Orienteering is a dream hobby for a botanist with a camera
Raino Lampinen: “An absolutely magnificent moment in the forest is when, from a high ridge, you can admire how the rising sun colors the mist rolling in the valleys orange.”
The Life in the Forests of Jukola series introduces people who, in line with the Kotka-Jukola theme, are experienced Jukola participants and know the forest nature intimately.
Helsinki-based botanist Raino Lampinen has combined his work, orienteering and photography in his own distinctive way. He works at the Finnish Museum of Natural History’s botany and mycology unit in Kaisaniemi and has spent 30 years maintaining Finland’s plant observation database and distribution atlas.
-The database now contains more than eight million plant observations from Finland and nearby areas,” Lampinen says.
As the coordinator of plant mapping, he has personally contributed over two million observations.
-The forest is my favorite place to move around in; there aren’t many days in a year when I don’t visit it for some reason.”
An experienced Jukola participant, Lampinen has also managed to combine pleasure and productivity on competition trips.
-Just from Jukola trips in this millennium, I’ve probably collected close to 100,000 observations, he estimates.
Plant observations accumulate along travel routes and even during competitions, though recording them isn’t always possible.
-When you try to recall what you saw and where, you only remember pine, spruce, juniper, blueberry, lingonberry and heather. Which is good – during a race it’s better to focus on orienteering than on making nature observations.
Lampinen began orienteering in Hämeenlinna.
-In third grade, people from Hämeenlinnan Tarmo came to ask who might be interested in an orienteering school. I raised my hand, he says.
He ran his first Jukola Relay at age 15, but orienteering faded into the background in the late 1970s.
-The hobby disappeared for decades, but thanks to my work I always spent time with maps, either in the terrain or on the computer screen. And of course I listened to Jukola broadcasts on the radio during those years.
Orienteering returned to his life through his children in the 2000s.
-In 2004 I suggested they join the orienteering school of Helsingin Suunnistajat. They agreed and started competing that same summer.
As often happens, the hobby returned to the father as well.
-After watching for a while, I decided it wasn’t worth driving to competitions just to sit in the rain in a gravel pit or stubble field. I joined the club (Helsingin Suunnistajat), got a competition license, and my active sports career has continued ever since.
Since then, his calendar has been full of races from early spring to late autumn. In addition, he hikes in the terrain to make plant observations and last winter skied more than 3,400 kilometers.
-This year I’ve already walked nearly 2,800 GPS-measured kilometers, mostly for plant mapping in my free time.
Lampinen, who moves to the H65 age category next year, ran his most recent Jukola Relay in 2020. He has since worked at Jukola as an accredited photographer.
A hobby that began with nature photography expanded to orienteering photography in the mid-2010s.
-There are now more than 50,000 of my photos online from perhaps a couple hundred competitions in Finland, Sweden and the Baltic countries.
The images are also shared, by agreement, with athletes and their clubs. They can be viewed at https://www.flickr.com/photos/rainol/.
Lampinen is drawn to orienteering by familiar pleasures: moving in nature, maintaining fitness, seeing new places, meeting long-time acquaintances and getting to know new people.
-What appeals to me is the game-like aspect. It’s not just monotonous running. The competitive instinct also gets satisfied – there are always runners on the same level, and victories rotate nicely.
As a botanist, he is also motivated by combining competitions with plant mapping.
-I might be a bit notorious among my close circle, because I can be somewhat reluctant when asked for a ride to competitions far from home. These trips tend to stretch at both ends – and sometimes in the middle.
-I plan routes I haven’t driven before and stop here and there to study the local flora. My travel plan may include extra terrain days devoted solely to plants, Lampinen laughs.
Along with moments of success, setbacks from decades ago and strong nature experiences have stayed in his memory.
-An absolutely magnificent moment in the forest is when, from a high ridge, you can admire how the rising sun colors the mist rolling in the valleys orange, Lampinen says.
