25-May-2002 -- Just like hundreds of thousands of other Finnish people we intended to spend our weekends in May out in the country, at a summer cottage by the lake. Our friends invited us to pay a visit to their cottage at Kangasniemi. Because the confluence 62N 27E is situated at the Kangasniemi local community we decided to visit together there too.

We drove about 20 kilometers east from Kangasniemi center along country roads and finally the last kilometer along very narrow farm road that led to isolated corn field where just seeded corn has started to grow.

In Finland every citizen has the right to wander freely in forests and even pick berries and mushrooms there without no permission of the landowner (excluding courtyards, protected areas and some national parks). But if you want to make a camp fire or collect wood in forest then you need the permission of the landowner. Our interpretation is that confluence "picking" is one of these every man’s rights in Finland and needs no special permissions.

There was no buildings at the site so we just left the car near the field and started to walk north toward the confluence, which was in forest some hundred meters away.

The terrain at the confluence N62 E27 is moss-covered marshland. In dense forest the trees where mostly young Norway spruce with some longer birch trees. It was a quite warm, sunny spring day and birds were singing in forest and we heard the call of the cuckoo when trying to find the right digits to the GPS device.

After visiting the confluence we visited at the birth house of the (in Finland) famous Finnish American songwriter Hiski Salomaa too (http://www.fimic.fi/fimic/fimic.nsf). That little cabin is about three kilometers away from the confluence.

The way back to summer cottage by the lake Puula went through the Kangasniemi, which was once selected as the most beautiful parish in Finland mainly because of it’s many very nice lake views.