Have you ever imagined seeing a herd of reindeer crossing your ski trail? Now THAT is a unique and unforgettable experience.
That is what happened a few days ago to one of our friends (BB2 2007), who just finished participation in one of most unusual extreme sports offered on our planet, the annual international Border to Border (Rajalta Rajalle-Hiihto) literal "cross country" ski event across the country of Finland from the border of Russia to the border of Sweden on a route skirting the Arctic Circle (Kuusamo - Taivalkoski - Pudasjärvi - Ranua - Keminmaa - Tornio).
This tour has been described by Cross Country Skier as "a week-long odyssey in which marathon distances become a lifestyle".
The ca. 440 kilometers (ca. 275 miles) of the ski route are covered in 7 days with daily cross-country skiing distances of anywhere from ca. 44 to 78 kilometers (on a "non-competitive" basis) as fixed variously by the organizers, with the difficulty of - and time required for - each daily ski stage being greatly dependent on the weather.
The Border to Border ski tour is an organized event for experienced and hardened ski tourists involving 7 straight days of up to 50 miles per day of physically demanding skiing. Cross Country Skier even writes: "This is a vacation that requires months of advance training", although persons not highly trained have managed this tour. Still, training is highly recommended so that one does not have to give up because untrained joints in the legs, arms or wrists are strained or because blisters on soft skin not hardened by experience may make further progress difficult. The right equipment and clothing for temperatures below freezing are also essential, especially for the feet.
Travel by bus, food and lodging are provided - for which reason participation involves registration and payment of substantial charges, including payment of a small deposit upon registration for the tour. See e.g. the tour prices charged by Nordic Saga Tours Sports & Adventure in Edmonds, Washington, USA or Schulz Aktiv Reisen in Dresden, Germany. Still, costs are kept as low as possible by the fact that the organization is done through 6 Finnish municipalities and nearly 200 volunteer workers. Otherwise it would probably be impossible to run this kind of an adventure ski tour at an affordable price.
Very nice to very simple accommodations are provided in hotels, huts, youth hostels and schools. A sleeping bag is required, but this and other belongings including extra and very necessary clothes are transported along the ski route by bus. Because of the sometimes close accomodations (many persons sleeping and perhaps snoring on the floor of a school in sleeping bags in more remote locations), earplugs may be recommended.
Interested persons should read carefully the general requirements listed at Rajalta Rajall-Hiihto, the Border to Border home website. And, for persons not accustomed to the extraordinary skiers of every age out there, including seniors . . . as noted at Cross Country Skier: "Just prepare your ego to be passed on the trail by some 70-year-old Finnish lady."
The ski-trail track (loipe) is marked (groomed) by snowmobiles and a snowmobile follows the last skier in each group to make sure no one is lost, while participants for safety reasons carry mobile (cell) phones. Periodic way stations at appropriate intervals for food and drink along the way are manned by volunteers, who are residents of the region. There is a possibility for skiers to take a bus rather than to ski a segment if the skiing becomes difficult for whatever reason.
Border to Border traditionally takes place each year in the first half of March and registration to participate in one of the 4 tour groups of maximally 100 skiers per group must be made by December 31 of the preceding year, for example, by 31 December 2007 for the 2008 tour (experience indicates that registrations should already be in by June to be sure of getting a spot).
Four tour groups are scheduled for 2008 and given below (for 2009 and 2010 see http://rajaltarajallehiihto.ranua.fi/?deptid=9559).
The Year 2008 Border to Border group ski tours
March 6 to March 12
March 7 to March 13
March 8 to March 14
March 9 to March 15
As written by Border to Border guide Jaakko Heikkinen:
"The Border to Border ski tour has established its position as a major ski and tourism event in northern Finland."
The home page of the Border to Border tour is found in Finnish and English language at Rajalta Rajalle Hiihto
Other interesting links involving Border to Border are:
Cross Country Skier - Finland from Border to Border (2003)
at crosscountryskier.com
Skiing across Finland (2004)
by JoAnn Hanowski at MasterSkier.com and Nordic Skiing Magazine
Skiing in Lapland
by Olaf Bochmann of Ames, Iowa
Border to Border: 440 kilómetros esquiando por tierras de Santa Klaus
from Antonio León García, Spain (2004)
Finnish Tourist Board
Rajalte-Rajalle : ein Skilauf quer durch Finnland (2005 - in German, auf deutsch, von Andrea Blüthner)
Århus Skiklub - Dagbog fra "Border to Border"
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Sky Earth Native America
American Indian Rock Art Petroglyphs Pictographs
Cave Paintings Earthworks & Mounds as Land Survey & Astronomy,
Volume 1, Edition 2, 266 pages, by Andis Kaulins.
Sky Earth Native America 2 :
American Indian Rock Art Petroglyphs Pictographs
Cave Paintings Earthworks & Mounds as Land Survey & Astronomy,
Volume 2, Edition 2, 262 pages, by Andis Kaulins.
Both volumes have the same cover except for the labels "Volume 1" viz. "Volume 2".
The image on the cover was created using public domain space photos of Earth from NASA.
-----
Both book volumes contain the following basic book description:
"Alice Cunningham Fletcher observed in her 1902 publication in the American Anthropologist
that there is ample evidence that some ancient cultures in Native America, e.g. the Pawnee in Nebraska,
geographically located their villages according to patterns seen in stars of the heavens.
See Alice C. Fletcher, Star Cult Among the Pawnee--A Preliminary Report,
American Anthropologist, 4, 730-736, 1902.
Ralph N. Buckstaff wrote:
"These Indians recognized the constellations as we do, also the important stars,
drawing them according to their magnitude.
The groups were placed with a great deal of thought and care and show long study.
... They were keen observers....
The Pawnee Indians must have had a knowledge of astronomy comparable to that of the early white men."
See Ralph N. Buckstaff, Stars and Constellations of a Pawnee Sky Map,
American Anthropologist, Vol. 29, Nr. 2, April-June 1927, pp. 279-285, 1927.
In our book, we take these observations one level further
and show that megalithic sites and petroglyphic rock carving and pictographic rock art in Native America,
together with mounds and earthworks, were made to represent territorial geographic landmarks
placed according to the stars of the sky using the ready map of the starry sky
in the hermetic tradition, "as above, so below".
That mirror image of the heavens on terrestrial land is the "Sky Earth" of Native America,
whose "rock stars" are the real stars of the heavens, "immortalized" by rock art petroglyphs, pictographs,
cave paintings, earthworks and mounds of various kinds (stone, earth, shells) on our Earth.
These landmarks were placed systematically
in North America, Central America (Meso-America) and South America
and can to a large degree be reconstructed as the Sky Earth of Native America."
