(Åland Islands, Finland)...One of the most curious, fascinating and wonderful places I have been to is the Åland Islands, off the coast of Sweden. It actually is a part of Finland, although the culture is Swedish. No doubt, the people there consider themselves apart from that country, too; it has the distinction of its autonomy being settled in June, 1921, by the ill-fated League of Nations, the forerunner of the United Nations.
The islands – and there are up to 400 of them, with perhaps even 6,000 more isolated rocks and islets jutting upwards, scattered over a land bridge extending across a parcel of water that effectively is the barrier between the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia – even publish their own postage stamps. I came here after running a marathon in Stockholm, and it is a fantastic place to recuperate. The ferry leaves the Swedish port of Grisslehamn en route to Eckerö on the Eckerö Linjen (www.eckerolinjen.fi) ferry line, on which people can witness the Swedish fascination with slot machines. At the time of my crossing, these machines were illegal in Sweden, and the ferry-crossers seemed more than willing to catch up with lost time.
The island of Eckerö (www.eckero.aland.fi) is the closest Åland Islands island to Sweden and also one of its largest. Immediately, all the cars embarked off the ferry and disappeared in the direction of the islands’ capital, Mariehamn, which is on neighbouring island, one that seems apparently nameless, although I did see the word Jomala written here and there. I walked. There was a small office that booked accommodation for travellers, then a narrow path that wound threw a wood and past a nature park that contained deer and ended up at a museum chronicling Åland life, hunting and fishing, in a tiny village called Vallberget. Minute cottages – stugas – dotted a park, and I stayed in one, right on a stretch of water at Käringsund. It was June, high summer, and things were idyllic. During the long, long evenings, as I walked along the traffic-less road to a dot of an isle called Främstö, I saw otters playing in the calm water and families singing songs accompanied by guitars.
Children seemingly are encouraged to stay up most of the night, perhaps making up for time that will be lost during the long, less-fulfilling winters. Just before dusk, a hare would appear at the edge of a field by my stuga, settle down for the night and remain there until the morning. There was a short walk back to the ferry terminal, then a lesser one to an old building that doubled as a museum and a post office, from where left the bus to Mariehamn. Approximately 30 kilometres away, it has a population of 25,000, and also some introduced peacocks on a small islet called Lilla Holmen. In its museum are displays pointing to its importance to the Vikings, and its status as a trading route can be seen in artifacts hailing from such Middle Eastern sites as Baghdad and Samarkand.
On the way home, I stopped off to see the church at Kyrkoby, which means Village of the Church in Swedish. It has a fine steeple, not particularly high, but wide and brown, and the lane beside it continues to end at a point that is nowhere in particular but none the less worthy for it—a lane; fields; hedges, and a small bay with one boat. The islands still enjoy a good degree of autonomy. No army bases are allowed on the island, and its parliament, the Lagting, elects two members to the Nordic Council and the European Union.
The walk back from the church was sunny, uneventful and perfect. The photograph above shows the top, spinning section of a maypole, with four sailing boats nodding towards the importance of the islands’ maritime history. Also extremely prevalent on the islands were 1950’s-era cars from the United States. I saw at least 10 classic automobiles. The ownership of these is very popular in Sweden, and it seems that to bring them to the Åland Islands is the quite the thing to do in the summer. I did not hear Rockabilly music, however. The politics of the island seem likewise placid, with a “revolutionary” mix of liberals, moderates, Social Democrats and independents, although what they feel they have to be independent of is beyond me.
Perhaps the moderates are not moderate enough? They all sit in an elected chamber called the Landskapsstyrelse, which like all Scandinavian words admirably dispenses with the need for apostrophes. One current law requires property owners to be citizens of the islands, not merely members of the European Union. From a shop selling only nautical tools and equipment I bought a high-quality Åland Islands flag, which has the classic Scandinavian design of a cross, with the vertical lines off center to the left. Whereas the Swedish flag is a yellow cross on a blue background, the Åland Islands’ flag has a red cross within a yellow cross on a background of the same colour. It hangs in my office.