw structure to rest before the building could be finalized. The rintamamiestalo, still a completely wooden house, but made from cut wood and wood chips for insulation, could be finished within a year and was ready to move in immediately. Many of the 100,000 or so homeless returnees to Lapland attended summer camps to learn how to construct this standard house, which did not require the training of a carpenter. Today, the veteran’s house is still characteristic of the city of Rovaniemi. Most of these preserved houses have been renovated, refurbished, insulated, reroofed and given a new look altogether. But the historic cityscape tells the story of houses built with their inhabitants’ own hands in the aftermath of WWII, often on a lot that needed to be cleared of trees first, and struggling with a shortage of material and tools. The previous generation made the impossible possible, architect Pihkala wrote in 2004, but the achievements tend to be underappreciated as contemporary generations have not experienced similar hardships (Pihkala, 2004). However, walking around in suburban Rovaniemi, we can still meet some of the elderly living in the houses they built, or their children who participated in the finishing of additional rooms decades later. They still report a strong connection to the land, to the house and not least to the generous green space surrounding it. Tönnies argued that ‘[m]an becomes doubly bound, both by the plowed field and by the house in which he dwells—in other words, by the works of his own hands’ (Tönnies, 2001, 37, first published in 1887). In reconstructing Lapland, the suburban lots offered to people in Rovaniemi were large, between 1000 and 1500 m2 , and often arranged in the style of a farm, with the main house and functional buildings forming a square around the yard. The main house was typically built near the road with windows on each side of the house but with the entrance opening toward the garden. The possibility to retreat and spend time with family was highly appreciated following the years of hardship (Larinkari, 2016). By default, the lot featured a lawn and behind it a big vegetable garden as well as berry bushes all around the main house. The immediate vicinity of the vegetable plot turned gardening into an

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activity for everyone and ensured that the skill of growing produce was available to everyone and subsequently taught to the next generation, ‘sometimes half-forced’ (‘joskus puolipakolla’, Erholtz, 2004, 13). Traditionally, Finnish families owned a part of the forest from where the timber was gathered to heat the house in winter. This requires large storage, in addition to a sauna building and an outhouse. In decades following the war, another building was often added to provide a roof for the family car during long winters. The carport was not necessarily built close to the road, which meant that a long stretch had to be cleared of snow throughout the winter. Already in the 1960s, urban planning changed toward more dense construction, with abundant use of concrete (Pihkala, 1998) and a garage close to the road, reducing the need for snow work significantly. The period of ‘infill construction’, täydennysrakentaminen, which began around this time, tells about the garden becoming obsolete for the immediate survival of the nuclear family and also highlights changes in leisure, esthetic and building paradigms (Strauss-Mazzullo, 2020).

The Snow Garden There is a strong resemblance between the comparatively well-researched place-making activities in the domestic summer garden (e.g., Bhatti et al., 2014; Brook, 2003; Keshavarz & Bell, 2016) and the garden in winter, given the weather-dependent timing of snow-shoveling activity, the amount of physical exercise the private garden requires in winter, and the knowledge that people living in heavy-snowfall areas have on how to move, store and deal with melting snow. While snow work is essential in gaining and maintaining access to everyday infrastructure, I argue that its cultural significance goes far beyond actual utility. Snow work is a substitute for and a continuation of gardening in terms of engaging with the land—of making a piece of wilderness arable, and bonding with the land through one’s own hands’ work. Preparation of the Winter Garden At the beginning of August, the vegetable garden in Rovaniemi at the Arctic Circle has already been harvested, but this is when the berrypicking and mushroom-collecting season commences. During this time, the private garden is less frequented, and the gardener becomes a forest

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and swamp dweller, usually visiting particular areas which have produced a good yield in the past, but traditionally their location is kept secret. Fishing and hunting seasons overlap with the berry and mushroom season, turning the area outside city borders into extensions of the routine paths where urbanites have to negotiate the (sustainable) use of commonly available resources and establish rules for moving in the area. For instance, in order not to get shot by hunters, berry-pickers are advised to wear orange clothes during elk hunt time. In preparation of the arrival of winter, the keen gardener has a list of things to do. At the onset of sub-zero temperatures and perhaps first light snowfall (usually around mid-September), efforts in the private garden have been committed to the collection of leaves, the cutting and trimming of trees and bushes, and other duties around the house which can only be done in temperatures above the freezing point. Comparing the raking of the garden with the later activity of shoveling snow, one is struck by the movement of walking back and forth through the garden, covering a large surface and pulling the rake at the same time. In Finnish Lapland, leaves can be disposed of at the local recycling station for free. People fill sacks with leaves or collect them in a trailer and drive them to the plot where tractors shovel and pile them up. There, the leaves will be turned into humus and sold back to customers. This exchange ensures that the garden is replenished with nutrients. A thin layer of leaves is left on the lawn before a very last cut, shred with the grass and used to fertilize the ground. Because of the long, cold winter, private composting solutions are very slow, and people prefer to purchase the additional soil needed to replenish their vegetable and flower beds. Bulky garden furniture is disassembled and stored away. Boats are moved into corners where they can be recovered after the spring melt, whereas snowmobiles are uncovered from their summer storage and moved with the first solid snow cover. During the raking of the garden, furniture is removed and stored away, unused cars moved to winter rest and out of the way of roof avalanches. The RV (recreational vehicle) is covered with a roof construction that allows snow to slide down, whereas cars go without any cover to avoid mold; flowerpots are moved out of the way of soon frequent strokes with the broom and shovel. In fact, the garden is arranged to accommodate the convenient way of the shovel in winter. All objects which are placed near or on the route of the shovel need to be considered for their potential to make snow work difficult or impossible.

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Winter ‘Proper’ At the first deep frost, a frenzy activity ensues on porches and terraces when mattresses, couches, blankets, pillows, carpets and the entire contents of the freezer are moved outside. Potential parasites in people’s bedding die in the cold, frozen food remains frozen during the time it takes to de-ice a freezer, and laundry dries in dry air at twenty degrees Celsius below zero, or further below. Following the autumn roundup and hunt, reindeer and elk meat are hung in cages to dry in frosty temperatures. A ‘proper’ and, hence, a widely appreciated transition from summer to winter means that temperatures remain stable, that the ground freezes and is then covered by increasing layers of snow. Warmer periods accompanied by rainfall ‘on the water side’ (sateet veden puolella) challenge the methods of snow work. Wet snow is heavy and therefore more difficult to move, which increases the risk of cardiac arrest among the elderly (men). Melted snow turns into ice as colder temperatures set in, making it impossible to move if the right moment was missed. The snow plow, for instance, often works through the whole night to have streets cleared for the morning traffic. If, however, the street was cleared at 2 a.m., the homeowner has to allow an extra half hour or so of hard physical exercise before the car can be moved out of the yard. The work is even more hard and stressful if temperatures have dropped since wet snow was moved into the entrance by the snow plow. In the attempt to beat the clock and drive over the barrier between the yard and the street, cars often get stuck and need to be pulled out. The first snow is expected to fall in September but usually melts away until sub-zero temperatures are stable, which can be as late as midNovember. Until April, five months of accumulating snow are to be dealt with by the homeowner who wishes to move between house and street, on foot, bicycle, kick sled, car, all-terrain vehicle (ATV) or snowmobile. According to individual use, paths, entrances and entire surfaces have to be shoveled whenever the crystalline precipitation comes down from the sky or is pushed toward the yard entrance by a snow plow. To only shovel the snow onto the side of the area in use will quickly limit the possibilities to move additional snow in the same direction. Hence, maintainers of the outdoor space (homeowners, tenants, hired snow workers) have established their individual systems of moving the snow first into far corners of the lot, secondly creating ramps of snow to pile up increasing amounts and, thirdly, retreating from the borders of the lot toward the yard as the

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space fills up. This can be aided with machines, and in years of aboveaverage amounts of snowfall, sales for small snow blowers regularly peak. The fossil-fueled machines require a lot of maintenance, though, and are much less popular than their summer equivalent, the lawn mower. The snow blower is highly affected by changing temperatures, in particular ice forming around motor parts and pipes. After some costly trials with the snow blower, many homeowners revert to using manual tools, in particular the sled shovel, which has a meter-wide shovel that lies on the ground and is pushed forward with both hands, but never lifted when full of snow. Regularly appearing instructions and recommendations advise the ‘snow worker’ to choose a small sleigh shovel, and not to overload it, to find a slow rhythm and take breaks in order not to risk physical collapse. The medical literature on cardiac arrest after snow shoveling activities is extensive, concerning elderly men in particular (e.g., Franklin et al., 2004; Janardhanan et al., 2010; Sauter et al., 2012). Other tools involve small snow shovels, which are used to lift snow up (and risk a slipped disc), a metal plate on a stick to break ice on top of stone-covered paths and brooms. The removal of snow from the roof will differ depending on the type of roof. Flat or low-sloped roofs are walked on and treated with the sleigh shovel, steep-sloped roofs can be accessed with up to five-meterlong rakes. Another method to clear, for instance, the roofs of small sheds covered with tar paper is to cut the snow with ropes first vertically, then pull the rope between the snow and roof from one side to the other, after which the snow should fall almost by itself, requiring little work. The snow falling from the roof can be dangerous during spring melt, when those passing underneath face the risk of getting hit by pieces of ice. In record years, the snow load can be so high that the structure of houses gets damaged. Fluctuating temperatures as well as poor insulation of the roof of a heated building create thick layers of ice that can also damage the roof surface, especially in melt–freeze conditions, when melted snow enters gaps and extends during subsequent freezing, breaking the surface even more and creating channels for the water to move under the roof into the house. Missing the right moment to do snow work can make it very difficult, and create obstacles for the rest of the winter (the snow that has slid from the roof during a mild period has not been moved, and now blocks movement in the vicinity of the house, for instance). The accumulating snow is legally not to be moved out of the private lot, as homeowners are reminded regularly. It is forbidden to move the

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snow to the neighbor’s lot or into a nearby ditch, but it is common practice that the snow that accumulates left and right of the street entrance, where the snow plow pushes snow from the street toward the private space, is removed once a month or so by privately hired tractors. While the city collects snow from road sites, bike paths, parking lots and schoolyards in trucks and takes it to specially assigned snow dumps on the outskirts of the city, private homeowners rely on nearby free spaces to have their front entrance snow disposed by tractor. Some use the service of the tractor beyond the front entrance snow removal by having all of their yard cleared from accumulating snow, thus challenging the rule that ‘snow has to be absorbed where it falls’, issued to homeowners by the city of Rovaniemi in the local newspaper (Haapakangas, 2020b). Snow becomes part of the private property as it touches the ground and has to be dealt with in the same space or disposed of against a charge. The implementation of this rule is important not least from a hydrological viewpoint. While it is crucial to leave the foundations of a house dry, the channeling of rain and melting water away from urban spaces has been understood to increase the frequency of flood events, erosion and water pollution. Thus, the private snow gardener’s knowledge on storing and melting techniques is to be appreciated in the context of tackling hydrological problems at the cumulative scale. Getting Ready for the Summer At the end of the winter, toward the beginning of April, the homeowner has engaged in four to five months of relentless shoveling, moving and piling snow, creating ramps for snow disposal, breaking the ice on paths, moving the snow away from the house when it has slid down or melted from the roof. Where the old method of insulating house walls with snow is applied, the snow needs to be removed from the foundation during spring melt to avoid the foundation getting wet. Throughout the winter, moving snow around the yard not only serves the purpose of avoiding snow piles from becoming obstacles. The masses are strategically disposed of in accordance with how they behave in warming temperatures and the specific landscape features of a yard. Accordingly, snow heaps are created in places where the spring sun floods the yard, but not excessively in spaces where summer gardening is supposed to commence early. Around large trees, shielded from night frost under the tree canopy, melting snow is quickly absorbed, whereas on the northern flank, the snow tends to

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linger until June. To speed up the melting process in crucial locations (where access is deemed necessary), snow heaps are often disassembled and spread over the space of the yard to be quickly melted and absorbed. The warmest spots of the yard, where the sun reaches for most of the daylight hours, are the first to become subject to gardening efforts. In the past, this was usually the location of the vegetable beds, which would be turned over at the earliest opportunity and nourished with fresh humus, calcium and other fertilizers until the end of night frost (potatoes are not planted before 10 June in Rovaniemi). And so, the very short period of summer gardening commences with soil preparation in May and comes to a halt with the onset of frost and snow at the beginning of September, whereas in more temperate climates the harvest continues for another two months, if not more. At first snowfall, with the prospect of continuous sub-zero temperatures, snow is also used as insulating material for sensitive plants.

Conclusion In the Arctic city of Rovaniemi, preparation of the gardening period commences plenty in advance and is constituted by the strategic disposal and reassembling of accumulating snow heaps throughout the winter. Snow is used as an insulating material for houses and plants, and it is used as a hard landscaping material for the duration of sub-zero temperatures. At the end of winter, melted snow waters the plants, and especially trees after a long frosty period. All these uses of snow in the private yard require physical labor and constant tending by the homeowner over the long Arctic winter. Largely determined by the weather, people attend to these snow-related tasks as they occur, albeit with varying personal commitments. Despite health risks (cardiac arrest of middle-aged and older men), the immediate benefits from snow gardening have been described as therapeutic for both mind and body and as a means of engaging with the natural environment. The expertise gained through frequent engagement with the crystalline precipitation could be used to encourage more sustainable living in urban areas. The understanding of snow behavior as part of the hydrological system will be vital in our adaptation to climate changes that are accompanied by fluctuating temperatures, increasing precipitation as well as droughts.

