Low angle light and other celestial phenomena, including the stars at the President's castle

Moonset over our neighboorhood, about 10am 11/24/2007

In the middle of the day on the ski trail, the sun hits the treetops,...

...filters down through the forest...

...and some sunlight even reaches the forest floor.

One quarry outside of Kaustinen is locally known for this rock formation which contains a lot of mica. Some local people value this rock for use in fireplace mantlepieces and other decorative masonry. Here, the low sun reflects off of the mica flakes in the rock.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Years to all,

Last week Finland celebrated her 90th birthday. Until December 6th, 1917, Finland was a Duchy of the Russian empire. You can read all about it on the following link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Independence_Day. Veterans of Finland's "Winter War" were particularly honored, as most of them have now reached a fragile age. Very few of these veterans will still be around for Finland's 100th. The city of Kaustinen organized a special candle-light vigil for all veterans, alive and deceased. Finns very solemnly and respectfully honor this day.

On the evening of Finland's Independence Day (called itsenäisyyspäivä), some friends invited us to join them for viewing the nationally televised Independence Day celebration at the President's castle in Helsinki. (Nearly all of Finland watches this spectacle.) President Tarja Halonen and her husband shook hands individually with what seemed like an endless stream of invited dignitaries and Finnish icons of various disciplines. When they had greeted what seemed like 2,000 guests, our friends said that there was another door where the diplomats come in. So there was more hand-shaking and slinky gowns and tuxes. Despite the seriousness of the occasion, the Finnish tabloids (yes, Finns have them too) directed their lidless eyes at some of the more popular and/or controversial characters present at the occasion, inspecting and analyzing with arcane gossiping efficacy every outfit, word, gesture and contextual significance. Perhaps American popular culture has had an influence here.

Eli says: We did have quite a bit of fluffy snow here, but it all melted in last week's rain. One of the first words we learned when we arrived in Finland was "kasvihuoneilmiö," (greenhouse effect). Most people here acknowledge global climate change unhappily. Last year, for example, Kaustinen had its first "black" Christmas, with virtually no snow. I cannot complain too much, being aware of the numerous extreme climate conditions throughout the world. For the sake of the local economy, however, I hope for abudant snow and below-freezing temperatures soon.

Music studies are progressing. I asked my teacher, Risto Hotakainen, how many tunes he actually knows by heart and he figured in the thousands. I believe it. There is a saying here in regards to fiddling, that it comes "aidin maidossa," or in the the mother's milk. I guess over the centuries a definite collective consciuosness has been nurtured and continues to manifest through many talented young players whom I have seen perform over the past months.

LynnAnne says:
I promise that I will never complain about the darkness in December in Minnesota again!

Right after I sent the last email, it rained for two days and all the snow melted. The bike paths were quite muddy. It was so dark that the daylight-sensing streetlights outside our cabin stayed on for two days. But now I'll quit my bellyachin' and tell about something more interesting, about what the moon appears to do here this time of year.

On the Friday after Thanksgiving, it snowed, starting with a wet snow. The temperature dropped steadily during the snowstorm, so the snow stuck to the trees. Everything turned beautiful again (and the streetlights would turn off during the day, at least betwen 10 and 2 o'clock). The next day, a Saturday, was the first completely clear day we have had in about a month. When we looked outside, the full moon was setting (around 10 am). We started to realize something interesting about the moon. In Minnesota, when the moon is full, it rises at sunset and goes down at sunrise. It does the same thing here, but at this time of year, the moon is up almost around the clock when it is full. It rises in the north and sets in the north, passing just below the horizon for a few hours while the sun is "up." (The sun only gets a few degrees above the horizon.) What the moon does of course makes sense if you think about it, but we hadn't thought about it until we saw it. I spent the better part of the day (only about two hours between 11 and 1) outside taking pictures in the winter wonderland. Here are a few of the better ones. http://finmail.blogspot.com/

Eli says that the darkness doesn't bother him. He practices a lot. Well, Eli says that he doesn't practice a lot, so we have a difference in perspective. The people who work in the Folk Arts Center say that they have never heard any student practice half as much as Eli does. He really is an amazing guy. I think people like him have lived before in history, people who played their instruments a lot when the weather wasn't good for farming. In Scandinavian folk tradition, good fiddle players learn to play from the sprite that lives in waterfalls, rapids, and lakes, called Näcken in Swedish. I am developing a theory on how that belief came about. Perhaps the person who played a lot during the winter brought out his violin in the summer, after all the crops had been planted, and played for the people in his village. The villagers were amazed and they whispered among themselves: "How did he get so good?" The musician didn't want to sound like a geek and admit that he practiced eight hours a day all winter, so he said that he had learned to play from the waterfall sprite. In the Scandinavian folk belief milieu populated with elves, gnomes, trolls, and other little people, the idea that fiddle players learn to play from the waterfall sprite seems as believable an explanation as any other. Here is the Norwegian perspective on the link between the water sprite and fiddle players: http://www.mic.no/mic.nsf/doc/art2002092513365554254978

Well that's the news from this corner of the world... where all the women get around on kick sleds, the men never complain, and all the musicians are above average.

