ARCTIC PORT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 6 January 1940, Page 6

ARCTIC PORT

IMPORTANCE OP PETSAMO

CHERISHED BY THE FINNS. ROCKY PENINSULA WITH GREAT POSSIBILITIES. It may appear strange that the possession of a narrow strip of nearly uninhabited country, consisting of naked tundra and rocky coast, thin forest, and desolate swamp, should be hotly contested, states “The Times.” But Petsamo is by no means one of those regions whose possession confers upon its owner prestige but nothing else. Apart from mineral resources—nickel, for example, is found in considerable quantities—and inexhaustible water power, which the Finns had already begun to harness, Petsamo contains something which is vital to the future progress of the Finnish Republic—an ice-free, deep-water harbour on the Arctic, with free access to the Atlantic. When it is remembered that most of the Baltic ports are liable to be closed by ice in winter and that the Baltic itself can be turned into a lake under the control of the most powerful State on its shores, the true value of this port will be appreciated. IMPORTANT TRADE CENTRE. The little settlement of Liinaharmari, lying on a fjord of the Arctic at the mouth of the Petsamo river, does not look like an important seaport, but one may meet sailors of all nations on its windswept quays, above which circle terns and guillemots and other Arctic seabirds. There is the growing timber trade, and Italian ships load up with salt fish all the year round. The fisheries, indeed, in contrast to those in the Baltic, are of immense value. Rybachi means "fisherman." and you may see—and smell—great racks of drying cod as in Iceland. Although the little harbour, like the whole district, has a nine weeks’ night, in which the sun never shows above the horizon, the Arctic here never freezes, and Liinahamari is actually warmer in winter than inland districts farther south. The reason is the ever-beneficient Gulf Stream. When Russia handed over this coveted district to Finland in 1920 the new frontier was drawn artificially in a straight line from just above the sixtyeighth parallel to Vaitolahti, on the extreme tip of the peninsula. A few Russians remained on the Finnish side of the frontier, but many Finns, mainly Karelian; renamed on the Russian side. The frontier actually passes through the remote fishing village of Vaitolahti, and anyone interested in contrasts who stays in both parts of the village will soon discover that the advantages are all on the Finnish side. INNUMERABLE SEABIRDS. This precious Arctic coast of Finland is very short. Between Vaitolahti and Liinahamari, which are connected only by a little motor-vessel which runs twice a week and puts into Vaitolahti harbour when storms permit, there are the Pummangi and Maativuono fjords, but there are only a few small villages on this savage coast, where great sandstone cliffs, sometimes rising to nearly 400 feet, assume fantastic shapes and are the haunt of innumerable seabirds. From Liinahamari to Vuoremi, the Norwegian frontier, is only some 15 miles as the crows lies, though a bird, indeed, is the only creature that could take a straight course over the high, treeless fells or above the indented coast. But if one journeys from Kirkenes on the Varanger fjord, in Norway, up the rapids of the Pasvik river, one comes to a little wedge of Finland which sticks out into Norway. This is Boris Gleb, named after two saintly Russian princes, called by the Finns Kolttakongas. When the Norwegian frontier was fixed in 1826 this little wedge of land was specially retained by Russia because it was holy-soil. It was here that in the fifteenth century the apostle of Petsamo. the Orthodox St Trifon, once a bandit, founded a church so small, being built for Lapps, that to enter you have to bend almost double. This saint, who founded the most northerly monastery in the world. at Ylaluostari, near Liinahamari, lived in an uncomfortable cave on the edge of the fjord, which the boatman who steers one up the rapids always points out. INTO NORWAY. One ascends the mountain path behind the village into Norway. All that marks the frontier is a small cairn on one of whose stones is carved "Suomi, 1890.” From the heights here one has a wonderful view northward up the fjord to the Arctic coast of Norway and southward over the falls of the Pasvik river and the hills, forested on thejr lower slopes, of Finnish Lapland. Inland the forest begins on the lower levels —first stunted birch, then, as one goes southward, pine and fir. In these forests grows the lichen on which feed the wandering herds of reindeer, which often stray across the road and stop to stare at travellers. They are not very nervous even of the post buses. The rapid rivers are full of salmon and other fish. Great stretches of bogland separate one lonely settlement from another. 1

This is no Finnish Sudetenland. The only native inhabitants are a few hundred Lapps, some of whom live by reindeer-keeping, some by fishing. The rest of the population of Petsamo consists of a few Russians and Fjarr Karelians, and some 2000 Finnish settlers. The Lapps, a cheerful and peaceful people, have adapted themselves perfectly to life in the wilderness, but the hardy Finnish settlers have a fierce fight for existence, which the Government tried to lighten by making Petsamo a duty-free area. Even in the' southern part of the region little can be grown, and in the north nothing can be cultivated but potatoes and a few quick-growing vegetables. The few villages on the Fisher Peninsula, of course, live entirely by fishing. ELECTRIC POWER. At Janiskoski the Finns are harnessing the mighty rapids for electric power, and 11.000 men live and work, summer and winter, in the wilderness.

Besides this there are the mines; there is even a little gold to be washed from the rivers, and fur-trading is considerable. Road-building has already enabled I buses to run all the year round to the I shores of the Arctic at Liinahamari. | When the almost completed bridge I over the rapids in Kolttakongas is open : to traffic and the Norwegians have ■ built a short section more of road it j will be possible to drive rgiht through ; to Kirkenes to join the whole Norweg- ' iati road system. Already Finland has done more to j develop this region in the 19 years she | have possessed it lb;m was done in all 1

the centuries before. Now. when Russia is once again showing imperialist ambitions, Norway and Sweden must be anxious about their Lapland frontiers. All these frontiers between free democratic countries have been open and unguarded, and one passed to and fro over them without question: but now an old bogy, feared and hated through the centuries by all. has once again reared its head.