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Beyond the practical advantage of keeping fit and the yard functional over the long winter, regular snow shoveling activity needs to be understood as the manifestation of a specific relationship to the land, national identity and cultural traditions. As described in this chapter, snow garden work is an expression of belonging to a piece of land that makes being in that place meaningful, and as a continuation of garden activity snow work constitutes survival, mental refuge and transcendental purpose in times of crisis. Through regular activity, the (snow) garden dweller relates to nature rendered comprehensible and transforms it according to relevant social relationships.

References Aaltonen, T. (2016, April 7). Puutarhan pitkä polku Suomessa [The long path of gardening in Finland]. Turun Sanomat. Retrieved September 12, 2022, from https://www.ts.fi/koti/1279286787 Alexander, C. (2002). The garden as occasional domestic space. Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 27 (3), 857–871. Bergan, V., Krempig, I. W., Utsi, T. A., & Bøe, K. W. (2021). I want to participate: Communities of practice in foraging and gardening projects as a contribution to social and cultural sustainability in early childhood education. Sustainability, 13(8), 4368. Bhatti, M., & Church, A. (2001). Cultivating natures: Homes and gardens in late modernity. Sociology, 35(2), 365–383. Bhatti, M., Church, A., & Claremont, A. (2014). Peaceful, pleasant and private: The British domestic garden as an ordinary landscape. Landscape Research, 39(1), 40–52. Brook, I. (2003). Making here like there: Place attachment, displacement and the urge to garden. Ethics, Place & Environment, 6(3), 227–234. Busby, S. (2016). Wellness through the lens of gathering, gardening, and grocery. [Master’s thesis, University of Alaska Fairbanks, US]. ScholarWorks@UA. http://hdl.handle.net/11122/6698 Chen, A., & Natcher, D. (2019). Greening Canada’s Arctic food system: Local food procurement strategies for combating food insecurity. Canadian Food Studies, 6(1), 140–154. Donner, J. (2016). Missä moderni—Siellä puutarha [Where the modern, there the garden]. In J. Sinkkilä, J. Donner, & M. Mannerla-Magnusson (Eds.), Unelma paremmasta maailmasta. Moderni puutarha ja maisema Suomessa 1900–1970 [Dreams of a better world. The modern garden and landscape in Finland 1900–1970] (pp. 12–25). Aldus.

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Erholtz, L. (2004). Elämäntilanne [Life situation]. In A. Pihkala (Ed.), Jälleenrakennuksen perintö Lapissa [The legacy of reconstruction in Lapland] (pp. 12– 13). Lapin läänin rakennusperinne ry. Franklin, B. A., McCullough, P. A., & Gordon, S. (2004). Winter storm warning: Snow removal may be hazardous to your (patient’s) health. Current Sports Medicine Reports, 3(2), 59–61. Haapakangas, T. (2020a, March 2). Ensimmäistä kertaa 20 vuoteen rovaniemeläispihalta loppui tila—Lumipaljoutta ratkotaan nyt monella rivitalopihalla [For the first time in 20 years, Rovaniemi yards are running out of snow-clearing space. Masses of snow to be tackled by many residents of terraced houses]. Lapin Kansa, 7 . Haapakangas, T. (2020b, March 2). Vastaus lumityöpulmaan: Lumesta tulee omaisuutta, kun se osuu maahan [Answer to the snow work dilemma: Snow becomes private property when it touches the ground]. Lapin Kansa, 6. Hanson, H. I., Eckberg, E., Widenberg, M., & Alkan Olsson, J. (2021). Gardens’ contribution to people and urban green space. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 63, 127198. Heikkonen, T., & Kähkönen, S. (2022, February 27). Lunta on nyt joka paikka täynnä ja se on kaupunkisuunnittelun ahneuden syy [Our cities are snowed under, and the fault lies with the greed of urban planning]. YLE Uutiset [News by the Finnish Broadcasting Company]. Retrieved September 12, 2022, from https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12329867 Heininen-Blomstedt, K. (2013). Jälleenrakennuskauden tyyppitaloalue. Paikan merkitykset ja täydennysrakentaminen [The post-war type house areas: The meaning and infill building of place]. [Doctoral dissertation, University of Helsinki]. HELDA: Digital repository of the University of Helsinki. https:// helda.helsinki.fi/handle/10138/38875 Janardhanan, R., Henry, Z., Hur, D. J., Lin, C. M., Lopez, D., Reagan, P. M., Rudnick, S. R., Koshko, T. J., & Keeley, E. C. (2010). The snow-shoveler’s ST elevation myocardial infarction. The American Journal of Cardiology, 106(4), 596–600. Keshavarz, N., & Bell, S. (2016). A history of urban gardens in Europe. In S. Bell, R. Fox-Kämper, N. Keshavarz, M. Benson, S. Caputo, S. Noori, & A. Voigt (Eds.), Urban allotment gardens in Europe (pp. 8–32). Routledge. Larinkari, M. (2016). Jälleenrakennuskauden kotipuutarhat [The private gardens of the reconstruction era]. In J. Sinkkilä, J. Donner, & M. MannerlaMagnusson (Eds.), Unelma paremmasta maailmasta. Moderni puutarha ja maisema Suomessa 1900–1970 [Dreams of a better world: The modern garden and landscape in Finland in 1900–1970] (pp. 130–137). Aldus. Macnaghten, P. (2003). Embodying the environment in everyday life practices. The Sociological Review, 51(1), 63–84.

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Magnani, N. (2016). Reconstructing food ways: Role of Skolt Sami cultural revitalization programs in local plant use. Journal of Ethnobiology, 36(1), 85–104. Meller, H. (2016). Citizens in pursuit of nature: Gardens, allotments and private space in European cities, 1850–2000. In D. Schott, B. Luckin, & G. MassardGuilbaud (Eds.), Resources of the city: Contributions to an environmental history of modern Europe (pp. 80–96). Routledge. Nilsson, L. M., Dahlgren, L., Johansson, I., Brustad, M., Sjölander, P., & Guelpen, B. V. (2011). Diet and lifestyle of the Sami of southern Lapland in the 1930s–1950s and today. International Journal of Circumpolar Health, 70(3), 301–318. Pihkala, A. (1998). Rakennussuojelun kipeä historia [The painful history of protecting buildings]. Kaltio: Pohjoinen kulttuurilehti, 98(4), 136. Pihkala, A. (2004). Miksi säilyttää [Why preserve]? In A. Pihkala (Ed.), Jälleenrakennuksen perintö Lapissa [The legacy of reconstruction in Lapland] (pp. 16–17). Lapin läänin rakennusperinne ry. Sauter, T., Haider, D. G., Ricklin, M. E., & Exadaktylos, A. K. (2012, January 12). The snow, the men, the shovel, the risk? ER admissions after snow shovelling: 13 winters in Bern. Swiss Medical Weekly. Sipola, S. (2019). From community gardens to hybrid hydroponics: The evolution of northern greenhouses and Arctic gardening. [Master’s thesis, The Arctic University of Norway and University of Saskatchewan]. Soikkeli, A. (2004). Jälleenrakennustoiminta Lapissa [Reconstruction activity in Lapland]. In A. Pihkala (Ed.), Jälleenrakennuksen perintö Lapissa [The legacy of reconstruction in Lapland] (pp. 34–45). Lapin läänin rakennusperinne ry. Strauss-Mazzullo, H., (2020). Shovelling snow in Finnish Lapland: Social and aesthetic perspectives on an everyday activity. Polar Record, 56(E32). Takanen, A-M. (2014). Rovaniemen puistohistoriakartoitus [Mapping the history of city parks in the city of Rovaniemi] [Master’s thesis, Oulu University of Applied Sciences]. Open Repository Theseus. https://www.theseus.fi/bitstr eam/handle/10024/79753/Takanen_Anne-Mari.pdf?sequence=1 Tönnies, F. (2001). Tönnies: Community and civil society (J. Harris, Ed.; M. Hollis, Trans.). Cambridge University Press. Turner, T. (2011). European gardens: History, philosophy and design. Routledge. Vasara, V. (2021, September 24). Pullonkaulaan lisää kapasiteettia—Tästä putkesta Rovaniemen hulevesiverkosto purkautuu Kemijokeen [Increased capacity in current bottlenecks. Here is the new pipe that will pump the network drainage water into the Kemijoki river]. Uusi Rovaniemi, 8. Waldeyer, C. (2019). Sinnzuschreibungen privater Gartengestaltungen—Konflikthafte Artefakte zwischen der Landschaftsnatur und Gesellschaftskultur [Attributions of meaning to private garden designs—conflicting artefacts between landscape nature and social culture]. In K. Berr & C. Jena (Eds.), Landschaftskonflikte (pp. 223–238). Springer.

PART II

Situated Weather Practices in Mobility Contexts

CHAPTER 7

When the Risk Realizes on a Wintry Road. The Failure of the Socio-technical System of Land-Based Transport in Northern Conditions Leena Suopajärvi

Introduction It was a spring day. I was driving home to Rovaniemi from our cottage in western Lapland, a stretch of 85 kilometres. That Sunday in March 2021 was partly cloudy – no sunshine, but not snowing either – so the driving weather was good and I knew the road. However, the westerly wind was quite strong, blowing at eight metres per second. As the temperature was around zero, the wind piled up snow on the roadway. I was driving, when we arrived (my husband was there as well) at Lake Vietonen where the road ran for 1.2 kilometres by the shoreline of the vast lake. It seemed that that road was covered by 10–20 centimetres of snow, but I was more

L. Suopajärvi (B) University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Strauss-Mazzullo and M. Tennberg (eds.), Living and Working With Snow, Ice and Seasons in the Modern Arctic, Arctic Encounters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36445-7_7

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concerned by the tracks disappearing of the car driving about 400 metres ahead of us. ‘Keep the throttle down and drive on steadily’, my husband advised. After a 100-metre drive we were stuck. ‘Reverse and drive at a slightly faster speed’, was the second piece of advice. I did my best and we moved a couple of metres more, but that was that. We were stuck in the middle of the road. No going forward, no going backward – the snow was packed under the car. What now?

The road network and car traffic are the backbone of connectivity in Finnish Lapland. The county extends over 100,000 square kilometers, covering almost a third of Finland’s land area and is larger than, for example, Portugal. Finnish Lapland has over 9100 kilometers of public roads. There are also private roads and forest roads which are mainly used in winter for timber transport and private recreational traffic. The railways reach only a part of the county, the city of Rovaniemi, Kolari municipality by the Swedish border in the west, and Kemijärvi city in eastern Lapland, but Kemijärvi and Kolari are mainly departure stations for timber transport, and there is little passenger traffic. There are no in-county flight connections, only flights to Helsinki-Vantaa airport in the capital region of Finland (Lapin Ely-keskus, 2021a, 2022). Despite being a relatively sparsely populated country, Finland is the land of holiday cottages, second homes in the countryside. In a country of just over five and a half million people, there are more than 500,000holiday cottages. Apart from the Åland Islands, only in Lapland do 90% of cabin owners live in the province, so we are not an exception, me and my husband. Rather, we are already an elderly couple driving to the cabin and back whenever possible in spring, summer and autumn to enjoy nature (Voutilainen et al., 2021). In Finland, the distance between home and cottage is 20–100 kilometers among almost half of the cottage owners (46%). This means that most of the cottage trips are made by private cars, which makes it easy to transport whatever one needs for a weekend. Leisure trips are most common in spring and summer, and Sundays are the most crowded days (Nieminen, 2008; Traficom, 2018). Therefore, halting the traffic on a spring Sunday was more serious, affecting more road users than if the accident had occurred at any other time. I will discuss the accident—this risk’s becoming true on a remote countryside road—by using the socio-technical system as a concept illustrating a more complex nature of the incident. Socio-technical system (STS)

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refers to a specific system fulfiling human needs, be it transport, nutrition or communication, for example. Every system consists of (1) actors, (2) institutions and rules and (3) material things like technology, which in turn is linked with such facets as natural resources as raw material for artifacts, knowledge and cultural needs and meanings of technological development. Each system has its own character, and systems are dynamic and developing in interaction with three aspects: humans, materials and institutions. As socio-technical systems in some parts stem from innovation studies, they stress the importance of all parts of the supply chain: production, diffusion and application (Geels, 2004; see Savaget et al., 2019, for instance, for STS in different domains). For example, STS of landbased transport system includes factors such as the car industry structure; markets and user practices; maintenance and distribution network; fuel infrastructure; vehicles as artifacts as such; traffic system and road network; regulations and policies as well as cultural and symbolic meanings of traffic (Geels et al., 2019, 24). In this article, my angle is that of a motorist, a user of the transport system in a specific context. The full socio-technical transport system sets the boundary conditions of everyday driving in Finnish Lapland, but I will not examine the industrial structure, for example, or markets of automotive production. Instead, I am interested to know which factors of the system came to be relevant in my accident. Often, the socio-technical system with all its components becomes visible, when an error, malfunction or risk realizes. There are several definitions for risk, but in my reading, risk is an expectation or at least a possibility that something negative may happen in the future. Risk may be foreseen as based on today’s knowledge (Beck, 1992, 2009). Although it is unclear when and where it will realize, it is assumed that the likelihoods of the risk may be reduced. Therefore, risks are acknowledged. People think that they can estimate probabilities and even predict risks, which makes them different from uncertainties, ‘Black Swans’, which cannot be predicted because current knowledge is insufficient (Aven & Renn, 2010; about uncertainties, see Olofsson, 2020; Black Swans, see Taleb, 2007). Risk assessments are part of the planning, and the Finnish Traffic Safety Strategy 2022–2026 includes statistical information about deaths and the seriously injured in traffic and discusses the reasons behind those fatal, realized risks (Rekola et al., 2022).