Here's wishing all of you the happiest of holidays, full of peace and love. Take care and have fun!
Elias and LynnAnne

Helena, bikes, snow, and darkness

Helena and her summer bike (back when it was still summer).
She usually looks happier than she does here.

The Kaustinen bike trail avoids a busy road crossing.
(also when it was still summer)

My bike in front of Folk Arts Center where we have class.
(taken more recently)


11/16/07, around 9am. We live in the second cabin from the left.
Our neighborhood is called "Mosala,"
the same name as the rapids on the river behind our house.

Same view of Mosala, same day around noon.

Our cabin with Mosala Rapids on the Perhonjoki River in the background.

Greetings from Finland!

I would like to open this Finmail with a moment of silence

for the victims of the recent school shooting in Finland. Here is a quote from Milli, Eli's inspiring and caring mother, as she reacted to the tragedy: "...one needs to focus upon the goodness and beauty that is within us and around us, and inspire it. I work very hard at this! I refuse to let the dark side plague my days."

The days are indeed getting rapidly shorter and chillier as the northern hemisphere takes its annual vacation away from the sun. Now, a month before the winter solstice at 63 (and a half) degrees latitude (here), the sun crests the horizon around 9:30am, traces a low arc in the often cloud-covered southern sky, and it starts getting dark again around 2:30pm. Before electric lighting, people in Scandinavia must have told a lot of stories during the winter nights. That is probably how the Kalevala (Finland's national epic poem) got to be so long.

The darkness outside makes the warm and bright instrument-building workshop all the more inviting. We continue to make good progress on our instruments. But before I tell about that (next time), I would like to tell about the bikes we ride every day and some of the adventures we have had with them. It all started in September with Helena.

Helena is our only classmate. All three of us were surprised that only three students were in this year's class. Usually there have been 10 – 15 students in the program. (Actually, there was a fourth student who left after a few days, apparently for religious reasons, Helena thought.) Eli and I had been looking forward to interacting with many classmates. We got over our initial disappointment quickly though. Helena is very enjoyable to work and socialize with, and our teacher has been very accommodating with our varying degrees of deficiency in Finnish. Helena is also a non-traditional student, which relieved our anxiety about sharing a classroom with young bucks and "perky gazelles." As you all well know, learning is a life-long adventure.

Helena is a fun Finn in her mid 40's. She is a very talented singer, and all three of her children are musicians. In July she moved back to Kaustinen (after living in southeastern Finland for 10 years) to be near where she grew up and where her family is. Her mother and eldest daughter (married with 3 children) live about an hour northeast of Kaustinen. Riikka (Helena's eldest daughter) was recently selected to be the church organist in their small town. (In Finland there is generally just one church in each town.) Helena's younger daughter studies music at the conservatory in Kokkola about a half hour north of Kaustinen. Her 15 year-old son plays violin very well and plans to start at the music magnet high school in Kaustinen next year. He and Helena live in the cabin next door. Einari is otherwise a motorbike-crazed teenager, and we often see him outside tinkering with his bike.

Well this email is about the other kind of bike. When we first got here, an abandoned-looking red cruising bicycle was leaning up out back behind Helena's cabin. Its rear tire was off the rim and the tire was full of leaves and muck. When Helena heard that I was interested in bicycling (from Eli), she said I could ride it if I fixed the flat tire. I had been planning to swear off bicycling for a while after getting my fill of bicycling fun in France, but here was a broken bike... and such an easy fix! I couldn't help myself. Helena has a new, fancy bike with gears that she rides every day. The red bike is her winter bike. It has studded tires for better traction, and a coaster brake (the kind where you pedal backwards) so it still works in snowy conditions. A lot of Finns use winter tires on their bikes, and you can buy the studded tires in the local grocery / department store that resembles Pamida. I fixed the bike, and soon I was cruising back and forth to our classroom building on Helena's winter bike.

Noticing my interest in bikes, Helena mentioned a few days later that Riikka (her eldest daughter) had an even older bike in her yard that she was not using. It was not as pretty as her winter bike and the brake didn't work, she told me, but if I fixed it I could ride it while I was in Finland. I figured either the coaster brake would be easy to fix, or the wheel might need to be junked. So I said I would look at it. That weekend Riika was playing in an organ concert in her town, and I went with Helena. I was amazed at the sounds I heard coming from the organ; Riikka is very good – similar to organists I heard play while I was in college at Gustavus. I hope I will get to hear her play again and that Eli will get to hear her play too.

The next day I got a good look at the bike – as promised, it wasn't pretty. The front wheel was rubbing on the fender and frame (fork), and the spokes were so rusty I didn't think I would be able to straighten the rim. Fortunately my bike tools had ended up in Finland with me (more due to chance than planning as I had sorted my PBP gear in a sleep-deprived stupor). To my surprise, I could adjust most of the spokes. I got the wheel to stop hitting the frame, but it was still pretty bent. The coaster brake's only problem is sometimes it engages by itself when I roll the bike backwards (as when backing out of a bike rack). The brake has always stopped the bike so far. I put new innertubes in the tires, needed or not, and soon I was cruising around town on my very own (borrowed) rusty, one-speed brick-red beauty complete with fenders and rack. I'm sure all those with whom I shared the PBP adventure would look away!

