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General information

Vaskiveden ala-aste school is in the lake district of the southern Finland. The town is named Virrat - near Tampere.
Our school is really a little one. 53 children aged 7-13 years and 4 teachers, a part-time special teacher and a cook.
We are a school which is interested specially in computing and learning by Internet.
We live in the middle of lakes and forests - as we say.. Finland belongs to the boreal belt of the northern Europe and it means a big area of spruce and pine forests.
Our school has a piece of forest. We have been there scouting and we have a piece of land, where we grow some spruces of our own.

Appearance

Forests are close to every Finn. They are an important element in the daily life of virtually each one of us. They are also a subject of heated debate, with topics ranging from conservation to economic aspects of forests and timber production.

Seasonal Changes

Ruska (autumn foliage) in Lapland
The climate is marked by cold winters and warm summers but temperatures in winter are moderated by the influence of the Baltic Sea and west winds from the Atlantic warmed by the Gulf Stream. The mean annual temperature in the capital, Helsinki, is 5.3 degrees Celsius. The highest daytime temperature in southern Finland during the summer occasionally rises close to 30 Celsius.
During the winter months, particularly in January and February, temperatures of minus 20 Celsius are not uncommon. In the far north, beyond the Arctic Circle, the sun does not set for about 73 days, producing the white nights of summer.
In the same region, during the dark winter period, the sun remains below the horizon for 51 days, creating the polar night known in Finnish as kaamos.
In the late autumn the leafy trees lose all their leaves.

Life in this forest

Importance of this forest

We are a part of our forests and what happens to our forests happens to us too. The meaning of lumber industry is very big to Finland and Finnish people. Finland gets lot of money from the lumber industry and it employs a lot of people.

"Finland without forests is like a hairless bear".

There are four-hundred-thousand summer cottages in Finland and every year people build ten thousand more. Every Friday highways are full of cars going to the countryside.
The most famous Finnish hobbies are berrying , mushrooming, hunting, scouting and fishing.
Everyone's rights are special in the world. It means that anyone can go to the forest, pitch a tent and stay overnight anywhere in the forest.
You can not make a fire in the forest. Only in your own forest you can do it.

Future of this forest

The principal aim of nature protection is preserving its diverseness. In national parks and other protected areas we will give you experiences of nature and relaxation with nature guiding and services. Nature protection areas are also important for teaching and studying.

In the future, the state of the forests in Finland will probably be the same as now. We cut forests very carefully and at the same time we plant new trees.

Literature, Art, Music, Dance and your forest

History and Mythology

A TROLL AND A RAVEN
(A FOLK- TALE)

In a cottage in the middle of the forest, there lived a man with three daughters. Once in the evening the oldest daughter heard someone shouting her name in the forest. She went towards the voice. It was the troll of the rock who shouted. When the girl was near the troll, he caught her in his arms and took her away to his cave in the rock.
Next evening the troll was shouting again near the cottage. He was now shouting the other daughter's name. And he had changed his voice to sound like the oldest daughter's voice. The girl thought: "That is my oldest sister" and so she went to the forest.
Quickly the troll caught another girl and took her to his cave in the rock.
In the third evening the troll was again shouting near the house in the forest. He was now trying to catch the third daughter of the family. He shouted with a complaining voice. And the youngest girl thought that it was her sister who was lost. It happened again. The troll caught the youngest daughter and took her to the awful cave in the rock.
The father of the family had, however, followed the troll. He ran after the troll to the cave. He saw the troll disappear into the rock with the youngest girl.
The man stayed in the forest near the cave and was terrified. The man thought:- "What will I do?"
Then a raven flew down and asked the cause of the sorrow. The man told the story of the daughters. The raven was very wise and promised to save the daughters.
The raven sent the man back to his cottage. Then the raven began to request the troll for an audience. The troll came out of the cave, because he was very curious.
The raven explained that, the birds of the forest had arranged a concert, where the birds wanted the troll to come to sing his song. The troll was delighted and promised to come.
In the morning the troll came to the place of the concert. The trees were full of all kinds of birds. All the birds had set their heads under their wings and appeared to be headless. The troll was very astonished at this situation.
"How can you sing if you haven't a head?" said the troll.
"You can hear it soon," said the raven, "but we can't start before you have cut your head off as we have. In our concert no one can be singing with a head."
"If you all sing without a head, I will too." thought the troll.
He wanted to be the same as the other singers in the forest. So the troll went to the cave and took a big axe and asked the girls to cut off his head.
The girls cut the throat of the troll as he asked -- and you know what happened to the troll?
He didn't sing any more!
The girls went home and lived with their father for a long, long time and were very happy.

A Finnish folk-tale.

to visit the The Finish Forest Institute. (Click on Forest-Finland)

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The contact person for this report is Antti Leppanen

This page has been visited times since 1st Dec, 1997.

Computer Co-ordinator : Judith Bennett :
This page was last modified 21st April, 1998