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‘Death reaps the harvest: Finland lags behind the Nordic countries’ headlined a Finnish newspaper specializing in cars and traffic in 2021, pointing out that in proportion to the population, the number of traffic deaths in 2020 in Finland was about twice as high as in Sweden and Norway (Jokela, 2021). In 2020, there were 40 road deaths per million inhabitants in Finland, whereas the average in the EU was 42, and 18 both in Norway and Sweden. Although the figures may change year by year, the big picture has long remained the same (European Commission, 2021). In Finland, about 75% of fatal accidents occur on roads. Collisions are the most common on main roads, while derailments lead the tables in the lower road network. The Finnish traffic safety strategy explains the reasons for young drivers’ risky behavior and lack of driving skills, old drivers’ weaker driving ability, the use of intoxicants, suicidal driving and excessively high driving speeds. According to traffic accident investigations, road safety was rarely the reason for an accident. In Lapland, too, disregard of traffic rules is the most significant factor in serious traffic accidents (Lapin Ely-keskus, 2011; Rekola et al., 2022). In the next section, I will tell my story: how the hazardous situation came to be and how I felt, helpless on the road by the large Vietonen Lake, where the heavy winds kept blowing snow on the road. To describe my own thoughts about guilt, I will briefly frame the narrative with thoughts of risk. In the following section, I analyze the situation as a malfunction of the socio-technical system and discuss the ways in which institutions and rules, materials and humans were involved in it (Fig. 7.1).

Traffic System in a Risky Situation: Traffic Blocked for 1.5 Hours After a couple of minutes, a local woman driving to work stopped her car and jumped out. ‘Let me try’, she said. I saw the look in her eyes: a city woman who doesn’t master winter driving. Without any words I felt kind of accused. Was it really my fault that I got stuck, I wondered. Only my fault?

Sociologist Ulrich Beck (1990, 1992, 2009) has argued that there are three reasons why risks realize, come to existence. The first reason is that someone intentionally endangers the system, and commits a crime or misdemeanor, for example, driving drunk or too fast. If there were

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Fig. 7.1 Weather conditions in Finnish Lapland vary from one year to the next and from one day to another. In March 2022, the road by Lake Vietonen was easy to drive (Photo Leena Suopajärvi)

thousands of drivers in Lapland endangering the traffic it would be a social problem, but as there are only some individuals in everyday traffic risking the road security, it is their choice and their individual-level risk taking (Mills, 1977). I was not drunk or driving too fast, perhaps the very opposite. I was not sure if I could make it through the road. The snow was piling up fast and the tracks of the car before us were covered by the snow very quickly, in a matter of minutes. In addition to natural conditions, technology was not on my side, either. I was driving VW Polo, a car with low ground clearance and, of course, with no four-wheel drive. Not the best choice for wintry roads, but very practical in urban conditions as the car is small and consumes relatively little petrol in urban driving. Also, I was missing something importantly: a spade. The car was always packed full for the weekend, including food and drinks, water, clothes and personal things, icefish equipment and skis and poles. No room for a spade. The myth of the northern (wo)man’s ability to prepare for changing natural conditions could be rejected, at least for me. Personal risk assessment in a critical decision-making situation includes many elements. To avoid a risk is to have full knowledge about the situation and to make a rational choice. I did not get out of the car and did

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not make an estimate about the depth of the snow on the road. Hence, I did not have accurate empirical information about the road condition, and I also could not estimate how fast the wind was piling up the snow. By no means a wise course of action, but do people always act rational in a difficult situation? As argued by Zinn and Taylor-Gooby (2006, 47): ‘In the process of decision-making, rationality as well as trust, emotion, competing perspectives, and the accumulation of risks are interwoven.’ I continued driving as I just wanted to get away from the harsh winter conditions, and based on my earlier experiences I trusted the road maintenance in Finnish Lapland. I have driven on Lappish roads for almost 40 years. Hence, I was familiar with driving on wintry roads and especially on this road—I did not feel that this time would be any different. Statistics in Finland suggest that women are more safety-oriented drivers than men. Men cause 70% of all traffic accidents and three out of four of those who die in traffic are men (Liikenneturva, 2023). What is true in general is not necessarily true individually. My husband is a more careful driver than I am: he usually drives below the speed limit and, for example, never gets behind the wheel tired. When he lived in northern Norway he also learned to be prepared for snowfalls and storms and told stories of roads being closed with booms until snowplows arrived to escort the convoy through. That is why I trusted his advice. According to Beck (1992), the second reason for a risk to come true is that someone or something in the system is working poorly. In innovative societies, every system includes different kinds of sciences and knowledges; politics and policies and economies of different actors. Although risk-assessments of different kinds of systems and organizations are made, they are often ‘closed’ systems—only insiders of the system know how foreseen or knowledgeable risks are to be realized. I saw the snowplough coming, but it stopped at the beginning of the road and stayed there. I ran to the driver and asked if he could push snow from the front of our car and two other cars and pull the cars to the side of the road. The driver was sitting in the warm cab wearing Crocs and a t-shirt. ‘I don’t have a rope, nor spade’, he said very calmly. A myth of well-prepared northern male professionals could also be de-bunked, but then: why should he be prepared for helping car drivers in trouble? It was not his job and could even compromise the continuation of the work if the car ran out of petrol or was damaged, for example.

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The third reason behind a risk occurring is a systemic failure. Every part of the system, be it a technical solution, a decision, an implementation plan or an actor, performs its task exactly right. Beck discusses ‘organized irresponsibility’ (Organisierte Unverantwortlichkeit) at the system level: there are obligatory rules, experts in different hierarchies with defined tasks, written contracts, and so on. All are set in place, and hence the use of valid standards and protocols guarantees that system-related endangerment cannot be attributed to anyone (Beck, 1990). In my case, I did not think that this accident would be an outcome of system failure. Quite the opposite. Like a typical Finn, I trust authorities and especially those institutions and systems that maintain security (Simonen et al., 2021). And I trust Finnish infrastructures. Houses are warm; we have reliable water and energy supply; and driving on the roads is safe as roads are maintained and the regulations are clear. The elementary societal infrastructures and their maintenance in Nordic countries are taken for granted. The complex web of infrastructures built on human and other-than-human factors is invisible—until something unexpected happens (see Valkonen et al., 2022). In half an hour, more and more cars had arrived on both ends of the straight road. No public traffic or heavy traffic but around 15 private cars, people going to work or Sunday visit as is the habit in the countryside – and certainly other cottage owners, too, returning to town. I started to realise the seriousness of the situation. What if an ambulance came or someone ran out of fuel? The nearest petrol station was about 30 kilometres away. I called the emergency centre, but they could not locate me as I did not know the number of the road, I could not hear very well in the wind and I was very nervous, could not concentrate on speaking on a phone in an on-going situation. So, it was my mistake that we didn’t get help from police or the fire brigade.

Humans live with other species on the globe, but humans have developed language to transfer knowledge from generations to generations and also have the ability to make tools for many kinds of purposes. The ability of humans to adapt to all kinds of environments on the globe is not a result of an individual’s intelligence, but is mainly due to culture and society—the ability to communicate and co-operate (Alasuutari, 2004).

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Two local women, who were also stuck in the situation, called their husbands for help. One arrived with a spade and the other, even more importantly, with a four-wheel Toyota Hilux, which enabled him to drive in thick snow. He pulled us to the side of the road and together the men began to untangle the cars from the snow and pull them aside so that the snowplough could finally drive through the road. We were the last to leave and I collected the plastic parts of the bottom of the car when we left. The local men who saved us all wished us a safe drive: ‘Drive carefully as there can be snow on the brakes. They might not work properly’. Skilled northerners, at last!

The Failure of the Socio-technical System of Traffic: Accident and Stoppage of Traffic in Northern Conditions Studying a minor traffic accident on a northern country road far from heavy urban traffic can offer insights into the whole socio-technical traffic system. The questions are simple enough: what happened and why. So, it is possible to grasp interacting elements, actors and decisions—connections between human, technological, environmental and administrative aspects—that created a risky situation for the traffic system in Finnish Lapland on a normal Sunday in spring 2021 (see Salter, 2015, 2016). The accident may be seen as an assemblage, as a coincidence of heterogeneous things. They might involve the state-level Road Traffic Act; governmental decisions of distribution of vehicle tax for the maintenance of Finnish roads; decisions by the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency; Lapland’s Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment (Lapin Ely-keskus) being a regionally responsible author and tendering for road maintenance works and making decisions on contracts; the contractor’s and subcontractor’s decisions every winter morning about the need and urgency of maintenance; the decision of an individual driver to start the journey home; the car’s technological suitability for northern traffic conditions; weather conditions, such as wind blowing snow onto the road. As Salter (2016, x) describes: ‘the assemblage is attuned to openness, emergence, and heterogeneity as evidenced by connections that work together, characterised by the modesty of the researcher.’ The reference here is to the methodological starting point, flat ontology, ‘a kind of naïve openness to connection between all kinds of

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different actors, human and nonhuman—including objects, ideas and outof-scale processes’ (Salter, 2016, xii). In this case, a car-driving researcher was indeed helpless and humbled—perhaps a good indicator for all social scientists to study incidents like this where you experience very real powerlessness. When analyzing the car accident and blocked traffic as a manifestation of the failure of the socio-technical system, different aspects of traffic system become visible. In the following, I will analyze the case from institutional, technological and human perspectives. From the institutional perspective (Geels, 2004; Geels et al., 2019), the government and traffic authorities on national and regional levels make decisions on and regulate the maintenance of the road network. Main roads with larger traffic volume are better maintained than roads with little traffic. Hence, the ‘quality standards’ are lower for contractors on less busy roads (Lapin Ely-keskus, 2022), which in practice means more unsafe driving. Also, the government funding granted to regional authorities for road maintenance, repair and construction has been insufficient. The condition of Lapland’s road network has been deteriorating for about ten years, and the regional authority estimates that the deterioration will continue in the coming years. Not only are the roads in a poorer structural state but there is also less money available for winter maintenance contracts (Lapin Ely-keskus, 2021a). As a result, while around half of the private drivers on Lappish roads were satisfied with roads and their maintenance in winter, less than a third (29%) were satisfied with the prevention of slipperiness and snowplowing on less busy roads in 2019. In the opinion of those traveling on the roads of Lapland, winter maintenance of the roads is the most significant safety factor (Väylävirasto, 2019). The biggest change in legislation concerning traffic and roads was the 1954 legislation on Public Roads, which obliged the state to take care of roads and their maintenance. In 1959–1964, the state assumed responsibility for management and costs covering over 90% of public roads. The coming decades were an active period of road construction and improvement. In the 1990s the Road Administration became a state enterprise, and at the end of the decade, the actual planning, construction and maintenance of roads was separated from Road Administration (Mäkelä, 2000). Justified by efficiency, the solution is an example of a neoliberal change in Finnish politics and state

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policy—well-known throughout Western societies as new public management—seeking business-like methods in state administration (Rantala & Sulkunen, 2006). In the 2020s, all larger road construction projects are financed separately. Regional authorities have to apply funding from national authorities and politicians (Lapin Ely-keskus, 2021a). In 2022, two companies take care of the roads in Lapland: Terranor Ltd and YIT Finland Ltd. These main contractors use sub-contractors in different regions. The main contractor is responsible for the quality of the work and reports to the regional authority, which reviews the quality in site meetings and sometimes by spot tests (Lapin Ely-keskus, 2022). How efficient and transparent the monitoring system is, can be questioned. The contractor said that a snowplow had cleared the road at 04.50 on 21 March 2021. They informed that they returned at 13:46. To me, there was an important gap here (Lapin Ely-keskus, 2021b). Insurances are a part of the institutional road traffic system in Finland. All Finnish vehicles must have motor liability insurance as statutory damage insurance. This legally based insurance is to cover damage to property and/or personal injury caused by using a motor vehicle in traffic. The driver who causes the damage is also entitled to personal injury compensation, if his/her choices and action did not risk the situation (Finlex, 2015). Besides traffic insurance, drivers can take out voluntary insurance. As the car is one of the biggest lifetime investments (at least for me), this is what I did, opting for additional insurance that provided cover for crashing, colliding with an animal, fire, theft, vandalism, and so on. My VW Polo was quite new at the time; ‘The Silver Arrow’, as I called it, had only around 40,000 kilometers on it. Afterward I contacted my insurance company and they covered most of the costs of car repair. In the socio-technical system analyses the technological perspective includes physical artifacts, materials, organizations like manufacturing firms or development laboratories on the production side as well as users of these technologies (Geels, 2004). In this case study, I apply the STS or the ‘socio-technical system’ in a way that allows technology to be replaced with the concept of material. This also includes natural conditions besides human-made technology and thus involves the road, the car and the natural conditions (Salter, 2015, 2016) (Fig. 7.2). Road 932, which already appears on nineteenth-century maps, connects central Lapland to the Swedish border in Ylitornio (Grönroos, 2018). In the nineteenth century, roads were mere fairways, paths for traffic on foot or horses. Automobiles arrived in Lapland in the 1920s and