I adjusted Helena's winter bike for Eli (at Helena's encouragement) and soon we were cruising around town together. Actually, I think these one-speed bikes are underestimated as a training tool. I spent several evenings and weekends exploring the surrounding forests and neighboring towns, and on some rides Eli and I rode together.

One of the unpleasant things about riding outside of town is the stench of the fur farms which are scattered along rural roads. A mink farm smells about ten times more pungent than the dogyard in the spring. The effect these farms have on water quality is a concern. The EU regulates fur farming heavily and recently passed legislation requiring that the animals' cages be enlarged (but not by much). There have been protests to halt fur farming, including one appeal from Pamela Anderson to the Finnish government. http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/wireStory?id=3302835

On the other hand, fur farming has been practiced in Scandinavia for at least 500 years, and many people derive a part of their income from small-scale operations. Last week, we got new neighbors. Eli found out that they are from Estonia, here in Finland to skin mink during the fur harvesting season. Who can begrudge them the opportunity to earn some Christmas money for their families or money to pay their winter heating bill? I haven't seen any Finns fighting them for their jobs -- I'm sure it is quite unpleasant. So there are two sides to any argument. I guess people protest because we think we are living in a more enlightened era.

Bicycling in Finland is otherwise pleasant. Drivers are courteous to cyclists, especially in town. Bike paths are wide, well-lit, and plentiful (on both sides of Kaustinen's main street). When I ride on the roads outside of town, drivers give me plenty of space when they can. However, most road shoulders are about two inches wide, and the traffic lanes are not too wide either. Twice I have elected to hit the ditch on busy roads when a truck was coming in my lane and there was oncoming traffic. Mostly though, I have been able to bicycle on low-traffic roads, some of which are gravel. I have not seen any other cyclists out on the roads. Call me crazy!

Fortunately for me and my bike-repairing hobby, I have been pleasantly surprised at how inexpensive and readily available bike parts are. I recently replaced the hand grips, pedals, and chain on the old bike for about $15 total. I could even buy a pedal wrench at the grocery store and it only cost 5 euros. Otherwise, many things in Finland seem expensive. For example, bananas cost about $1.40/lb, and Eli and I don't go out for a beer very often (about $7).

When I got back from one ride (a leisurely 90 km), Helena and Saija (our teacher) acted as though I had gone to the other end of the moon. When gas costs 1.35 euros per liter (about $9 a gallon), people do not drive their cars that far just for fun. So I am very glad that a lot of Scandinavians ride bicycles, even though bikes are considered in-town transportation.

I saw the first snowflakes on that ride about a month ago. Don't let the pictures on the previous post fool you -- it has not been sunny very often. In the past month, I think I have seen my shadow three times. When the wind blows from the north we get a nice, dry snow; otherwise it rains. So the roads have been messy and we have been thankful for the fenders on our bikes. (Kiitos, Helena) Yesterday was the first day we could not see any grass. Eli started walking to class again this week so Helena can ride her winter bike. Even though the locals say that in recent years they have not been able to ski until January, I think we will have better luck this year.

We have heard that it has been rainy in Minnesota too, and we hope you get good snow early this winter. Here's a little sunshine ☺☻☼♪♫ for each one of you and the things you do to leave the world a better place. Thanksgiving is not celebrated in Finland, and it almost escaped my notice that many of you are probably preparing to celebrate the most American of holidays (or have already done so by the time you get around to reading this message).
Happy Thanksgiving!

Take care and have fun!
LynnAnne and Eli

Fall Pictures

Detail of wooden fence

The house band, "Tallari." Eli has private lessons with the two fiddle players, Risto and Ritva.

After the rain

Our class picks lingonberries

My bike

Eli on his bike

Rapids on the Perhonjoki River about 1/2 mile upstream from our house

Where in Finland is Kaustinen?

Greetings from Finland!

I'll try to keep this one a little shorter than my previous entries. This Finmail is about this corner of the globe that we are calling home for this year. Kaustinen is located near the west coast of Finland, a little bit south of the line dividing the country geographically into north and south halves. Maybe a map will help:
http://virtual.finland.fi /netcomm/news/showarticle.asp ?intNWSAID=27068
Our nearest large town is Kokkola (35,000); we are about a half-hour drive southeast of Kokkola, about on the same latitude as Jakobstad (Pietesaari on some maps). If you could move the north-south line and split Finland according to population, with half the population north and half south of the line, that line would be in the very southern part of Finland, probably just north of Helsinki. (Maybe Finns really do prefer warmer weather after all?) So even though geographically speaking, we are in the southern part of Finland, a lot of Finnish people think of Kaustinen as being way up north. That's about the way a person starts to think of Ely when you visit Thunder Bay or Atikokan and hear Canadians refer to their region as southern Canada. There's a lot of country still to the north. We hope to explore some of the northern part of Finland around Christmas or next summer.

