The Eight Seasons and the little Weasel

The other day I heard an original Lappish man saying the winter is over in Lapland for this season. My first thought was: “What is he talking about?!” and I looked around on the huge amount of snow and over half a meter of ice around me. This is absolutely what I, as a newcomer, would call winter! But then I remembered, there are eight seasons in Lapland – not only four as in the rest of Finland!

My post about the eight seasons you find here: http://grandma-in-lapland.com/lapland-the-land-of-eight-seasons

According to this man, the arctic winter is over when the temperatures during day-time are around 0 degrees Celsius or more. And that happened this week; the cold we had last week with temperatures around -30 degrees Celsius suddenly changed to near 0 degrees.

Even though I still love the winter, snow and cold weather, even for me temperatures around -30 are a little too severe. You can hardly breath outside and the air is so dry, you get dry hands, dry face and dry lips. If you are fortunate enough to not have the seasonal flu, you could manage for a short while outdoor, but if you have the flu and your throat is already sore, the cold, dry weather makes it hard to breath.

The season “Frosty Winter” is supposedly over for this time, but still the “Crusty Snow” season has not arrived. The Crusty Snow is when you can go skiing on top of the snow as the sun has made the snow so hard with melting warmth during the day and still freezing temperatures during the night. In Rovaniemi at the moment the official snow depth is 93 cm.

So we could say we are on the zone between the Frosty Winter and the Crusty Snow seasons at the moment in the middle of March this year.

Another story:

The other day I had to bring my car to the service station for some smaller measures and check-ups. As I came to fetch up the car in the end of the day the service man told me first about the measurements he had made and then at the end he told me, by the way, he had also removed the perch from my motor……

You should have seen my face: the perch!!??!! You say there was a fish in my motor!?

Yes, he said, there was a very old perch, so he could not eat it. He had to throw it away. He also asked me if I used to drive on the ice-road on the river or near a lake or something. I must say, I had no answer at that moment to give to him.

But as I returned home and that question was struggling my head I suddenly came up with the answer: the Weasel!

I have been enjoying the life and movements of a little weasel for several years now in Lapland. Of course, I cannot be sure it is the same weasel all the time. But anyway, as I go ice-fishing a lot, I get a lot of small fish, too. That is fish I do not prepare for my own food. In the beginning I used to give them all to birds near the lake, but as I one day found out there was a weasel fetching up fish, too, I was happy to share the fish with “him”.

During the autumn and winter I have seen the weasel frequently on the camera but also in the real. It is so funny and I have been laughing a lot because of that weasel. I see it collects fish from the place where I use to leave the small fish.

During this winter we have used a trap for racoon dogs as the feeding place for the weasel. As the birds like magpies and jays do not get the fish from the trap, it leaves possibilities for the weasel. The weasel gets into the trap and brings out the fish…no problem!

The weasel collects and hides food in stores for later use. It definitively not eat them all immediately. There are several different stores to where the weasel brings food. You can see that from the tracks around the place. After my visit to the service station with my car I realized my car was also one of the stores of the weasel food! I am glad we found the fish in my motor before summer. Just think about the smell of rutten fish…

And I surely was the laugh of the day for the service man at the station!

What to remember when you are out on the ice

The weather outside is cold at the moment. The lakes in Lapland will be covered by ice in the next weeks. Most of all I hope for some weeks with only ice – not snow. Because then I can go ice-skating, which I like very much. Last winter in the beginning of November we had excellent ices on the lakes and I took the opportunity to go ice-skating several times. I have been ice-skating every winter as a child and even now, at this age, I took an ice-skating class here in Rovaniemi some winters ago, just to catch up some old skills and do some exercising. I keep my skates with me in the car wherever I go now, in case I will find a suitable place to do some skating some day. Of course, priority nro 1 is the safety. Never enter an ice you do not know if it is thick enough and safe to enter! Always keep your ice nails with you in case of emergency!

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While I am waiting for the winter to bring ice I have finished the bracelet I bought from the Arctic Markets and planned to make myself. It is made from leather and tin thread after a Sami pattern. And I must say: not bad! I like it very much.

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Regarding outdoor life on ice a big amount of snow is definitively affecting possibilities to move on the ice. The winters in Lapland always have a lot of snow. One thing is that if there is more than 40 cm of smooth snow on the ice it makes skiing without prepared tracks (not to mention skating) impossible. Even walking is hard work. The snowmobiles are of course able to drive in quite deep snow, but if you want to go ice-fishing you have to shovel the snow away from the place before you can drill the holes in the ice.
There is another problem, too. If the ice is approx. 60 cm thick there is no risk that it breaks, but what happens is, that the big amount of snow weighs a lot and presses the ice down and water begins to rise up on the ice. This happens usually near islands, near the coast or from crevasses anywhere on the ice. Water is also rising through the holes you have made for ice fishing. As there is a lot of snow on the ice you probably do not see the water under the snow. The deep snow prevents the water from freezing even if there are several minus degrees out there. Snow has an isolating function. Animals can hide themselves under the snow and survive from freezing to death. The snow isolates them from the freezing cold.
When driving with the snowmobile you could suddenly realize there is water under the snow on the ice. If you are lucky the area of water is not so large and you can rescue by driving fast over the area. If the area is large and the amount of water under the snow is big you could suddenly find yourself sitting in the water on your snowmobile unable to move forward anymore. The water under the snow has also partly melted the snow.

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The first time this happened to me several years ago, I got scared, of course. In my mind water and ice means there must be a hole and I thought I was going to drown in that. But that is absolute not the fact! There is water, all right, but if you wear good rubber boots you are able to walk on the ice in the water. The ice is still 60 cm thick. You’d better not be alone when this happen to you. Because now you have to get the snowmobile away from this water. You are not able to lift the snowmobile all by yourself. It is also good to have a shovel or other implements to your help. By “building” a kind of platform of snow and little by little lifting the snowmobile up on that platform you manage to start the engine again and carefully steer the snowmobile away from the water area. If you are alone, you’d better call for help.
These water areas usually appear in the beginning of winter when the snow cover is growing and they disappear sometimes during the spring season. There are usually no water areas in March and April. If you are driving in the same areas year after year you could learn to know where these places usually appear and you could avoid them. But you could never be 100 % sure because the crevasses could appear anywhere. They are caused by the ice movements that happens when the temperature outside falls and rises.

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After the “adventure” in the water the snowmobile is full of wet snow and it will freeze and make it impossible to drive eventually. That is why you have to clean the snowmobile from all ice and snow as soon as possible. One thing that helps is to turn the snowmobile over to ease the cleaning process. This procedure does not harm the snowmobile, but helps you to clean away all snow and ice.

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There is also a very useful invention from SOIMET Ky that lifts up the snowmobile from the ground; the snowmobile jack. You could use it out there when you get shucked in the water on the ice to get lifted up so you can build a stable ground under the snowmobile. And you could also use it in cleaning the snowmobile from wet, icy snow after an adventure in the water. You lift up the snowmobile and start the engine. The roller will clean itself from snow while going around lifted up in the air.