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Fig. 7.2 Road 932 runs for 1.2 kilometers along the shores of the large Vietonen lake (Map Arctic Centre, University of Lapland)

1930s, which changed the whole traffic system, including road construction and maintenance. Intensive road construction was driven by the economic development in an independent Finnish state (since 1917), vast natural resources, mainly timber in the North, and a national interest to connect sparsely populated areas, too, to the ‘civilized’ world. Statefunded road construction was also seen as a way of promoting the well-being of the residents of Lapland (the county was founded in 1938) because forestry was the only business that offered larger-scale paid work (Enbuske, 2009; Mäkelä, 2000). As a result, the road network covered almost 7700 kilometers in the early 1970s, and practically, almost all Laplanders had access to a public road (2022: slightly over 9100 kms) (Mäkelä, 2000, 161–162). An important material innovation was made in the United States in the 1920s and was later developed by Swedes to northern conditions and further tested in Finnish Lapland in the 1950s: mixing oil and sand for a spreadable mass. Oil gravel coating was rapidly adopted as it was cheap and durable paving (lasting as long as 20 years), and cars no longer had to drive on bumpy gravel roads. ‘Oil gravel coating—the savior of Lapland’s roads’ was this material innovation described in the history book of road development in Lapland (Räme, 2000). When Road 932 was renovated in

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1959–1962, its southern part was covered by oil gravel and in 2022, some parts of the 36-kilometer-long road still have that same coating (Mäkelä, 2000). My car, Volkswagen Polo, is a compact city car, but it is not the best for driving long distances in winter. The Finnish car magazine Tekniikan maailma annually tests the best cars for winter conditions and evaluates issues such as winter driving on the road, controllability, ability to move forward, brakes, heating device, electric heaters and light power (Ilta-Sanomat, 2019). Winter driving also benefits from four-wheel drive, high ground clearance as well as friction tires or winter tires in a good condition. Often the best winter cars that made it to the tests are big and heavy (compared to VW Polo). In 2022 the best winter car, tested also in Finnish Lapland, was Škoda Fabia, slightly surprisingly as the magazine commented. Second place was taken by Dacia Sandero Stepway, and Mercedes-Benz C 300 came third. There was also a separate test for electric cars (Autotoday, 2022). But to return to the Sunday afternoon in 2021, it seems that natural conditions as a material factor—snow piled up by the winds—were the main reason behind the accident. At the time, the wind blew at eight meters per second (Lapin Ely-keskus, 2021b), which on the seven-grade scale of the Finnish Meteorological Institute is a middling strong wind (Ilmatieteen laitos, 2023). Extreme weather conditions are expected to increase also in Finnish Lapland due to climate change. According to Lapland’s transport system plan extending to 2040, adaptation to climate change will require investments to be ready for more frequent extreme weather events and challenging conditions. Changes in weather and road conditions may occur more unexpectedly in the future. This makes road maintenance more challenging and can increase the risk of accidents on northern roads (Lapin liitto, 2021). And finally, what about the human aspect, the actors involved (Geels, 2004)? Clearly, I made the decision, but not on my own. I agree with Charlton and Starkey (2020, 8) that it makes sense to use ‘the concept of a co-driver, as it is used in competitive rally driving’, because it ‘transforms the role of the passenger into an active participant, responsible for navigation and advising the driver on possible obstacles, hazards, and progress toward their shared goal.’ Unfortunately, our joint assessment proved wrong this time. Local people organized help. Two local women called their husbands, who came with the much-needed engine power of a Toyota Hilux to pull us on the side of the road. My co-driver sat in

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the car and listened to the music as he and probably other drivers there realized that there was nothing to do: manpower was not enough with compressed snow under a 1000-kg vehicle. Perhaps they were also calling for help: the road user phone line received several calls that day (Lapin Ely-keskus, 2021b). In 1966—the year that I was born—James Brown, performing soul music in those days, sang the lyrics by Betty Jean Newsome: You see, man made the cars to take us over the road. Man made the train to carry the heavy load. Man made electric light to take us out of the dark. Man made the boat for the water, like Noah made the ark. This is a man’s, man’s, man’s world. But it wouldn’t be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl.

Finnish women are not afraid to be independent in the 2020s, but being a helpless woman on the road that Sunday was a terrible fact. Perhaps it taught me to think about James Brown’s words the other way round: without the help of men, I would not have coped with the situation. Well… perhaps better leave it there.

Epilogue On Monday, 22 March 2021, I contacted my insurance company. They covered most of the costs, and the car was repaired. I had to pay 187 euros myself and – not only for the money but rather of principle – I filed a claim for damages to the authority, Centre for Economic Development, Transport and the Environment (ELY centre). In the decision given on 23 June 2021, they admitted that on the day of the accident, the road user line received notifications about the need for ploughing as strong winds were piling up snow on the road. The main contractor noted that the information of the stronger wind had come around 10:00, after which the subcontractor had been alerted to work on his ploughing route. The text continues: ‘The road user has taken a conscious risk when driving towards thick gust wedges and thus blocking the road by getting stuck in the middle of the road.’ Decision: Lapland’s ELY centre rejects your claim. (Lapin Ely-keskus, 2021b)

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Conclusions Road traffic always carries a risk that might come true. Accidents will happen. Risks can materialize if someone endangers the traffic system, even knowingly, for example, by driving drunk. Another reason is found in some parts of the traffic system not working properly, as when road maintenance is not carried out according to regulations. But sometimes the risk comes true, even though all parts of the system work exactly as decided and agreed. Whether the reason for the critical situation is a violation, malfunction or in the system itself, risks become true in the everyday lives of human beings. If one starts to question the system, there will be objective calculations and probability statements prepared in offices elsewhere. There will also be standardized protocols, where the operators of the system have their own slice to take care of. This is the system of organized irresponsibility, as discussed in the works of Ulrich Beck. A socio-technical system such as the traffic system consists of many kinds of elements. Technological or material aspects in my case study included stormy weather conditions, car technology not suitable for wintry roads and a road that was inadequate for traffic in many parts. The institutional aspect is built on national political decision-making where attention is mainly paid to the growth centers, i.e., the southern parts of the country. As a result, there is insufficient funding for road safety in remote northern conditions. Regional authorities apply this new public management and tender road maintenance as cheaply as possible among private entrepreneurs due to a lack of financing. The result is deteriorated roads with sometimes lacking road maintenance. The human aspect in this case refers to me as a driver, co-driver and other road users. Personal decision-making in the hazardous situation is not only about making a fully rational choice but also stirs emotions such as anxiety and simply wanting to get out of the situation. Also, earlier experiences led to my taking a risk. After all, I had always survived similar situations before. I also trusted the joint decision-making with the co-driver, my husband. The situation was solved by local people, who came to help when the rescue service did not. It was an extraordinary day, that Sunday in 2021. Roads form a basic structure of regions and nations and connect locations, people and functions. Roads are like veins of the human body (metaphor from Kemppainen, 2000), keeping the whole assemblage of social and human-made environment together, sometimes seriously tested by nature and natural conditions. The analysis of a small incident, a road

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accident with only material losses, reveals the complexity of the traffic system and interdependencies of institutional, human, technological and environmental aspects creating this at times vulnerable assemblage. Acknowldgments I would like to thank researcher Janne Kirjavainen for his comments on earlier versions of the paper. Also, I thank the editors and reviewers of the book for their constructive feedback. This paper is a part of the project Regulating the Sustainability Transition of the Transport and Mobility System in the Arctic (ARCTIC TRANSIT), led by research professor Jukka Similä. The project is funded by the University of Lapland from 2023 to 2024.

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Lapin liitto (Regional Council of Lapland). (2021). Lapin liikennejärjestelmäsuunnitelma 2040 [Lapland’s traffic system plan 2040]. Retrieved January 31, 2023, from https://www.lapinliitto.fi/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/ Lapin-liikennejarjestelmasuunnitelma-2040-1.pdf Liikenneturva (Finnish Road Safety Council). (2023). Henkilövahingot henkilöautoissa [Personal injuries in private cars.] Retrieved March 8, 2023 from https://www.liikenneturva.fi/tutkimukset/henkilovahingot-henkil oautossa/#3cfcec5b Mäkelä, P. (2000). Pitkoksilta pikiteille. Lapin tiepiiri 75 vuotta 1925–2000 [From wooden routes to paved roads. Lapland road district 75 years 1925–2000]. Tiemuseon julkaisuja 18. Mills, C. W. (1977). The sociological imagination [Orig. 1959]. Oxford University Press. Nieminen, M. (2008). Valtakunnallinen matkailuliikenne. Matkailutilastojen koosteraportti [Tourism traffic at the country level. Summary report on tourism statistics]. Ministry of Transport and Communications 3/2008. Olofsson, T. (2020). Mining futures: Predictions and uncertainty in Swedish mineral exploration. Uppsala University. Räme, R. (2000). Öljysora—Lapin teiden pelastus [Oil gravel, saviour of Lappish roads]. In P. Mäkelä (Ed.), Pitkoksilta pikiteille. Lapin tiepiiri 75 vuotta 1925– 2000) [From wooden routes to paved roads. Lapland road district 75 years 1925–2000]. Tiemuseon julkaisuja 18. Rantala, K., & Sulkunen, P. (Eds.) (2006). Projektiyhteiskunnan kääntöpuolia [The downsides of project society]. Gaudeamus. Rekola, M., Kolinen, L., Asikainen, E., Heliste, L., Immonen, E., Starck, M., Ahokas, M., Suomento, J., & Johansson, S. (2022). Liikenneturvallisuusstrategia 2022–2026 [Traffic safety strategy 2022–2026]. Liikenne- Ja Viestintäministeriön Julkaisuja, 2022, 3. Salter, M. B. (2015). Introduction: Circuits and motion. In M. B. Salter (Ed.), Making things international 1: Circuit and motion (pp. vii–xxii). University of Minnesota Press. Salter, M. B. (2016). Introduction: Making assemblages international. In M. B. Salter (Ed.), Making things international 2. Catalysts and reactions (pp. vii-xxiii). University of Minnesota Press. Savaget, P., Geissdoerfer, M., Kharrazzi, A., & Evans, S. (2019). The theoretical foundations of sociotechnological systems change for sustainability: A systematic literature review. Journal of Cleaner Production, 206, 878–892. Simonen, J., Vestinen, J., Pitkänen, V., & Heikkilä, A. (2021). Luottamusta ilmassa, mutta kuinka paljon? Tutkimus eri sukupolvien luottamuksesta yhteiskunnan instituutioihin [Confidence in the air, but how much? Research on the trust felt by different generations in societal institutions]. Retrieved January 10, 2023, from https://www.e2.fi/media/julkaisut-ja-alustukset/ sukupolvien-huolet-ja-voimat/luottamusta-ilmassa/luottamusta-ilmassa-rap ortti-final-24.9.-1.pdf

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Taleb, N. N. (2007). The black swan: The impact of the highly improbable. Random House. Traficom. (2018). Henkilöliikennetutkimuksen 2016 tuloksia taulukoina [Results of passenger transport survey 2016 in tables]. Retrieved January 10, 2023, from https://www.traficom.fi/fi/ajankohtaista/julkaisut/henkiloliike nnetutkimuksen-2016-tuloksia-taulukoina Valkonen, J., Kinnunen, V., Huilaja, H., & Loikkanen, T. (Eds.) (2022). Infrastructural being: Rethinking dwelling in a naturecultural world. Palgrave Macmillan. Voutilainen, O., Korhonen, K., Ovaska, U., & Vihinen, H. (2021). Mökkibarometri 2021 [Finnish leisure residence barometer 2021]. Luonnonvaran- ja biotaloudentutkimus 47/2021. Luonnonvarakeskus. Väylävirasto (Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency). (2019). Tienkäyttäjätyytyväisyystutkimus. Talvi 2019. Lapin ELY [Road user satisfaction survey, Winter 2019. Lapland’s ELY centre]. Retrieved December 9, 2022, from https://www.ely-keskus.fi/documents/10191/57374/Tienk%C3%A4ytt% C3%A4j%C3%A4tyytyv%C3%A4isyystutkimus+talvi+2019/d958d8e6-76b64c7f-b3e4-45fb1b6edfde Zinn, J. O., & Taylor-Gooby, P. (2006). Risk as an interdisciplinary research area. In J. O. Zinn & P. Taylor-Gooby (Eds.), Risk in social science (pp. 20–53). Oxford University Press.