I use my ability to speak Swedish almost every day, but not in the way you might think. Finland has a small population of Swedish-speakers clustered on the west coast and in the archipelago between Finland and Sweden, and Swedish is an official language. Consequently, the labeling on all packaging is in both languages (and often not in English). So usually Eli and I go shopping together and between the two of us we usually get what we want. Very few people here in Kaustinen, even in this area that is relatively close to the west coast, speak Swedish. The line dividing Swedish-speaking Finns from Finnish-speaking Finns is very well-defined, with little mixing (maybe something like the front line in a war?). Kaustinen is very definitely on the Finnish side. The Swedish speaking area is not far away however. I rode my bike over for a visit during our fall break and found signs only 9 kilometers from Kaustinen with Swedish first (indicating I had crossed the language boundary). I have learned how to say in Finnish, "I speak only a little Finnish. Do you speak English or Swedish?" So far, everyone here in Kaustinen, given this choice, prefers to speak English rather than Swedish.
I have visited several churches and cemeteries in the area (the main attraction and highest point in most small towns here). It is interesting to compare the family names here to the last names of Finnish descendents in Ely. "Mäki," "kangas," and "koski" mean "hill," "moor," and "rapids" respectively. In Ely, you see these names in this basic form. In Finland, however, they occur together with another word to describe a place more exactly. For example, in the Kaustinen cemetery we have "Isokangas," "Teirikangas," "Myllymäki," "Kattilakoski," and "Hanhikoski." In the next town south of Kaustinen, Veteli, Eli found some gravestones with his mother Milli's family name "Salmela." We biked there one Saturday with our classmate Helena. She said the name is common north and east of here, and that part of the family quite likely had moved into this area. One other interesting thing about Finnish churches in this region: they are usually built as two buildings, a large belfry separate from the church, both about the same height. I suppose by building them that way, the builders didn't have to build such high scaffolding and they could use it for both buildings.

Kaustinen is in the region called "Ostrobothnia;" in Finnish and Swedish the name means something like "the east bottoms (or lowlands)." The soil is very fertile, and agriculture is the main industry. The areas that are not cultivated are densely forested. Other income sources for this region include forestry, fur farming (of mink, fox, and other animals), a cooperative dairy, the Kaustinen folk music festival, and a new IT industry with employees from Thailand and India. The EU is working hard to develop rural areas, and the local development agency has many projects completed or in the works.

Ostrobothnia is known as an area where people value traditions. For example, the traditional regional wedding ceremony, called a "crown wedding," consists of three days of traditional dances and music. We are learning some of this repertoire in our classes. It was out of this culture of music, dance, and celebration that the Kaustinen Folk Music Festival was born in the late 60's. This annual event is still one of the largest in Europe, nine days of 24/7 music, with the largest concerts attracting audiences of nearly 10,000 people. This is a huge event for this small town of about 4,000. The dairy I mentioned above milks Kaustinen's reputation for valuing folk traditions for marketing purposes; their logo is a cow dressed in a fiddler's vest, playing a violin: http://www.kaustisenosm.fi/historia.htm The Kaustinen town insignia features a fiddle, and Veteli's sign has a kantele. The kantele is a traditional Finnish instrument, originally used to accompany the singing of epic poems such as those found in the Kalevala (the Finnish national epic). I am building a kantele in our workshop class, but I think I'll wait until the next Finmail to tell more about that.


Ely and Kaustinen have a lot in common, like all the oddball people around town and the oddball things they do. "South of Kaustinen" is the name of a file in my computer where I am gathering pictures of off-the-wall things I see when I am out and about, usually on my bike. A telephone pole not far from where we live has a moose antler mounted about halfway up it. One evening I was riding my bike on a dirt road through a forest and I saw a carved wooden dog sitting on a stump out in the middle of nowhere. And then there is the "ITE art," sort of alternative, sometimes bordering on grunge art, that -uh- graces (?) the campus around our classroom building.

Take care and have fun!
LynnAnne

Nyckelharpa finished!

This post is about the week I spent in Sweden, August 25 - September 2, 2007

Hello from Finland! It has been quite rainy here. We have had only a handful of sunny days in the month since I arrived, and today is one of them, so I will try to get outside for a few hours this afternoon. Because of the wet weather, Eli and I have had lots of time to practice, practice, and practice. We have been learning to play the traditional Finnish instruments called kantele and jouhikko. More on that some other time. For now, I would like to introduce you to my friend Sören Åhker and tell about my week in Sweden when we finished my nyckelharpa.

P.S. This story got a little longer than I had originally intended, and I didn't actually write it in one afternoon. I hope you find the web links informative -- locating them is one of the things I like about writing about my adventures in this format. I just wanted to give a heads-up in the beginning of this message that it might take a while to read.

If you're wondering what a nyckelharpa is, the American Nyckelharpa Association's website

http://www.nyckelharpa.org/resources/index.html has a concise yet thorough answer. For a video, this Youtube clip is a good one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZsUdLzdTdE A brief part of this clip includes someone playing a hurdy-gurdy which is the instrument with the crank. It is a relative of the nyckelharpa.

