(gentle music) - Recognized as the happiest place on earth for the past six years.

Finland is a Nordic nation well known for many things, including having 3 million saunas for a population of 5 million people.

It's an outdoor lover's paradise with around 80% of the country covered by forests or water, and both locals and visitors have remarkable access to it.

Thanks to their every man's right philosophy.

One can roam, forage, fish and camp almost anywhere in the Finnish countryside, regardless of land ownership.

As long as the nature, people and property is respected.

On the northern end of Finland, you'll find a particularly special place called Lapland, which lies within the Arctic Circle and is the homeland to the indigenous Sami people along with 200,000 reindeer.

While beautiful small villages can be found, scattered throughout the region, Lapland is largely covered by wilderness.

It's a popular destination at all times of the year.

But I came to explore its rugged beauty during the summer months while the region bays under a golden midnight sun and a blanket of berries covers the ground.

What I discovered was one of the most inspiring, welcoming, and relaxing places that I've ever experienced.

(gentle music) My name's Ken Whiting, and for over 30 years, my life has been guided by the paddle in my hand.

This is my search for the world's most spectacular paddling destinations.

This is Facing Waves.

(gentle music) Facing Waves is made possible by the following Vivid-Pix memory station and software allows users to scan personal history items like photos and documents, record voice narrative, and share what has been conserved.

More online at Vivid-pix.com.

Collette offers small group exploration tours, destinations and local experiences.

Explorations by Collette.

Guided travel since 1918.

♪ upbeat music In4adventure.com Inspiring, educating and encouraging outdoor adventure Host- additional support by these sponsors ♪ upbeat music (gentle music) Well, I made it.

I'm in Lapland.

It's a little bit rainy today, but that's okay.

Just means it's a perfect day to get my feet wet, which I am doing with Peeter from Luontoloma.

We're going for a hike exploring the wilderness.

(gentle music) - Now, a lot of blueberries here.

- Oh, they're everywhere.

Oh, this is like heaven the way to my heart.

It's through berries.

- Yeah.

It's super food, you know.

- So we got blueberries this time of season.

- Blueberries, cloud berries start going ready.

- Okay.

- They are more in the wet place.

Maybe that direction.

If you go, we'll find someone.

- Let's go find some cloud berries.

- Yes, let's go.

(gentle music) Let's go that way.

They have leaves here.

You see the wet place?

Oh, here are cloud berries.

This is an orange taste.

It's very tasty.

It's very healthy.

- They have second bun also.

(gentle music) - Ah, I tell you.

- Wow.

Look at that.

This place already.

Amazing.

There's almost no like undergrowth, so you can walk wherever you want.

And it's like a carpet of berries.

Oh.

So can you explain the whole idea of every man's rights to me?

- Yeah.

I think it's very simple.

Everybody can walk everywhere and pick up the berries or mushrooms on whatever you want.

It's no matter it's private land or not.

Of course it's not good go to the very close to the houses where the people live, or the yard or somewhere.

But on the forest, because this is also like a private property.

But everybody can come and pick up the berries.

It's no problem.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- You can go hiking.

- Yeah.

- The whole idea is just respect the land.

- Yeah.

- And it's open to everyone to use.

- Yes.

Yeah.

- That is really cool.

I love that whole, that whole idea.

- It's good system.

And it's actually work very good in Finland.

- And so that's throughout Finland too.

- Yeah, it's everywhere in Finland.

It's same, same rules for everybody.

No matter you come from Canada or you come from Sweden, it's same for every everyone.

- Yeah.

And not just locals.

- Yeah.

Yeah.

No.

Yeah.

- I tell you what, if you have a lot of people like me that learn about every man's rights.

- Yeah.

- The berry population in Finland is gonna drop dramatically.

- You stay here.

I come back after the week.

Yes.

- Yes.

- You survive.

No problem.

- Good for a couple of days here.

For sure.

I'm sure a sauna isn't too far away for me to warm up once I get a little cold.

- [Peeter] You have drinking water and everything.

(gentle music) - Well, the rain seems to have finally disappeared, which means it's time to paddle.

It is six o'clock in the evening, which is not a normal time to head out on an adventure.

But the sun is gonna barely go below the horizon here in Lapland by midnight.

And so we got plenty of time to paddle.

The mission today is to go out explore some of the beautiful islands around Lake Inarijärvi.

I'm joined by Peeter from Luotoloma and Emil so lets hit it (gentle music) Lake Inarijärvi is one of, if not the biggest lake in Lapland.

