Thursday - National Equal Rights Day
On arrival at school in the morning we were greeted by the blue and white flag of Finland flying from every tall flagpole in and around the school grounds. It was now obvious why those are the colours of Finland's flag - blue for the sky above and white for the bright snow beneath. On enquiry we discovered that it was to celebrate Finland's national "equal rights for women" day.
Today was going to be our first day out of school for all and, after boarding the coach, we were soon on our way to the nearby, Japanese-owned, Shinshowa sawmill in Kello. Mr Jarmo Noponen kindly showed us the 'cutting-edge' of the business. We saw hundreds of pine and spruce logs of about 4m in length and various girths. We witnessed the process of stripping bark, square cutting the logs and then moulding into construction timber such as tongue-and-groove cladding for houses. There was quite a lot of noise, sawdust and a strong smell of sawn pine.
Moving on, we stopped at Virpiniemi outdoor centre where local people could do some skiing or toboganning or use an outdoor barbecue. Off the tracks the snow was knee-deep. A fine lunch was enjoyed by all at the University of Oulu before visiting the next wood-related industry, Honkamajat Log Houses
(
http://www.honkamajat.fi/).
Mr Kristian Aalto (Managing Director) showed us more logs, this time being cut into various forms for making a variety of types of log buildings. We saw the rough logs being processed into perfectly smooth, round logs with a lower concave surface, grooved to match the lower log in an outside wall. This effectively created a wide joining surface which was good for insulation and for strength. We saw machines making joints in rectangular-sectioned timber for another type of construction and we were also shown new ways of jointing which allowed for neater external corners and the possibility of 45 degree angles for such shapes as bow windows.
The company has recently installed new equipment and technology to enable it to manufacture the new joints. The outside of the machine looks like part of a tube train. Two people, working for ten hours, could manufacture all of the parts for one house! Mr Aalto explained to us that, whilst other companies were finding it difficult in the current economic conditions, his company was continuing to expand and orders were very healthy. Wooden houses from here are exported all over the world, especially to France and Japan. Increasingly the Far-Eastern market is taking off and Mr Aalto was, in fact, just about to leave for China within an hour or two.
We were all very impressed and all took brochures and dreamt of owning their own wooden house one day. After this visit we stopped at Hietasaari Winter Wonderland on the beach near Oulu. The ice-fort was interesting enough but something bigger was attracting us away. The sea was completely frozen over and covered in snow; a huge, flat wasteland of snow glistening in the bright sunshine. We could not help ourselves but to run out to sea as far as we could in the time available. We felt like superhuman beings with the power to walk on water. However, people had beaten us to it and everywhere there were ski tracks and even car tracks going out to the opposite shore, almost on the horizon. Some men were fishing through holes in the ice. Rating, 10/10!
Before returning to school we stopped for an hour in Oulu where we could walk into town to look at shops and buildings and also we could visit the Market Hall (
www.oululiikekeskus.fi/index.php?285). This was reminiscent of Oxford's indoor market. Some people were able to buy souvenirs and/or reindeer meat (poro).
In the late afternoon, back at school, the children worked in the technology department making wooden key fobs and keeping up with communications with home. Dinner in the canteen included a special cake for dessert; 10/10 again!