My friend Elise Peters from Minneapolis put a nyckelharpa in my hands for the first time (maybe in 1999) at a Swedish Elderhostel program where we were teaching Swedish language and culture. http://clvweb.cord.edu/prweb
In 2001, I borrowed a harp from a member of the Twin Cities Nyckelharpalag (group) for a year. After playing it nearly every day that year, I knew I wanted to get my own instrument. When the Nyckelharpalag started putting plans together for a nyckelharpa building class to be held in Minneapolis in November of 2002, I was one of the first to sign up. I wanted to build the instrument that I would play. Sören Åhker was the master builder who taught that workshop.

Sören is widely acclaimed as Sweden's best full-time nyckelharpa builder. He started building nyckelharpas full-time in 1999, and this summer he built Nyckelharpa #100. Also this past summer, one of his recent creations won first place in the annual midsummer harpa builder's competition. http://www.sorenahker.com/eng/eindex.htm

The day after my 1200km bicycle ride in France, I traveled to Sweden to work with Sören in his workshop. I was very glad to stand still for a week and work on my harp!

My flight from Paris to Stockholm was delayed, and I missed the northbound train I had planned to take by 5 minutes. I was able to take a later train, but I didn't get to Sören's town until almost 11PM. Sören is a night owl, as I found out, so this was not a problem for him. I was severely sleep deprived, having slept a total of about 10 hours in the previous five days. When we got to Sören's house, he wanted to decorate the harp and put on the first coat of stain so it could dry overnight. I could see the logic in that. It was about midnight by then. I hadn't been asleep at midnight for any of the last five nights, so what difference did it make?

Sören showed me some examples of decoration on different harps that he had around. For example, the nyckelharpa that his grandfather had built was decorated using tools made from the tiny gears out of a cuckoo clock. The gear-mark had been gently tapped into the soft spruce wood of the top of the instrument. It was beautiful. But we didn't have any old cuckoo clocks around. Sören wood-burns a decorative pattern into the harps that he makes. I didn't want my harp to look too much exactly like Sörens', so we experimented with other wood-burning patterns. Neither of us was satisfied with any of our experiments, so we decided to leave the harpa without any wood-burned decoration. I think the lack of wood-burning accentuates the other decorative elements on the harp, like the key box and tailpiece in the shape of a canoe, and Jock's hand-carved crown-shaped decoration on the tailpiece. (Jock "the Norwegian Termite" had hosted the nyckelharpa building class at his wood carving shop in the Twin Cities.) So Sören and I went on to the stain.

Sören has started using a reddish colored stain which he mixes with the dark brown color that he had previously used exclusively. Most of Sören's harps that I have seen are a bit darker than I wanted, so we diluted the stain with water. At first the color seemed shockingly red, but Sören assured me that it would change once we put the shellac on. The first picture above is me the next day, sanding between coats. You can really see how red the harp was after the stain. The shellac is yellow, so the harp ended up a vibrant reddish-golden hue. One other thing about the shellac: Sören was trying to explain to me that the shellac has lice in it. I did not understand everything he said, but I found it puzzling enough to try to learn more about it: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-shellac.htm

So finally the harp got its first coat of stain and I got to sleep!

In the next few days, I sanded, stained, shellacked, and polished the harp body, keyboxes, keys, tailpiece, and tuning pegs. (I had sent the pieces to Sören in May, and he had carved the keys in the few weeks before I arrived and made a few other adjustments.) Sören showed me how to make tangents (the little pegs that press on the string when the player pushes a key), and I made most of them one evening when he was at a meeting for his hunting club. Finally all the pieces were ready.

This is where Sören basically took over putting the harp together, which was fine with me. The final steps have to be completed with precision or else a lot can go wrong when you try to play later. Sören told me lots of stories (in Swedish) during the week. Before he started building nyckelharpas, he had worked in an industry in Uppsala where they manufactured lathes. The tolerances they were working with were measured in thousandths of a millimeter. So the precision involved in making a nyckelharpa is easy for him. And it's only wood, he says.

One of the most exciting moments of putting the harp together was placing the sound post. Nyckelharpa builders have learned a lot about this point from violin makers. The sound post is a very important little dowel that supports the bridge and allows the sound to resonate throughout the instrument. It is placed just behind the bridge on the A-string (highest pitch) side. The wood grain of the sound post goes perpendicular to the grain of the top of the instrument. And it has to be placed through the opening of the f-hole, an opening through which most of us could not put our little finger!

Then Sören made the bridge and cut the slots in it for the strings. Then he showed me how to put the strings on. He has a useful tool that attaches to a cordless drill which turns the tuning pegs of the 12 resonating strings. When all the strings were on, he asked me to go get the tuner out of his nyckelharpa case.

Soon he asked for the bow that hangs in the window in his workshop. "This was one of Eric Sahlström's (legendary nyckelharpa player's) bows. I always play the first notes on a new nyckelharpa with it so it can teach all the new nyckelharpas how to play." Many times in the past several years since I glued the top on, I have tapped on the body of my nyckelharpa to see if I could hear any sound inside. I was unprepared for the fullness and resonance of the sound that came from the instrument when Sören started to play it. I had waited nearly 5 years to hear a noise from this instrument; it was very moving to hear the first notes from it. The movie below is the first tune. The buzz in the background wasn't there in real life; Sören's camera battery was almost out of juice.