It's a massive lake.

This is a kind of lake where you do need to know where you're going, know what you're doing, because if the weather turns on you, you can quickly find yourself in a situation where you can't just easily paddle home.

It's one of those places where you just, you need to be aware of your surroundings, check the weather and not get into deep.

- This is a third biggest lake in Finland and the second deepest lake in Finland.

We call the Lapland also Sami Land.

There are Sami people live originally here.

They are like native here.

And this is we call Sami Sea or Sami Ocean.

Yes.

Because if you go that way, then the lake, it's open.

You don't see islands and you don't see the next land.

It's that big.

- I have this love hate relationship paddling on lakes with lots of islands like this.

Absolutely love it.

'cause it's just so cool and there's so many different places to go.

You choose your own adventure.

I hate it because no matter which way you choose, you always feel like you're missing out on the other way.

How many islands are there?

- Over the 3,000.

- We're gonna go around every one of the 3,000 islands this season.

- I go home.

(both laugh) - I can go with a motorboat.

(gentle music) - So the mission today, it's a good one.

We've got a paddle, not that far really, but five miles.

And then there's this place with a camp site, we can start a fire and cook up a meal.

It's a good mission.

And it doesn't hurt that Peeter was a chef in his past life.

- Good food.

It's important because then you are, then you are feel more happy.

All the trip it's like a good adventure.

But the good food is like a blue, something more, something special.

Yeah.

And of course it's important use the local produce, local ingredients.

Fish from Inarijärvi lake.

Why not?

And the reindeer and the, if you say, and the berries your favorite.

(chuckles) - Peteer is one of the owners of Luontoloma.

They provide outdoor adventure experiences for people who visit the area.

What I love about Peeter's story is that, you know, he was a chef for many years and he hit a point about almost 10 years ago where he was like, he needed a change.

He was passionate about the outdoors.

He spent so much time in the outdoors throughout his whole life.

And he is like, you know what?

We are going to have an adventure travel company that provides outdoor experiences.

We're gonna share what we have in our backyard with other people.

(gentle music) Well, it's not every day you get to the halfway point of a paddling trip at 9:00 PM and you have time to have a cookout.

We're gonna have a barbecue reenergize.

Before making the long trip home.

(gentle music) - I have with me some reindeer sausages bred with some cold smoked fish, and of course blueberry pie.

Maybe we make coffee or tea on the fire.

Ready to grill.

- Thank you, sir.

Go to the fire.

(gentle music) (gentle music) Lapland is unique place because it's untouchable nature.

Silence.

If you don't talk now, you heard nothing more.

No planes.

No cars, no people.

It's a peaceful, it's a very nice place.

It's mind blowing being looking at the midnight sun.

kayaking, under it on a glassy lake.

we can access this.

It's not even hard to get here.

That's the beauty of it.

Being out here in the wilderness just makes me wanna do that even more.

- Well, I can't think of a better way to end the day because we literally are about to end the day.

It's almost tomorrow, even though the sun's still out.

A little reindeer sausage before we make the five mile paddle home.

(gentle music) Hmm.

(gentle music) (bright gentle music) - Well, here we are again, Lapland Finland, on our first river adventure.

Just down the hill we've got the Lutto river, and we're gonna do some exploring winding through a beautiful Finnish river.

(gentle music) Ken - Ahh yes (laughing) - Today we are on the Lutto River.

It's very nice, very beautiful river.

Very clear water.

They have some small rapids, but not, not very big.

It's actually very nice family destination.

Long time it's been very important river in this area because in this river being Solomon and the people find cold from this river and in this river still have shells and have bird inside.

But of course it's protected now.

It's not allowed pick up.

But long time ago, people pick up this sand.

It's been very, very important.

- You can have such different days on the river, depending on the weather.

And today is one of those days where it's just calm, calm, calm.

The air just feels so crisp and fresh.

It's the ultimate peaceful river experience.

It's so quiet.

It's so chill.

I should have brought a hammock.

That would've been a good idea.

A little riverside nap.

(gentle music) You know, if lake paddling had current like this, I had like lake paddling a lot more.

- Yeah, we'd be like paddling in tailwind all the time.

Looking nice.

- So here's a little tip.

When you see water bubbling up.

- Yeah.

- And it looks like there's a rock underneath it.

There's probably a rock underneath it.