CHAPTER 8

From Everyday Work to Sensations of Freedom: Snowmobile Users’ Relationships to Snow, Ice and Weather Tapio Nykänen

Introduction The modern one-person snowmobile arrived in Finland in 1961. The first vehicle was imported from Canada by Eino Kukkonen, a schoolteacher living in a small village in northeast Lapland (Pelto, 1973, 67). The snowmobile immediately generated interest among Kukkonen’s neighbors, among them four Sámi reindeer herders from the Kaldoaivi reindeer herding district. They started to experiment with snowmobiles in reindeer herding, and in January 1963, the vehicles were successfully used for the annual reindeer roundup in the neighboring Muddusjärvi district (Pelto, 1973, 68–69). This marked the beginning of what came to be called the ‘snowmobile revolution’ in reindeer herding, a process that has

T. Nykänen (B) University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Strauss-Mazzullo and M. Tennberg (eds.), Living and Working With Snow, Ice and Seasons in the Modern Arctic, Arctic Encounters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36445-7_8

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fundamentally transformed the livelihood’s financial structures and many practices (Pelto, 1973; Valkonen & Nykänen, 2017). In Canada, one-person snowmobiles made their ultimate breakthrough largely as vehicles of winter recreation (Pelto, 1973, 7; Reich, 1999). While the reindeer herders were the first larger segment of snowmobile users in Finland, recreational use played a part from the beginning in the Nordic countries as well (see Pelto, 1973, 7), and private leisure use was soon extended to snowmobile competitions and recreational business. The first public snowmobile races in Finland were organized in 1966–1967 and the first commercial snowmobile tour took place in 1968 (Peltipailakka 2; Satokangas, 2018). In 2020, there were 163,318 registered snowmobiles in Finland, 41,060 of them in Lapland (StatFin: Numbers of vehicles registered). In relation to the 175,901 inhabitants in Lapland in 2021 (StatFin: Preliminary Vital Statistics, 2021), there is approximately one snowmobile for every five residents. Almost every backyard in the smaller villages and solitary countryside households around Lapland has a snowmobile or two. They also have a visible presence in the landscapes of Lapland’s four cities, which are served by official inter-city snowmobile routes and trails linking the cities to villages and ski resorts. Most strikingly, snowmobiles are present in the regional capital Rovaniemi, where tourist companies park and use hundreds of vehicles in the city center. In this chapter, I introduce and analyze snowmobile cultures in 2020s Finland. More precisely, I ask what kind of relationships are created between snowmobile users and the winter elements of snow, ice and cold weather. By ‘relationships’, I refer to the immediate material relations and the mental effects they may have, but also to the more durable cultural and social human–nature relations that are constructed in the different contexts and ways of snowmobile use. I focus on two empirical cases, (1) professional snowmobile use in reindeer herding and (2) recreational use of snowmobiles. As the utility and recreational purposes are sometimes mixed, the categories defining the different ways of snowmobiling are somewhat problematic. However, the main purpose of snowmobile use in reindeer herding and in recreation is distinguishably different, and the social and cultural contexts are distinctive and specific. The ways in which snowmobile users relate to snow, ice and cold weather hence differ substantially. My analysis is informed by actor–network theory (ANT), which has famously drawn attention to the presence and impact of non-human

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objects in social associations (Latour, 2005) and in constant social reconfigurations as a result of the interaction of different kinds of agents (Callon, 2001). Following the theory, I see the snowmobile as an actor that affects and shapes the practices that it is used in. In other words, the snowmobile is not only a tool of achieving something but also an active participant that ‘binds people and things together’ (Latour, 2005, 71; Valkonen & Ruuska, 2019, 92). In this process, the vehicle, its users and other ‘things’ involved all acquire new characteristics. The particular raison d’être of the snowmobile emerges, users learn new skills and start to perceive the environment in different ways, and various ‘other things’ such as animals are forced to adapt to the new actor as best they can. From the perspective of my analysis, it is important to emphasize that the snowmobile ‘binds things together’ differently in distinct contexts. Its function actualises in use-dependent ways, and its impact in the associations varies. Moreover, individual snowmobile models open up different opportunities: some may be suitable for hauling heavy loads, while others make it possible to drive in very soft and deep snow. As such, the snowmobile is a fluid socio-technical assemblage that produces and carries different material opportunities as well as different social and cultural meanings in different contexts (Bijkers, 1997). In discussing reindeer herding, the chapter follows in the footsteps of Valkonen and Ruuska (2019) and Valkonen and Nykänen (2017), who have applied actor–network theory to examining the social change that the snowmobile has brought about in the livelihood. However, while Valkonen and others map the changes in reindeer herding quite extensively, I will focus on the relationships that the snowmobile creates between users and local snow- and ice-covered environments as well as winter weather. Valkonen and others come closest to my viewpoint in analyzing how the landscape of reindeer herding was transformed by the arrival of the snowmobile. Not only did the range of activities expand beyond the limits of the reindeer herders’ physical strength, but ‘the bumps of the terrain and the force of the weather’ also became familiar to the fast-moving drivers in new ways (Valkonen & Ruuska, 2019, 103–104). The analysis is grounded in two empirical sources. First, I draw from my own ethnographic research in Finland in 2005–2022. The work has mostly concentrated on other topics such as land use disputes and ethnicity issues (see, e.g., Nykänen, 2022; Nykänen & Valkeapää, 2016, 2019). However, it has included regular participation in different snowmobiling practices: driving, honing the driving skills, adjusting and fixing

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the vehicle, making decisions based on weather and snow conditions, finding routes, analyzing hazards and accidents and engaging in various community practices, such as the annual trade show (Kelekkamessut ) in Rovaniemi. All this has been accompanied by plenty of talk about snowmobiles with reindeer herders, tourism entrepreneurs, snowmobile tour guides, hobbyists, engineers, merchants, snowmobile route designers and other people affected by snowmobiles. Among the informants, those who disapprove of snowmobiles in one way or the other, are an important group. This group is very heterogenous but can be divided roughly into two categories: environmentally oriented people, often critical of the use of fossil fuels and overconsumption, and conflicting land-users such as other recreationists and landowners (see Anttila & Stern, 2005; Creel et al., 2002; Nykänen & Valkeapää, 2016; also Vail & Heldt, 2004). In all, I draw from this working history as an autoethnographic material, seeking to utilize both epiphanies connected to the themes of this chapter and the general knowledge I have acquired. Second, I refer to the journalism podcast Peltipailakka [Tin Reindeer] that I produced and edited for the Lapin Kansa, a regional media that focuses mainly on Finnish Lapland but also reports on national and Arctic events. Published between 10 March and 13 April 2021, the nine-episode podcast concentrated on the following topics: snowmobile’s design history; snowmobile use in tourism; competitions; electric snowmobiles; snowmobile in reindeer herding; snowmobiling as a lifestyle; deep-snow snowmobiling; safety and regional touring in Finnish Lapland. The podcasts featured both reporting and interviewing, with an emphasis on interviews and were recorded mostly on-site before and after snowmobiling with the interviewees. The 17 interviewees of the podcast series included three persons from the manufacturing business, two elite athletes, three active snowmobiling enthusiasts, seven tourism industry professionals, one reindeer herder and one safety specialist from the Finnish Road and Safety Council.

Part I: Snowmobile in Reindeer Herding The ability to get along with winter—snow, ice and cold weather—has been absolutely fundamental in the history of reindeer herding (HelanderRenvall, 2016). In winter, the reindeer are vulnerable and require expert care. For example, snow and ice may make it difficult for them to dig for food, and certain snow conditions expose them to predators. Hence,

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reindeer herders need to be able to read the changing snow conditions and constantly look for good pastures. The cultural knowledge that stems from these needs is extensive and nuanced (Helander-Renvall, 2016; Näkkäläjärvi, 2013). In this chapter, I sketch some of the ways in which snowmobiles have impacted this knowledge. Geographically, I will focus on the region known as Käsivarsi (‘The Arm’) in Finnish. This area in the northwest of Finnish Lapland is Sápmi territory, a transnational cultural region traditionally inhabited by indigenous Sámi people. Ever since the eighteenth century, the population of this region has been multi-ethnic to varying degrees. Most of the cooperators and co-researchers that I have worked with in the Käsivarsi area are Sámi. The sparsely populated region of Käsivarsi is characterized by mostly treeless and mountainous landscape. Most of the houses are situated in two small villages next to the Finnish-Swedish border and the main road, route 21. The permanent infrastructure in the eastern and central parts of the region consists of huts used in reindeer herding and a few small cabins that are owned by the state and serve as temporary shelters for fishers, skiers and hikers. From the perspective of Sámi reindeer herders, the landscape is not ‘empty’; quite the opposite, it is a cultural landscape, full of meaningful places. These contain the stories of past generations, and this is the basis of everyday life with the reindeer (Helander-Renvall, 2016, 35; Nykänen & Valkeapää, 2016) (Fig. 8.1). The summer season in the Käsivarsi region lasts roughly from June to August. During this time, the reindeer mostly roam free, apart from the possible calf-marking period in high summer. At some point in September, the herders start to gather the small, free-wandering stocks of reindeer into larger ones with the help of all-terrain vehicles (ATV). The snowy season, when the snowmobiles are used in the work, typically begins in October or November at the latest and ends in late May. During these months, the reindeer are herded daily. It is not rare for reindeer herders to clock around 15,000 kilometers on their snowmobiles during the winter (Peltipailakka 5), which adds up to some 20–250 kilometers every day. During the first weeks of the snowy season, driving tends to be quite harsh and dangerous for drivers and vehicles alike. Rocks are only just covered with snow, and the terrain is hard and uneven. At this time of year, the herders commonly use snowmobiles with relatively short tracks, as they make the vehicles slightly more agile than those with longer tracks.

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Fig. 8.1 The landscape in the Käsivarsi area is not ‘empty’ but full of meanings and possibilities for reindeer and reindeer herders. Mark Nuttall calls this kind of landscape a ‘memoryscape’, referring to the presence of history in the landscape (Nuttall, 1998, 157) (Photo Tapio Nykänen)

The vehicles are often older models or at least not the latest ones, as the rocky terrain may cause havoc to lower arms, stabilizers, shocks or skis rather easily. When driving, the herders look for routes with as much soft snow as possible. Places with little snow are often slippery and harsh because of bumps and bare rocks. Ice-covered areas are dangerous, as the ice may be too thin to carry the weight of the snowmobile, not to speak of a heavier ATV. The herders’ ability to read the conditions correctly is essential, as the consequences of falling into the ice-cold water may be fatal. At the same time, driving over lakes and rivers is tempting, as the distances grow shorter, and the ice cover is flat and relatively pleasant to drive compared to rough terrain. In November and at the latest in December, the snow and ice conditions improve. There is now more snow and less of a risk to break the vehicles or drivers. The lakes and rivers get a thicker ice cover, which makes driving safer. At the same time, though, weather gets colder and

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days grow shorter, which both test the drivers’ well-being. The temperature often goes down to –30 degrees or even –40 degrees Celsius, which may also damage the vehicles, especially the battery. Colder weather usually means that when it snows, the snow tends to be dry, light and granular, like powder. In midwinter—January and February—the conditions usually change again. There is yet more snow, which starts to be a challenge, as the snowmobiles may get stuck in soft snow packs. During this time of year, herders often use snowmobiles that are designed to work best in deep and soft snow. These vehicles have long tracks with relatively high rubber lugs. Such tracks help the snowmobile to advance on top of the snowpack or inside it, depending on the model. From the perspective of the conditions in the Käsivarsi region, such vehicles also have some disadvantages. There may be lots of snow in the valleys, forests and canyons, but on the fell plateaus, the rocks may still be barely covered in snow, as the wind tends to blow the snow away and pack it against the steeper walls and crags. In such surroundings, a long track with high lugs can be slippery, and the snowmobile may, for example, get stuck between rocks. For these reasons, the herders seldom use snowmobile models that are designed solely for driving in deep snow (so-called ‘mountain sleds’; see, for example, Polaris: RMK) but favor so-called crossover models or light utility vehicles (see, for example, Lynx: Ranger 49). When the snow in the lowlands is soft, herders try to use the same routes day in and day out whenever possible. Snowmobile-packed snow gets harder and is easy to drive without the vehicle getting stuck or capsizing. Theoretically speaking, snow acquires new characteristics in interaction with the snowmobile, which in turn affects the human that is driving the vehicle. In the process, a snowmobile trail is created. The trail may remain somewhat private or it can also be used by other snowmobilers. Some of the trails become temporary highways for the family or perhaps the reindeer herding village, and others are used to move the reindeer stocks between pastures (see also Valkonen & Nykänen, 2017). These important trails pass often through relatively safe and easy terrain, sometimes following summertime paths that may have been used for generations. In these cases, the trails are culturally more or less permanent but also very much temporary in nature, as snow not only changes but eventually melts away. The driver, in turn, is moving in a cultural continuum but is also required to be aware of the immediate material