Sören's partner Eva teaches school in the small town of Ilsbo. She had asked me earlier in the week if I would come and speak to her 5th and 6th grade English classes. So on Friday, Sören and I took nyckelharpas to school. When Eva introduced me, she did it in such a way that all the students assumed I didn't speak any Swedish. I explained where I am from and why I happened to be in Ilsbo on this particular week. Sören and I played a tune for her students, and then Sören went to play some more tunes for a different class while Eva's students asked me some questions which they had prepared. Then I asked them some simple questions such as what pets they have and what they like to eat. I enjoyed interacting with the students, and we had a funny moment where I almost fell out of my role of not understanding Swedish. One of the students said something funny (in Swedish) about the animals at her house, and everybody laughed, including me (oops!). I remembered some of my first interactions with Swedes included people laughing, but I did not understand what was funny. So I think my language learning has come full-circle -- now I get to laugh too.

Sören and I had spent the better part of the week in the workshop, and we needed some fresh air. The new nyckelharpa was basically done, except for a few fine adjustments. We thought it might like to get out of the house too. On Saturday, we drove about an hour to an animal park that has all the animals found in Sweden. (The nyckelharpa stayed in the car here.) We spent several hours at the park, stopping in front of each enclosure until we saw the animal(s) in it. The park is built on a hill (think downhill ski slope), so even though the enclosures are fairly large, the animals are still quite visible for visitors. I found it interesting that the lynx population in Sweden is much healthier than ours in Minnesota due to a prey species that looks like a miniature white-tailed deer. The lynx easily brings down these small deer which are about the size of a medium-sized dog. Some of the owls were so well-camouflaged that we had to search the enclosure for a while before we found them. We went into the children's area where they had the usual goats and chickens which we passed quickly to get to the moose calves. As I scratched one of the two on the head, he looked at me with a docile gaze. I still can't believe I petted a moose.

After a pizza dinner, we went to see Peter Hedlund and his family. Peter is a world-class nyckelharpa player who has visited Minneapolis several times to give concerts, workshops, and lessons. He plays one of Sören's nyckelharpas. We had coffee with Peter and his wife Karin and son Jonas. Peter played a few tunes on the new harpa and he said he thought it sounded great. He also commented, unprompted, that he thought it looked nice too; it wasn't over-decorated.

Okay, I know this one is getting rather long, and I hope you have time for one more story. A very interesting thing was going on outside of Ilsbo during the week I was there. A group of folks had set up a charcoal "mila" or mound in a clearing in the forest outside of town. They burn a charcoal mound there every four years as a historical re-enactment to educate thmeselves and the public about this piece of Swedish history. Interestingly enough, the history of charcoal and iron production is also directly related to the history of the nyckelharpa. The manor where the annual nyckelharpa world championships are held was developed as an iron forge community in the 1700's and 1800's. If it had not been for the culture of these iron-forging manor communities, the nyckelharpa might not exist today. This website includes a very interesting concise history in english: http://web.vallonbruken.nu/osterbybruk/ Click on the British flag and look for the "History" link.
So the second evening I was in Ilsbo, Sören and I went to see the "mila." His grandfather had been a charcoal maker, so this was of special interest for him. The mound was about fifteen feet high and twenty feet around. It looked like a huge pile of sand that was smoking from several vents near the bottom. Inside, however, the wood was slowly burning in the absence of oxygen. The "mila" caretakers would watch the smoke coming from the vents to let them know if the vents needed to be opened or closed. They had a long rod that they use to prod the pile; if they can poke the rod through, that means the charcoal is done. If they hit something solid, the wood needs to burn more. They determined that part of the mound was done, and one of the guys got on top of the mound with a huge wooden mallet. He pounded on the pile so it compacted there. Sören said sometimes grave (pardon the pun) accidents could happen at this moment if the mound didn't support the weight of the guy and it collapsed. Another bad thing that could happen was if the fire got too much oxygen and actually started to burn up the wood. A lot of work went up in smoke, and Sweden did not have a welfare system or workers' comp in place back then. The mila took about a week to finish, and on the last evening I was there, they had closed down the pile, which was only a little smaller than on the first night. They would let it cool off for three days before they would take it apart and get the charcoal which they sell as grill-charcoal in area stores.

After a wonderful week with Sören and Eva, my new nyckelharpa (no, it doesn't have a name!) and I continued our travels to Finland to join Eli at the Folk Music Institute in Kaustinen.

Take care and have fun!

LynnAnne

Paris-Brest-Paris Ride Memories

Welcome to the first edition of Finmail. The past month has been full of adventure! My nyckelharpa is done, and Eli and I have begun our folk music studies. Those topics will be the subject of future Finmails. For now, I would like to thank all of you who were following Lara and my adventure in France, the Paris-Brest-Paris bicycle ride, or sent good luck wishes our way. I thought I would share a bit of my world during those wild four days and nights. I'll start by answering a few questions people have sent my way.

For those interested in some historical background information on PBP, here is a link to the RUSA website: http://www.rusa.org/pbphistory.html

Why did you take on this chalenge?

