69 degrees North

[randoskier]

@randoskier it looks like you had a beautiful trip!
Did the finnish ice fisherman share any perch (as depicted on the painting) with you? One of my favorite freshwater fish (together with the whole salmonid range).

Perch is good eating fish but he caught only grayling. They probably have a ton of Perch because the lakes in Obvre-Pasvik and the Vastari Wilderness are relatively shallow and maybe a little warm. They have a lot of pike too. The salmon are pretty much done in the Pasvik River drainage- there are Nprwegian hydro dams at Milkefoss and Skogfoss, and a couple on the Russian side of the Finn border, plus a Finnish one. My friend is a dairy farmer on the bank of the Pasvik at Milkefoss (Milk Falls in English), he told me his great-grandfather became quite wealthy because he built a small rail-system to take boats around the falls at Milkefoss so they could continue their journey upstream- there was no road in the valley at that time, boat was the primary transport. He charged a toll for this service. The falls are submerged now because of the hydro-crap. I had dinner at his house, the view from the dining table is straight across the Pasvik river to the snowy mountains in Russia (Kola). I stayed a night at the husky farm farm (Birk) in Melkefoss, it is probably the closest group of residential dwellings in Norway to Russia- exactly 100 meters as I measure it on ut.no.

[corlay]

so serene!