- Oh, paddling a river in the Lapland wilderness is, it's a pretty cool experience.

Me as a sea kayaker haven't gotten really gotten to experience a lot of moving water and paddling rivers.

The fun thing about being in moving water is that not all my strokes that I'm used to is always working as I want them to.

So while being a little bit more swift water as we are, sometimes it happens that I might hit a rock because I wanna try and I love like playing around with a boat.

- It's been cool paddling with Emil because he is a very experienced sea kayaker.

I mean, he's done some epic sea kayaking trips, but he doesn't have the same experience on rivers and he's not used to reading flowing water.

And I learned that very quickly when he chose a line that kind of just drove his nice, beautiful, smooth kayak right onto the rocks.

- [Ken] Oh, ooh, that's a stuck.

Ooh, there you go.

Way to put scratches on that boat.

- Sometimes thinks, doesn't really go as planned when I'm in new scenarios.

And that's perfect because that's how you learn and you need to trust yourself and put yourself out in those conditions where you can learn a little bit more.

It's still super safe here.

Or treat people out on a very calm river.

But you can still, like, for me, this is a new experience.

And by having that I can learn some more about paddling in general.

Because building out your toolbox in different scenarios, that's how you grow as a paddler and as a person.

(gentle music) Oh yeah.

Tell you what, with this nonstop daylight, it's really hard to keep track of what time it is.

And so I'm really just listening to my belly.

And my belly is telling me it's a lunchtime.

And so we're gonna take a little lunch break here.

Looks like a pretty good beach for a lunch spot.

(gentle music) - So what do we got here?

- It's coming fish soup.

I prepare the soup based on the fish.

They have potato and the onion and the good fish stock.

And there I have fish with me.

- Ooh, what do we got there?

- Salmon and the white fish.

And a cream.

Of course.

Not healthy food, but it's very healthy.

- Oh yeah.

Healthy for the mind, right?

- Yeah.

For me, the food is important of course.

If it's kind of tools, I always try take food with me.

What it's close with this landscape and everything.

Example, today we eat fish soup because we are on the river.

Yeah.

It's part of that experience.

You are surrounded by nice nature and then you can taste this nature also.

- Mmmm.

Mmmm.

Mmmm.

(giggles) Feel good.

(gentle music) - [Peeter] Be careful because female rangers soon coming.

- Full happy.

(gentle music) These past two days have really been such a great example of what I love about this world.

you know, Im paddling with two guys Emyl for Sweden Peeter from Northern Finland And you know we have very Different experiences in our lives, but at the same time, there's so many similarities.

It's the outdoors.

The outdoors creates this common language for people who live on literally on the other side of the world from each other.

I think that's one of the most enjoyable things that I get out of traveling and paddling, is meeting cool people who, you know, have a very similar mindset, who appreciate the things that I appreciate and who find the same things important in life.

(gentle music) - Paddling in Lapland, it's a nature experience.

On your trip, you don't see the people, you just stay alone with the nature and still it's safe, clear water, clear air, no noise pollution or something this.

- The Lutto River is such a great river.

I can see why this is one of the most popular rivers that they run trips on because it's so peaceful.

It's just so relaxing.

It's, you've got a nice steady current that just winds its way through pristine, wilderness, beautiful sand beaches and forested sides.

You can stop almost anywhere to take a break.

It's just such a chill experience.

And then you throw a little bit of current in there, flowing smoothly, flowing current to help you along your way.

With the odd little swift.

- The calmness of Lapland I would say, or like Northern Finland is really speaking through this river as well.

Everything seems to go a little bit slower.

It's calmer, and as soon as you set your paddle in the water on this river, it just as Kansas, the shoulders just fall down.

You feel the calmness.

And you can almost hear your heartbeat here as well.

It's so quiet.

Just a few birds.

So yeah, it's a beauty.

(gentle music) - Well, that was a heck of a way to finish my time in Lapland North, but we're staying in Lapland.

We're just heading a bit further south and we got lots more paddling adventures up ahead.

Woo.

Facing Waves is made possible by the following Vivid-Pix memory station and software allows users to scan personal history items like photos and documents, record voice narrative, and share what has been conserved.

More online at Vivid-pix.com.

Collette offers small group exploration tours, destinations and local experiences.

Explorations by Collette.

Guided travel since 1918.

♪ upbeat music In4adventure.com Inspiring, educating and encouraging outdoor adventure Host- additional support by these sponsors ♪ upbeat music (gentle music)