My reasons for doing PBP evolved over the course of my training and during the event. Originally, it started as a deal between Lara and me; I agreed to do PBP with her if she would complete the Border-to-Border triathlon with me. To my surprise, she agreed, so I had to start training! That was in the summer of 2006.

As I learned more about the history of PBP, I found out that the event was canceled during WWII because of the Germans' curfew. PBP does not stop just because it gets dark out, as I found out. I feel that it is an honor to be able to ride through the night in a peaceful country. The people in Brittany were incredible. They were also out day and night, cheering for all cyclists regardless of nationality, and offering us coffee, hot chocolate, and baked goods.

Another reason for doing this is for all the people who would not or could not. Lara and I knew several people who died this year. One of them was preparing for PBP. We wanted to dedicate our ride to everyone who has lost a loved one this year.
Tackling a big challenge like this also redefines a person's idea of what is difficult. If I ever have to do something really difficult in my life, I will at least have this experience to remind me of how strong I am.
One of my canoe trip participants a few years ago answered the "why?" question best: Someday I will be lying in a nursing home bed, wishing I could re-live the challenges that I face today. So even though Lara and I faced physical challenges beyond what either one of us had anticipated, we never asked to quit.

What were your goals for the ride?

The ride was organized sort of as a contract, where riders selected whether they would finish in 80, 84, or 90 hours. Lara and I both selected the 90 hour finish time. I had the mistaken idea that this would allow me to sleep for about 6 hours each night. I was never able to get ahead of schedule enough to sleep for very long. I slept about 1 hour each of the first 2 nights. By 4am the third morning, I was so exhausted I slept about 2 hours. That made a total of 4 hours for the 4 days. By the time I realized I wasn't going to make the 90 hour cutoff, I napped again for about an hour, in a parking lot. (Actually the people I was riding with will tell you I fell asleep while I was eating my food.) But I was determined to finish the 1227km route, and I (and four other cyclists) arrived back at the starting line five minutes before midnight on Friday, August 24, for a total finish time of 97 hours, 5 minutes. I am disppointed that I didn't make my 90 hour goal. There were many challenges, and I feel that I should have been able to succeed in spite of them. But I am glad that I finished the ride.

There were a record number of people who abandoned this year. What particular challenges did riders face? What was your lowest point?

It rained all four days; sometimes the rain was quite heavy, other times it was a drizzle. It was the worst weather for the event in 20 years. Rain dampens both spirits and clothes, and contributes to saddle sores. It probably also slowed people down; I know I stopped for longer than I should have several times because of the rain. Lara got the most sleep of anyone that she or I talked to, about 8 hours for the four days. I didn't think it was particularly cold, but some people may have not had sufficient clothing to deal with the weather. I hit my lowest point on the first day, after I had been riding for about 14 hours. I got so shaky I couldn't ride any more. I could hardly walk, and I couldn't figure out what my problem was. I had been keeping careful track of my caloric intake (250 calories per hour), and finally I wondered if I were low on salt. I had never had this problem on any of the qualifying rides, where I ate a steady diet of breakfast biscuits and hot dogs. So I sat outside a grocery store eating my beef jerky and potato chips. I knew this unplanned stop was eating away at my sleep time. I tentatively got back on the bike and started riding slowly. I only got about a half a mile to a park bench. Unless I could figure out a way to pull myself together, I thought I might have to quit. Then I realized I had drunk a bowl of coffee at the last checkpoint. I think that's why I got so shaky. I didn't drink coffee again the whole rest of the ride, and I made sure I got plenty of salt. Later on, I had swollen ankles and knees, I think from eating too much salt. A lot of riders who regularly drink coffee stop drinking it a few weeks before the ride so it will have more effect during the ride. But I don't usually drink coffee at home, and during this physically stressful ride was apparently not a good time to start. As I watched the riders go by, I recognized a face in the crowd, a Swede with whom I had ridden during the night. He turned around to see if I needed help. I finished my bag of chips and we started riding again slowly. I gradually regained my balance, and I was very glad to have a friend to ride with just then.

Wow. That sounds difficult. Was it ever fun?

"Fun" is hard to define. I did have some golden moments that will go in my book of good memories. Sometimes I would get these odd bursts of energy and I would start passing people, sometimes in the middle of the night. All PBP riders learn not to let their muscles "burn" because the lactic acid would build up in all your muscles and make you less efficient. I had a really good set of lights and they let me go faster than the average joe at night, which was good because I ended up riding at night a lot more than I had originally planned.

One golden moment happened as I was leaving Carhaix (the last checkpoint before the turnaround at Brest). I had just left a friend who abandoned at the Carhaix checkpoint. We had spent some time discussing his decision, and I think he made a wise choice. Just as I was going to leave, a heavy rain shower hit, and I waited for it to pass. When I got back on the road, I felt very alone. No other cyclists were around. I am sure I was one of the last cyclists to leave Carhaix. Well, not the very last one, because about 5 miles out a guy passed me. He wasn't going much faster than me. When he was about 100 yards ahead, he circled back. "Are you going to Brest?" he asked. "I'm trying, if they still let me." I gratefully accepted his offer to ride together. This part of the ride was the most beautiful, in my opinion. We were gradually climbing through a deciduous forest. No cars were on the road. We rode side-by-side having the usual get-to-know you conversation. (This was all in French -- one of many times I was very thankful for having kept up my French language skills since college.) He was helping me keep a fast pace. Soon a cyclist came into view ahead of us. Gradually we started passing cyclists one at a time, then in larger groups. By the time we were halfway to Brest, I felt like I was back in the game. I was very glad that a friend had come along just at one of my lowest moments and that I had the language skills to talk with him.

