18-Sep-2001 -- In Finnish Lapland the autumn was at its peak: beautiful colours all around. The day was warm, blue skies, sunny, the perfect time for hunting confluences. The present confluence is situated about 110 km north of my office in Sodankyla, central Lapland.

About 60 km of the approach have to be made on dirt roads of partly bad condition, large gravel and lots of pot holes. When starting the trip, I believed the confluence to be "in the middle of nowhere", but I was wrong.

There are many tens of rectangular areas of clear-cut forest in that area. Finland gets money out of converting forest into paper, so I guess that's why the trees had been cut. New spruces are growing there and counting levels of branches I estimate the clear-cutting to have happened about 15 years ago. Interestingly, the equal-sized rectangular patches are separated by patches of similar size and shape consisting of practically untouched forest.

The forests at these latitudes are often low (no very tall trees) due to the load of snow in winter and they are not very dense.

I saw plenty of reindeer during the approach and also at the confluence; they are the semi-domestic European version of the North American cariboo.

The photos show a general view of the clear-cut patch of the confluence, which lies far at the back-right, near tall yellow birch. Then there are four pics taken in directions north, east, south, and west, directly standing on the confluence. Finally a pic of my GPS receiver. I managed to get the display to 0'0", probably because of excellent view of the sky, 12 satellites available with strong signal, and switched off selective availability.