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relationship with the vehicle and the possibly changing snowpack under it. Quite often it is necessary to move away from the trails, to steer lost reindeer back to the stock or to look for pastures with easier snow conditions from the perspective of the reindeer’s ability to dig for food. If the snow is extremely soft, even the snowmobiles with the longest tracks and highest lugs may get stuck in it. In such conditions, the days may test the drivers’ limits. It is essential to be able to drive in the deep and soft snow and estimate where one can go with the particular snowmobile model and possible load. However, when looking for better pastures, for example, it may be necessary to try even if the odds seem bad. This, in turn, means that everyone gets stuck at times (Fig. 8.2). In March, the days start to get longer and the weather warmer, especially during daytime. The composition of the snow transforms yet again. In lowlands, the snow may remain soft, but in some places, it gets packed in harder layers (see Helander-Renvall, 2016, 38). The probability of avalanches rises, as the layers may have a thin ice cover between them. The general conditions in the Käsivarsi region are not particularly prone to avalanches—many hillsides are not steep enough—but there are also dangerous ramparts that need to be avoided. Up in the treeless plateaus the circumstances are quite different compared to the lowlands through the winter. The snow is usually packed by the winds and is harder, but there are soft places, for example, in the hillsides and small canyons. Moreover, the snow is often packed unevenly, which makes the driving potentially unpredictable. There are, for example, icy spots between soft packs and snow cliffs that may seem strong but do not carry a snowmobile. One of the major challenges for the snowmobile driver in the uplands is low visibility, which may occur for various reasons, such as snowstorm, fog or strong winds. They may completely cover obstacles and other hazards. Extremely cold temperatures affect the visibility as well: goggles and visors tend to freeze and lead to impaired vision. In bad weather, reindeer herders use GPS navigators to locate themselves, but navigators do not identify every single bump, icepack and cliff. Low visibility is interesting also in terms of the relationship between the driver and the snow-covered environment. When one cannot see, the immediate relationship to the terrain is more distinctly embodied, created through the body and mediated by the moving snowmobile. In this situation, the environment appears quite strongly as a physical experience

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Fig 8.2 Getting a little bit stuck with the snowmobile is usual and not too hard for an experienced driver who knows how to free the vehicle efficiently and ergonomically. However, getting badly stuck in deep and soft snow may be physically very demanding. The snowmobile is heavy (about 300 kg), and wading through the deep snow is hard work (Photo Oula A. Valkeapää)

which is felt in touch with the vehicle and shaped by a kinaesthetic sense. One may also feel weather in and through clothing, either as a sensation of cold or simply as a resisting force, if the wind is strong (Fig. 8.3). As the season goes on, the days get longer and warmer. In April, the snow is often packed to relatively hard layers, although one can still find soft places too. When days are warm and nights are still cold, the surface of the snow may get extremely hard and carry a person walking on it. Moving in the snow is now usually easy, but the reindeer may find it

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Fig. 8.3 The snowmobile and a sleigh have fallen off a snowy cliff due to poor visibility. Reindeer herders are working to free the vehicle (Photo Oula A. Valkeapää)

hard to penetrate the snowpack. By this time of year, reindeer herders usually bring supplementary feed for the reindeer with big four-stroke utility snowmobiles and simultaneously try to locate places where the snow would still be soft enough for the animals to dig for food (on feeding, see Pekkarinen et al., 2015). The snowmobiling season in reindeer herding in the Käsivarsi region ends in May. At the beginning of the month, there is still plenty of snow in most places, but it is getting wet and heavy, and moving in it is difficult. Snowmobiles are still used, as there is usually too much snow in many places for an ATV. The more the snow melts, the harder the driving gets. Still, the driving distances are now relatively short; the reindeer are usually gathered into corrals at the end of April for the calving season and to mark the newborn with the owner’s mark (see Valkeapää, 2016). What is distinctive in the reindeer herders’ way of using the snowmobile is that the herders cannot choose when to drive, apart from the worst weather such as a heavy snowstorm with absolutely zero visibility. This applies especially to districts and regions such as the Käsivarsi, where the reindeer are herded on fells and in forests on a daily basis instead of keeping them in corrals for the winter. The herders’ driving is also

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characterized by a particular attitude to risks. The herders often move alone in physically demanding and sparsely populated conditions, which means that not all risks can be avoided. However, reindeer herders are required to anticipate the consequences of their actions not only in the short run but also in the long term. For example, getting injured could endanger the possibilities to take care of the herding work for the rest of winter, which in turn could be extremely harmful to the family and the winter stock and even to the continuity of the livelihood of the herder in question.

Part II: Snowmobile and the Recreational Users’ Relationship to the Snowy and Icy Environment It is far from simple to define ‘recreational snowmobile use’ exactly. First, some people consider driving itself as a recreation, while others use the snowmobile mainly as a means to get to the site where the recreation takes place (for instance, a cottage in the woods). Often the driving and the destination may both be important parts of the recreational experience, and it is difficult to say whether one element is more important than the other. Second, there are activities that include elements of both recreational and utilitarian use. For example, even if driving for ice fishing would be considered recreational in character, the fishing can be understood as a meaningful part of one’s living. Third, there are snowmobile-related off-season activities such as snowmobile trade fairs and watching driving videos on social media. These activities are connected to the snowmobile as an object but emphasize the importance of other dimensions in the association, such as social ties. When I speak of recreational snowmobile use in this subchapter, I refer mostly to the cases when the driving of a snowmobile is itself considered recreational in character. In other words, driving is not a part of the users’ livelihood, and the drivers are not necessarily headed to any certain place—instead, they are simply driving around, because they find this pleasant, exciting or fun. My categorization is not overly straightforward, as some of the same people make a living by driving, such as snowmobile journalists and people working in snowmobile shops. In any case, there is a distinctive group of people who consider their snowmobile use as recreational and whose income does not come from driving.

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Snowmobile manufacturers divide the recreational use of snowmobiles in three categories: (1) driving on designated machine-maintained routes, (2) ‘crossover’ driving, i.e., driving partially on and partially off-trail and (3) driving in ‘deep snow’, mostly outside-maintained routes. Contemporary recreational snowmobile models are often designed to work best for one of these three purposes. Moreover, the categorization gives an insight in how the manufacturers understand the snowmobile market: they define separable customer segments that are seen to emphasize one of the three types of recreational snowmobile use. Manufacturers’ vision is in constant interaction with the ways the users actually see and use the vehicles, and the categorization therefore illustrates the users’ thinking in some respects as well. Driving on designated machine-maintained routes is the biggest segment in Finland. Most recreational users drive on maintained trails and own or use sleds that work best in such an environment. These vehicles have often relatively short tracks and wider ski stance for increased stability. However, the second category, crossover driving, has grown more popular recently. This category includes snowmobiles that can be used for both ‘light utility’ and recreational purposes, which makes them versatile (see, for example, Lynx: Ranger49). The third category is less popular, as there is only a limited number of locations in Finland where one can legally drive outside the maintained routes (a typical conflict associated with snowmobiling occurs when hobbyists drive off-trail without the landowner’s permission). Sometimes it is difficult to determine the ‘actual’ user category, as many recreational users drive in varying conditions, even if they favor certain environments. Even deep-snow drivers first need to make their way to the designated deep-snow areas by using maintained snowmobile routes (Peltipailakka 5, 6, 7 & 8). In other words, most recreational snowmobile users have some experience of different kinds of snowy terrains and conditions, if not of special surroundings such as steep mountains. This is why I reflect on recreational users’ relationship to snow, ice and weather on a rather general level in this chapter.

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On the Environments of Recreational Snowmobiling and the Reasons to Drive While reindeer herders cannot choose when to drive, recreational users can look for pleasant weather, wait for the best season and keep an eye out for convenient snow conditions. Snowmobilers can obviously decide to drive in any conditions, but usually there are no consequences if they decide not to. In this regard, recreational use is not materially and physically everyday use in the same compelling sense as it is in reindeer herding. Recreational driving also has other distinctive characteristics. Reindeer herders have to read the snow conditions both in terms of driving and from the perspective of the reindeer’s ability to dig for food. Recreational users can concentrate only on driving, which also tends to be sportier in nature. Recreational drivers may seek out exercise and physical challenges. While reindeers herders try to avoid getting stuck in soft snow, recreational drivers may welcome extreme situations that are likely to land them stuck sooner or later. Unlike herders, recreational drivers most often have plenty of time to recover afterward; there is no need to continue driving on a daily basis until the snow melts. As already mentioned, the most popular environment for recreational snowmobiling is the machine-maintained route network (see Eräluvat: Snowmobile tracks and routes). In most Finnish regions, recreational snowmobiling is permissible only on dedicated trails. The routes are also easily accessible and safe, which makes them suitable for experienced drivers and beginners alike. In particular, official routes that are maintained regularly by snow groomers are relatively flat and wide and usually steer clear of any unexpected dangers. Nevertheless, from the perspective of the experience of the snowmobile driver, it is important to note that the routes are never absolutely flat and seldom even mostly flat. Instead, they are covered by uneven snow bumps and icy, slippery spots. The difficulty to keep the routes flat is linked to the character of the technological make-up of the snowmobile: the rolling track keeps moving the snow, packing it into small bumps. The more popular the route is, the more snow the rolling tracks move and pack. Moreover, the elements—snowfall, rain, wind and changing temperatures—impact the surface and the composition of snow. As a result, driving on many snowmobile routes is rather sporty simply because of the nature of the routes as particular environments. As the driving is

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physically quite demanding, the distances driven during one day tend to be quite limited, most often not more than 300 kilometers. Like the trails created in reindeer herding, official snowmobile routes are an example of how the snow acquires new characteristics in interacting with the snowmobile and the human. The trails are designed for the needs of the snowmobile industry, tourism and hobbyists, and their material shape is constantly reformed by the vehicle and the users pushing the throttle. And reversely, when driving on the route, the snowmobiler is affected by its features. This, in turn, may lead to new technological solutions, such as more efficient shock absorption. Many snowmobile routes cross lakes and rivers, and there are also tracks on the sea, which has iced over. Before the official routes nearby cities and ski resorts are cleared for driving, ice thickness is measured, and in principle, the driver can trust that a route is safe enough if it has been cleared. However, in more remote areas nobody measures the ice, and the drivers need to be able to estimate the safety themselves. It is not impossible to assess the thickness and the quality of ice, but it does require knowledge of physics and winter weather. Generally, water bodies are the most perilous snowmobiling environment. Every year, a few people drown in snowmobile-related accidents in Finland or hit packed ice formations with serious consequences (Peltipailakka 8). Driving in ‘deep snow’, off-trail, is quite different in nature compared to driving on-trail. First, one needs to find a suitable place for driving. In Finland, driving outside routes is restricted, as it may be harmful to animals, other people and recently planted forests (see Creel et al., 2002). Inhabitants of the three northernmost municipalities (Inari, Utsjoki and Enontekiö) are granted annual permission to drive freely in the area of their own municipality, but recreational users elsewhere can drive legally only in dedicated locations, owned usually by the Finnish forestry board (a state-owned enterprise), the local forestry group or other private landowner. In addition to finding an area where it is permissible to drive, recreational users seek an adequate combination of terrain and the right kind of snow, preferably a hilly landscape with soft and thick snow. Second, apart from spring when the snow may be harder, one needs to have a snowmobile model that is designed to move in the thick and soft snowpack. Moreover, the required skills are fairly distinctive. In soft snow, the drivers typically stand up and use their bodyweight to steer the vehicle. Bodyweight also helps on-trail driving, but it is even more significant in the soft snow. The driver stands on the snowmobile and moves from side

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to side, simultaneously pulling and leaning in desired directions. Hence, driving is physically even more demanding than on-trail. An intriguing and often-mentioned experience associated with snowmobiling off-route is freedom (Peltipailakka 1 & 7). The machine enables travel across the snowy landscape quickly and relatively effortlessly, which in turn gives a sensation of being free. It is not too clear what the informants exactly mean when they talk about freedom, but the sensation seems to be connected to being free from working-life pressures as well as being set partially free from the restrictions that the (man-made) environment creates. Moreover, the sensation appears to be associated with the special way a snowmobile behaves in soft snow. An informant described the feeling as a ‘velvet-smooth’ crossing over the hills and swamps, and many others have described it as floating through powder. In other words, the snow is experienced and constituted as a peculiarly soft element of nature. Even if the snowmobile is a mechanical, man-made machine, it is seen as mediating the softness of this element to the driver’s body and mind in a unique and enjoyable way (see Reich, 1999). If the sensation of freedom is often articulated in a slightly vague manner, there are other, more clearly defined motives that people associate with the recreational use of snowmobiles. First, some regard driving as a low-threshold motorsport that offers physical exercise and excitement (Peltipailakka 1; 6). Even if the speed limit on the official routes in Finland is not more than 60 km/h (and 80 km/h in ice-covered water bodies), driving especially on small, winding and bumpy routes is often sporty indeed. My observations also tell me that drivers are not averse to speeding. The top speed of a modern snowmobile is easily 150 km/ h, and the technical features of the vehicles make it quite easy to drive faster than the rules allow. Moderate speeding is also socially accepted behavior among many snowmobilers, as long as it does not pose a recognizable threat to others. The practical problem is, obviously, that routes and ice-covered areas are never totally flat or free from hindrances, and it is always possible to lose control when hitting, for example, packed ice, no matter how skilled the driver is. Moreover, there are almost always other snowmobiles and animals, too, on the routes, and one cannot see behind each and every corner. Hence, moderate speeding also carries its risks (Fig. 8.4). Another explicit reason behind recreational snowmobiling is that it is an easy way of getting away from cities and villages, to ‘nature’ (Peltipailakka 1). Snowmobiles enable practically anyone to tour the snowy