As we were coming down the hill into Brest, the afternoon sun came out. This was the only part of the ride that approached "hot." As I crossed the bridge into the city, a local woman started riding alongside me and struck up a conversation. She was apparently going home, riding her one-speed coaster brake bike. As we climbed the steep hill on the other side, I could barely keep up with her. "Let me know if I'm too slow, I'll get out of your way," she yelled over her shoulder. "It's only one more kilometer" (to the checkpoint). After 600 kilometers, my legs were so tired I couldn't keep up with a person on a one-speed. That was humbling. But I did enjoy talking with her. I made the checkpoint on time. I ate one of the best meals of the ride at Brest. They had made a porridge-consistency soup that tasted like they had put a whole bunch of vegetables into a blender. They had homemade bread and fruits. That meal kept me going strong well into the night.

The fourth night around 10PM I was riding with Jeff whom I had met at a Rochester brevet (qualifying ride). He got a bit ahead of me, and then I came to an intersection where he was changing the batteries in his lights under a street light. I kept going until about a half mile down the road where a family had set up a table outside their house. They were offering caffeinated beverages and cake to the passing cyclists. I decided to wait for Jeff by drinking some hot chocolate instead of pedaling slowly. The father in the family is a woodworker; he makes replica 18th century furniture, the kind with ornate oak carving. When Jeff got there, he wanted to see the wood shop. So we got the grand tour. Before we left, 10-year old Clara asked us if we could send her a post card from our home. I told her I wouldn't be going home for a year, and she said one from Finland would be great. When we got back on the road, we both agreed that that experience of meeting the family in Normandy would be worth missing the finish. Jeff and I both knew we were close to the time cutoffs, but I don't think either of us actually thought we would miss the finish.

I have lots of great memories -- those are just a few of them.

What you would do differently next time?

If I could figure out a way to sleep more, the ride would be closer to something I would call "fun." I felt well-trained this time, but if I did it again I would put more emphasis on speed training, not just distance. Even though PBP is a "non-competitive" event, I think I would have done better if I had approached it more like a race. I spent too much time off the bike, at checkpoints and in between. I waited for friends, which, in retrospect, was time I couldn't afford. I also stopped for over an hour to help a guy whose bike had a broken derailleur. We reconfigured his chain to make his bike a one-speed. While we were working, probably 50 - 100 cyclists went by. A few asked if we needed help, and three stopped. But none of them had any more know-how or tools than the two of us already working on the bike. I had understood that the officials gave time credit to people who stopped to help with mechanical breakdowns, but the official at the next checkpoint refused to give me any credit. He told me I was slightly late and I had better leave right away. Of course I'm glad I stopped to help, (I know plenty of people helped me) but I was disappointed in the French official. I didn't make any checkpoints on time after that, but I didn't realize I was beyond the time cutoff until three checkpoints later.

The official at Carhaix had told me there was a 2 hour time "credit" for reaching Brest. When I asked why, he said it was because of the bad weather. I assumed this meant everyone would have 92 hours to finish. Other riders on the road thought the same. When I reached the second-to-last checkpoint after they had closed, the official there explained that the time "credit" was actually a loan; riders still had to finish in the 90 hour limit. Up until that time, I was on schedule to finish within 92 hours. If I had clarified the time credit concept with an official earlier, I would have planned my riding differently.

I don't want to give the idea that the officials were mean -- they were, with the one exception, very encouraging. At the checkpoint after my bad experience, I asked the official if I was late. He looked at my card again and checked my start time. (I started in one of the last waves, so my finish time would be adjusted by an hour and 20 minutes.) "Let's just say you can't waste any more time," he said. "As in, no time to stop to eat or sleep?" I asked. "Well, if you meet your husband on the side of the road..." A Frenchman has his priorities!

Anything else you'd like to share with us?

I have plenty of people to thank. A huge thank-you goes to Susan and Lon of PAC Tour for lending me the bike I rode in training and during the event. They also gave me a wonderful head-start on my training season last April in the Arizona desert (very beautiful!). Also thanks to Martin in Rochester for lots of email advice and encouragement. Thanks to Fanchon who met Lara and me in Paris and helped us get around, and to all of our friends and family who sent us off with good luck wishes.

The Paris-Brest-Paris ride has its own pastry! It is like an eclair in the shape of a ring, like a bicycle wheel. Here is a link to one recipe:

http://frenchfood.about.com/library/weekly/aa070402a.htm

Thanks again and look for Finmail #2 which will be about finishing my nyckelharpa which I started building in 2002.

This is the advice I give to all my closest friends:

Take care and have fun!