"If you really want to get to know Finnish forests, start orienteering"
Forest manager Ismo Minkkinen has spent his whole life in the forest — for the past 20 years also with a map in hand as an orienteer.
Minkkinen lives in Rajamäki, where the traditional orienteering club Rajamäen Rykmentti operates. Orienteering only crept into his life a little before he turned forty. There was no family background behind it, but another sport: shooting. – After I had driven my daughters and my son to orienteering competitions for a couple of years, it occurred to me that during the races one could do something more than drink coffee. The children have already ended their active careers, but I continue, Minkkinen laughs.
Jukola surprises year after year
Jukola has offered Minkkinen surprises and mishaps since the summer of 2008. You never know in advance what is coming after the next control. – The first that comes to mind is Lappeenranta (2016). It poured from start to finish. Once I got over a little stream as if by miracle by hopping along root clumps, while right next to me people were wading up to their waists. A buddy came behind and chuckled that, for once, he had chosen the right person to follow, Minkkinen recalls.
Once he got going, Minkkinen really fell for orienteering and tours races both in Finland and abroad. What appeals is unknown terrain and the diversity of forests. – The European Championships in the forest sector have become familiar in various parts of Europe. This summer Estonia’s terrains are on the agenda. Before that, eight countries have been visited, from North Tyrol in Italy to Skåne in Sweden.
“Deeper in you find both grander scenery and thickets you get quite an intimate feel for.”
The forest is the core of life
Forest nature has always been an essential part of Minkkinen’s life, both in everyday life and leisure. – I have been grubbing around in the forest since I was little. Then it became a profession. Now I do forest work and hunt, says the forester whose career was at Metsähallitus and the Finnish Forest Centre.
As a forestry professional, Minkkinen wants to correct the one-sided notion of Finnish commercial forests. – I do not subscribe to the “tree field” idea, because there are so many different kinds of forests in Finland.
Jukola, the highlight of the summer
The midsummer highlight, the Jukola relay, has been missed only three times since 2008. – My own club’s Kytäjä-Jukola and the coronavirus caused two of the breaks. The third time there was such demand for places in my employer’s (Finnish Forest Centre) team that I stepped aside, Minkkinen says.
Speed and success are not the point for most participants at Jukola. The elite pound along, but the large crowd of enthusiasts has time to do something quite different in this unique orienteering event. – The atmosphere of Jukola makes it possible that you do not have to run with your sweatband soaked. On the same leg you can even admire both the sunset and the sunrise.
Passing the baton!
Ismo Minkkinen, Head of Information Management at the Finnish Forest Centre, wants to hand over the relay on the second leg to Raino Lampinen, who works as a coordinator at the University of Helsinki’s Plant and Fungal Science unit.