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Fig. 8.4 Driving on a Finnish snowmobile route is often sporty. The routes are usually not flat but bumpy, icy and uneven (Photo Tapio Nykänen)

forests and fells; children, for example, can be seated in sleds or behind the driver. During the drive, one mostly experiences the uneven snowy terrain under the vehicle (as mediated by the snowmobile) and the visual landscapes around a route, but when the engine is turned off, the sensory experience is extended to the sounds and scents of the environment. Also, many snowmobilers appreciate ‘the silence’ in the forest (the sounds of a forest or fell itself, see Veijola & Säynäjäkangas, 2018, 39), even when they have used a noisy and smelly vehicle to get there. Many do indeed conceptualize snowmobiling as ‘nature sports’ or ‘nature exercise’ (Peltipailakka 1 & 2; Satokangas, 2018, 17). A third common reason to drive recreationally relates to the people sharing the snowmobiling experience, that is, other drivers and passengers (Peltipailakka 1, 6 & 7). In other words, recreational snowmobiling is often social in nature. For example, people enjoy driving with friends or family to a campfire site or lean-to, where they can cook on open fire. The driving is an important part of the experience, but so is the time spent together. In this example, one can see clearly how the snowmobile adds

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to the social interaction, enhancing it in a meaningful way (see Latour, 2005, 68). The raison d’être of recreational snowmobiling seems to be rather different from that in reindeer herding. The vehicle appears primarily as an instrument of enjoyment, whether physical or more social in nature. This is not surprising, given that the recreational activities are more or less about enjoyment. Interestingly, for some, snowmobiling is even more than this; a ‘lifestyle’, as one enthusiast described it. There are those who drive around for fun, but who may also compete, collect older snowmobile models and repair broken vehicles as part of the hobby (Peltipailakka 6). Some may even develop a personal relationship of sorts with the snowmobile and take offense at criticism. In these cases, there is yet another raison d’être behind the snowmobile: the vehicle becomes more clearly an object of interest itself and a possible gravity point of a comprehensive way of life (Fig. 8.5).

Fig. 8.5 Off-trail snowmobiling typically requires that the drivers stand up and use their bodyweight to steer the vehicle. When the snow is soft, one gets a sensation of floating through ‘powder’ (Photo Tapio Nykänen)

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Snowmobile as a Mediator: Conclusions and Further Notes Using a snowmobile (re)constitutes the snowy and icy environments in specific ways. In the Käsivarsi region, reindeer herders can manage large herding areas, using their home or cabin as a base, without a need to sleep in temporary dwellings near the reindeer (Valkonen & Nykänen, 2017). Simultaneously, there is a need to manage these large areas, as reindeer require expert daily care in winter. One needs to constantly look for suitable pastures, protect the reindeer from external threats such as predators and provide supplemental feeding when necessary. Hence, the herders are regularly exposed to harsh weather and difficult snow and ice conditions. It is therefore necessary to find driving practices that are sustainable for the driver in a longer term. In contrast, in recreational use, the landscape mediated by the snowmobile is constituted in terms of enjoyment, which can be drawn from sensations such as excitement, esthetic pleasure, tranquillity and kinship. The use of snowmobile also makes it possible to understand the snowy and icy environment in distinctive ways. Snowmobile users learn to read the composition and formations of snow and ice in a snowmobilespecific manner and to estimate and cope with the changing weather and temperature. These skills are a crucial part of the contemporary cultural knowledge among snowmobile users, both in professional and recreational terms. Also, the snowmobile as a technology has a strikingly dualistic nature regardless of the purpose it is used for. First, new snowmobiles and their features generate constant interest. Many drivers are quite familiar with the technology and know how to do basic repairs themselves (see Peltipailakka 5 & 6). Not only are snowmobiles seen as tools but they are also objects of interest and curiosity. At the same time, their role in constituting and understanding the environment in a particular way seems to be prone to hiding itself. This is not unexpected: it is something that often happens to objects after their place in the association becomes established. In Latour’s words, the visible nature of an object as an active mediator transforms to the role of an intermediary, which does not do much but primarily translates the meanings and forces (Latour, 2005, 39, 79). However, what follows is that the users tend to forget how the snowmobile affects the way the driver sees the environment and how the local snow-covered nature would appear without the snowmobile. For example,

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for a skier, the experienced distances in the forests and fells are dramatically longer, and without the machine, the sounds and scents of nature are completely different. Moreover, the snowmobile, as any modern machine, does not actively tell its user where its materials and energy come from. One simply fills the tank and moves on: the global path dependencies and the long-term effects of using fossil fuels are mostly invisible. Still, local snowmobilers in particular are well able to recognize the consequences of climate change in their surroundings (Xiao et al., 2020), but it is not clear how much this affects their use of the vehicle and fossil fuels. In this respect, snowmobiles produce at least partially alienated relationships with nature. This does not undermine the fact, however, that the snowmobile constitutes meaningful relationships to the local environment of snow and ice. These relationships are distinctive, personal and cultural all at once.

References Anttila, S., & Stern, C. (2005). The voluntary provision of snowmobile trails on private land in Sweden. Rationality and Society, 17 (4), 453–474. Bijker, W. E. (1997). Of bicycles, bakelites, and bulbs: Toward a theory of sociotechnical change. MIT Press. Callon, M. (2001). Actor network theory. In N. J. Smelser and P. B. Baltes (Eds.), International encyclopedia of the social & behavioral sciences (pp. 62– 66). Pergamon. https://doi.org/10.1016/B0-08-043076-7/03168-5 Creel, S., Fox, J. E., Hardy, A., Sands, J., Garrott, B., & Peterson, R. O. (2002). Snowmobile activity and glucocorticoid stress responses in wolves and elk. Conservation Biology, 16(3), 809–814. Helander-Renvall, E. (2016). Traditional ecological knowledge, snow and Sámi reindeer herding. In J. Valkonen & S. Valkonen (Eds.), Sámi society matters (pp. 30–41). Lapland University Press. Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-networktheory. Oxford University Press. Näkkäläjärvi, K. (2013). Jauristunturin poropaimentolaisuus. Kulttuurin kehitys ja tietojärjestelmä vuosina 1930–1995 [Reindeer nomadism in Jauristunturi. Cultural development and knowledge system in 1930–1995]. Doctoral dissertation. University of Oulu. Nuttall, M. (1998). Protecting the Arctic: Indigenous people and cultural survival. Routledge.

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Nykänen, T. (2016). Historiallisessa kulttuurimaisemassa [In the historicalcultural landscape]. In T. Nykänen, & L. Valkeapää (Eds.), Kilpisjärven poliittinen luonto. Matkoja Käsivarren kulttuurimaisemassa [The political nature of Kilpisjärvi. Journeys in the cultural landscape of Käsivarsi]. (pp. 7–40). SKS. Nykänen, T. (2022). Lapin ihminen. Identifikaatiot, ympäristöt ja yhteinen erityisyys [The man of Lapland. Identifications, environments and shared specificity]. SKS. Nykänen, T., & Valkeapää, L. (Eds.). (2016). Kilpisjärven poliittinen luonto. Matkoja Käsivarren kulttuurimaisemassa [The political nature of Kilpisjärvi. Journeys in the cultural landscape of Käsivarsi]. SKS. Nykänen, T., & Valkeapää, L. (2019). Ethnic reindeer herders: Groupness among reindeer-herding Sámi in northwest Finnish Lapland. Ethnicities, 19(6), 1181– 1201. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468796818810237 Pekkarinen, A.-J., Kumpula, J., & Tahvonen, O. I. (2015). Reindeer management and winter pastures in the presence of supplementary feeding and government subsidies. Ecological Modelling, 312, 256–271. https://doi.org/ 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2015.05.030 Pelto, P. J. (1973). The snowmobile revolution: Technology and social change in the arctic. Cummings Publishing Co. Reich, L. S. (1999). Ski-Dogs, Pol-Cats, and the mechanization of winter: The development of recreational snowmobiling in North America. Technology and Culture, 40(3), 484–516. Satokangas, P. (2018). Selkää säästämättä. Moottorikelkkaurheilíjoita 1960-1980 -luvuilta. [Not Saving Their Backs. Snowmobile Athletes from the 1960s– 1980s.] Self-published work. Vail, D., & Heldt, T. (2004). Governing snowmobilers in multiple-use landscapes: Swedish and Maine (USA) cases. Ecological Economics, 48(4), 469– 483. Valkeapää, L. (2016). Poroelämää Käsivarren maisemassa [‘Reindeer life’ in the landscape of Käsivarsi]. In T. Nykänen & L. Valkeapää (Eds.), Kilpisjärven poliittinen luonto. Matkoja Käsivarren kulttuurimaisemassa [The political nature of Kilpisjärvi. Journeys in the cultural landscape of Käsivarsi] (pp. 81– 97). SKS. Valkonen, J., & Nykänen, T. (2017). Moottorikelkka poronhoitokulttuurin muutoksena [Snowmobiles transform reindeer herding cultures]. Tiede & edistys, 42(2), 111–139. Valkonen, J., & Ruuska, P. (2019). Reindeer herding, snowmobile and social change—and a word on identity. In T. H. Eriksen, S. Valkonen, & J. Valkonen (Eds.), Knowing from the indigenous North: Sámi approaches to history, politics and belonging (pp. 91–107). Routledge. Veijola, S., & Säynäjäkangas, J. (Eds.). (2018). Matkasanakirja hiljaisuuteen [Travel dictionary to silence]. Ntamo.

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Xiao, X., Perry, E. E., Gao, J., Lu, J., & Manning, R. (2020). Winter tourism and climate change: Exploring local and non-local snowmobilers’ perceptions of climate change and adaptation behaviors. Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism, 31(9). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jort.2020.100299

Sources Eräluvat [Wilderness permits]. Snowmobile tracks and routes. Retrieved February 24, 2022, from www.eraluvat.fi/en/off-road-traffic/snowmobile-tracks-androutes.html Lynx website. Ranger49. Retrieved February 24, 2022, from https://www.brp lynx.com/fi/fi/mallit/hyotykaytto/49-ranger.html nationalparks.fi . Käsivarsi wilderness area. Retrieved December 10, 2021, from www.nationalparks.fi/kasivarsi Polaris website: RMK. Retrieved December 13, 2021, from snowmobiles.polaris. com/en-us/rmk/ StatFin. Number of vehicles registered. Retrieved November 17, 2021, from https://pxdata.stat.fi/PxWeb/pxweb/en/StatFin/StatFin__mkan/statfin_m kan_pxt_11ib.px/

CHAPTER 9

Winter Cycling Developments in Two Cities of Northern Finland Minna T. Turunen

Introduction Commuting to work by bicycle on a winter morning wakes me up both physically and mentally. It may be cold, −15 to −20 °C, but the commute is short and downhill. My cheeks turn red in the freezing air, which carries the smell of snow and allows me to feast my senses on tits, waxwings, house sparrows, jackdaws and pigeons in the urban environment of my hometown. Motorized traffic passes by. There is the familiar sound of the morning airplane, but also the rustle of the studded winter tires of my bike rolling on the icy pathway. With a heavy backpack, this is how I get my morning exercise. And the ultimate perk: a feeling of privilege, independence, control and trust. There is nothing better at this hour of an ordinary working day than being aware of the rising spirits and increasing energy levels stimulated by winter cycling.

M. T. Turunen (B) Arctic Centre, University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 H. Strauss-Mazzullo and M. Tennberg (eds.), Living and Working With Snow, Ice and Seasons in the Modern Arctic, Arctic Encounters, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-36445-7_9

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Everyday winter cycling is not only a matter of moving from one place to another. In contrast to commuting by car and public transport, cycling has the potential of providing a more holistic experience of the environment. This experience brings together observations of weather and topography and is accompanied by the cyclist’s own physical exercise. While cars are largely protected against the wind and the rain and the snow and the frost, cyclists are exposed to changing weather conditions, and have only the restricted protection of clothing and bicycle tires. In his study on the ethnography of cycling, Spinney (2006) pointed out the fundamentality of the cyclist’s kinesthetic and sensuous experiences in rethinking how people live, feel and create meaningful spatial relations. Ingold and Kurttila (2000) have also recognized a close connection between modes of mobility and the ways in which people perceive weather, pointing to ‘the multisensory awareness of the environment’ (p. 189) as the key to understanding spatial orientation and coordination of an activity. My observations in the cities of Oulu and Rovaniemi show, however, that not all commuters share my experiences of winter cycling. Not everyone feels privileged, independent, trusting and in control. Instead, many commuters are reluctant, forced or even afraid to cycle in what they see as unpleasant and often dangerous winter conditions. Also, poor cycling skills and the physical effort involved may not encourage people to cycle in winter. A long distance between home and work/school and the lack of proper bicycle pathways or their poor winter maintenance do not serve to motivate winter cycling. According to Larsen (2014), getting people to cycle more often and longer journeys calls for both a bicyclefriendly design of the environment and the enhancement of people’s affective capacity for cycling. This includes learning how to cope with all kinds of weather, fears of cycling and the physical effort involved. Without this capacity, cycling appears neither doable nor desirable. Dealing with the dangers of cycling in car-dominated societies is an important aspect of the affective capacity. Quite simply, people have grown to be used to, and dependent on, technologies for their transport. Cycling is a soft-mobility and human-powered means of transport. It is sustainable, requires people to be physically active and thus promotes health (Chapman & Larsson, 2019). It enables fast and flexible transport especially when the distances are short; it is an easy, funny, cheap and suitable means of mobility for all ages. Cycling is a good example of sustainable living and transport, reducing traffic jams and air pollution.

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Choosing to ride a bike rather than a motor vehicle, especially for short distances can reduce emissions: cycling has a smaller ecological footprint than vehicular transportation and is a source of zero carbon emissions, if bicycle manufacturing and road development and maintenance are not entered into the equation. The dominance of cars over the benefits of the bicycle culture is frequently criticized in environmental discourses (Horton, 2006). In urban regions, the mode of daily mobility depends to a great extent on the physical environment, length of journey, weather conditions and the availability of public transport. A compact structure, mixed-use and functional diversity make the urban environment more conducive to walking and cycling while single-use environments and urban sprawl discourage people from abandoning their cars. Well-designed and maintained bicycle infrastructure, with a safe and attractive network of bicycle pathways can mitigate the impact of harsh weather conditions and encourage the use of bicycle as an everyday mode of mobility (Chapman & Larsson, 2021; Hong et al., 2020). The aim of this chapter is, first of all, to examine what winter cycling is like in an Arctic urban environment. Second, I will explore developments and adaptations in winter cycling by using the criteria of winter bikeability and bicycle friendliness, which help cyclists to cope with the challenging winter milieu. Moving on, the chapter compares winter cycling and its physical environment in two cities of northern Finland, Oulu and Rovaniemi, where about six months of the year are marked by snowy, cold and dark winter conditions. And last, I will discuss the winter cycling developments in Oulu and Rovaniemi as well as my personal observations. In this chapter, bicycle infrastructure is defined as a system including shared pedestrian and bicycle pathways (‘light traffic pathways’) (Fig. 9.1), raised cycle tracks, bicycle lanes, low-volume traffic residential roads and bicycle facilities such as bicycle parks, stands (Fig. 9.2) and storage. ‘Light traffic network’ refers mainly to bicycle pathways and raised cycle tracks. Both are physically separated from the streets, but bicycle pathways typically have their own routes instead of following street alignment, whereas raised cycle tracks are adjacent to the streets yet separated from motorized traffic by a curb or concrete barriers.

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Fig. 9.1 ‘Light traffic’ pedestrian and cycling pathway adjacent to one of the main streets (Koskikatu) in Rovaniemi. A wide pathway makes snow plowing easier, and metal frames protect birches between the street and the pathway from damage caused by snow-plowing service vehicles (Photo Minna Turunen)

Winter Cycling in Finland Mobility surveys show that cycling represents 8% of all trips made in Finland. Seventy-seven percent of 15–79-year-olds cycle at least occasionally. Thirteen percent report to cycle also in winter, and 8% of them cycle at least once a week or more often (Turunen, 2019). About 10% of the journeys to and from work are conducted by bicycle. Winter cyclists in Finland are mostly commuters to work, school and hobbies, followed by cycling for other utilitarian purposes or recreation. According to a study among school pupils aged 10–16, the prevalence of active school commuting was over 80% during spring/autumn for those living at a distance of 0–5 km from school. Active school commuting was inversely associated with the distance to school. Cycling was less common in winter compared to spring and autumn, especially among girls and younger

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Fig. 9.2 Bicycle stand in front of the Arktikum Building in Rovaniemi. Many kinds of bicycles are suitable for everyday winter cycling (Photo Minna Turunen)

students (Kallio et al., 2016; Turpeinen et al., 2013). The fact that both women and girls cycle less in winter than do boys and men is most probably due to women’s and/or parents’ greater safety concerns related to weather conditions and traffic issues. Many people view cycling as a seasonal summer activity which turns unsafe in the winter due to freezing temperatures, wind, rain, snow and hail, scarce daylight and roads filled with ice, snow and slush. For example, in the cities of Oulu and Rovaniemi, snow and slippery conditions prevail from October/November to April. During the year, there are 63 days in Oulu when the minimum temperature is below −10.0 °C and 79 such days in Rovaniemi (Jokinen et al., 2021). No wonder that weather

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conditions are a significant barrier to cycling in winter. Cycling is seen as a mode of mobility hugely vulnerable to seasonal variation because cyclists are directly exposed to the elements. Winters are cold and rich in snow, but there are other factors, too, why people cycle less in the winter. These are associated with bicycle infrastructure, particularly the extent and maintenance of the bicycle path network (Amiri & Sadeghpour, 2015; Chapman & Larsson, 2021; Turunen, 2019). Poor winter maintenance is the bane of cyclists. It makes cycling less safe, which in turn leads to increased occurrence of accidents such as slipping on ice, snow or gravel. And yet, regardless of the challenging winter conditions, the popularity of winter cycling both as a daily mode of mobility and as recreation has increased in recent years. That everyday winter cycling has become more common is most visible in the cities, which have invested in year-round promotion of cycling and winter maintenance of bicycle pathways. Snow plowing and work against slipperiness have served to make winter cycling more popular, as have cycling events and campaigns, bicycle parks and storage at home, work and in public spaces, as well as real-time information about the winter maintenance of bicycle pathways (Mannola et al., 2021; Turunen, 2019). For a few years already, there has been a growing interest in cycling in the Arctic. For example, in 2019–2020, the bicycle retailers in Finland were totally unprepared for the sudden surge in sales of fat bikes. The ‘winter biking boom’ is explained not only by the growing popularity of physical exercise and ecological values but also by issues of safety, especially in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic: cycling can be practiced in accordance with social distancing rules. Recreational winter cycling has diversified the range of winter sports and challenged the perennial favorites of cross-country and downhill skiing. Year-round cycling has extended the seasons and increased the profitability of outdoor recreation companies and skiing resorts (bicycle rental, guided tours on winter trails, accommodation and so on) in northern Finland.

Winter Cycling Developments and Adaptations While sports shops have an overflowing supply of specialized bicycles and gear for winter cycling or cold-weather cycling, as it is also called, it can be practiced at its simplest on an everyday bicycle and wearing ordinary winter clothes. The supply of bicycles extends from mountain bikes

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to road bikes and gearless ‘granny bikes’ (mummopyörä in Finnish), or one might prefer a ‘JOPO’, ‘every one’s bicycle’ (JOkaisen POlkupyörä in Finnish), which was designed in the 1960s and is nowadays mostly favored by teenagers (Fig. 9.2). A variety of developments have increased the everyday coping capacity, safety and enjoyment of biking in challenging winter conditions. These include clothing for winter cycling, determined by individual cold tolerance, length of journey and weather conditions. The clothing should not be too warm during high physical activity, and sweating should be avoided, as moisture combined with cycling speed and freezing weather can cause cold discomfort such as frostbite. Layered clothing—often an innermost layer of warm underwear and a windproof outer layer and, depending on the temperature and the wind, insulating clothing between the inner and outer layer—makes it possible to put on or take off layers as needed. Using a safety helmet in slippery conditions in particular is an inexpensive life insurance, gradually becoming more common. In 2020, 51% of Finnish cyclists wore a helmet (Liikenneturva, 2021). One also needs a warm cap or a face mask under the helmet as well as gloves and boots, because the hands and feet typically get cold first, as the body focuses on keeping the core warm. Technical innovations, such as bicycle lights, reflectors, fluorescent safety vests and luminous wristbands have proved helpful in improving the visibility of the cyclists in scarce daylight conditions. Lights and reflectors are a legal requirement (Road Traffic Act, 2020/1177): almost 70% of Finnish cyclists use a white light at the front and 56% a red light at the rear (Liikenneturva, 2021). Winter tires are not necessary, but they do help in maintaining traction control, those with studs in slippery conditions, and those with a rough pattern (without studs) especially in snowy conditions. Another example of a technical innovation related to winter cycling is frost-resistant bicycle oil to keeping gears and brakes from freezing, particularly after sudden temperature changes crossing 0 °C. The use of technology such as mobile phones for cycling route map applications, earphones and activity monitors are vulnerable to low temperatures (due to battery drainage), which needs to be addressed in further product development (Suoheimo and Häkkilä, 2021). Fat bikes are an example of a vehicle adapted to soft unstable terrain such as snow (Fig. 9.3). It is a specialized all-terrain winter bicycle with large low-pressure tires. The fat bike was originally developed for winter cycling, camping and racing in snowy conditions in Alaska, but it

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comes into its own also in mud, sand and peat. The first commercial fat bikes appeared in the 2010s in Finland and have since become popular particularly in winter cities such as Oulu and Rovaniemi. In challenging snow conditions, electrically assisted bicycles (e-bikes or e-fat bikes) are powerful and can help people overcome common barriers to winter cycling, such as distance and topography. E-bikes may increase winter cycling of particularly older and less fit drivers and replace a substantial proportion of short car journeys. In low temperatures and during longer journeys, battery drainage may become a problem.

Fig. 9.3 Recreational winter cycling in Isosyöte, northern Finland, on a fat bike designed for snowy conditions (Photo Minna Turunen)

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Background to the Case Study Earlier research has examined various aspects of everyday winter cycling, particularly in Canada, the United States and the Nordic countries, focusing on, for example, the impacts of weather on cycling, characteristics of winter cyclists and cycling behavior as well as the role of winter cycling in the context of urban planning (Amiri & Sadeghpour, 2015; Bullock, 2017; Chapman & Larsson, 2019, 2021; Flynn et al., 2012; Hong et al., 2020; Mannola et al., 2021; Spencer et al., 2013). The benefits of daily winter cycling and the strategies to increase it have been investigated in a number of studies (Bullock, 2017; Chapman & Larsson, 2021; Kallio et al., 2016; Mannola et al., 2021; Turpeinen et al., 2013; Turunen, 2019). Ethnographic research on attitudes to and experiences and prospects of, everyday cycling in cities is also abundant. Studies have also addressed policy measures to increase cycling (Pooley et al., 2011; Pucher & Buehler, 2012). Recent studies in Finland have been driven by the national pledge to become carbon neutral by 2035. The Finnish transport policy aims to increase the combined share of walking and cycling by 30% of journeys (Finland’s National Climate Change Policy, 2022; Finland’s Strategy for Arctic Policy, 2021; Government of Finland, 2021). In recent years, the concepts of bikeability and bicycle friendliness have been used in research on cycling quality in the urban environment (Bullock, 2017; Lowry et al., 2012). Bikeability can be defined as comfort and safety of bicycle infrastructure for access to required destinations, whereas bicycle friendliness is a wider concept of assessing a community on various aspects of bicycling, encompassing bikeability, laws and policies to promote safety, education efforts to encourage bicycling and the acceptance of bicycling throughout the community (Bullock, 2017; Lowry et al., 2012). A winter city may have high-quality bicycling pathways, but if these pathways are not connected with suburban areas and other important destinations, or have poor winter maintenance, for example, the city is not very bikeable. If the bikeability of a city is good in terms of its network of bicycle pathways, but the residents and policymakers do not support a cycling culture, the city is missing bicycle friendliness. Bicycle friendliness is thus crucial for winter cycling to become an accepted and promoted mode of everyday mobility. It cannot be improved by developing bicycle infrastructure alone. It is a more complicated process that entails shifting the emphasis from car- centeredness toward active modes

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M. T. TURUNEN

of mobility. To do this, societies should focus on increasing social–cultural support from education, advocacy groups and proactive bicycle politics, among others (Bullock, 2017; Lowry et al., 2012).

Study Locations The aim of my case study is to compare developments and the physical environment of winter cycling in two cities in northern Finland, Oulu and Rovaniemi. With long and severe winters, both locations can be defined as winter cities, and they are also the two largest cities in northern Finland. As hubs of secondary and higher education—each with a university of its own, for example—both cities have lots of potential winter cyclists. Oulu (65°01' N, 25°28' E) has a population of 210,000, while Rovaniemi (66°30' N, 025°44' E) is a mid-sized town with 64,000 inhabitants. Public transport is rather well developed in Oulu, but less so in Rovaniemi, where it is either insufficient or non-existing. The bicycle infrastructure in both Oulu and Rovaniemi includes a ‘light traffic’ network of pedestrian and cycling pathways. Separated from automobile traffic, this network is shared not only between pedestrians and cyclists but also by joggers, Nordic walkers, roller skaters and skiers as well as scooters. Mopeds are also allowed if the speed limit on the adjacent traffic lanes exceeds 60 km an hour. The ‘light traffic’ network includes both bicycling pathways and raised cycle tracks, and some lowtraffic residential streets and roads marked with navigation guidance are also included. The topography of the Oulu region is flat, whereas the terrain in and around Rovaniemi is considerably more varied, with hills close to 200 meters above sea level. The seaside location of Oulu by the Northern Bay of Bothnia makes the winters both milder and windier than those of Rovaniemi, which has a more continental climate near the Arctic Circle. The mean January temperature in Oulu is −8.2 °C, the number of cold days (min. temperature