Ruka is a small town located in the north-east
part of Finland and the are is famous of it's large wild forest
areas. There is a large national park (Oulanka) with several
possibilities to enjoy northern wilderness. Also several famous
finnish photographers has been there making absolutely beautiful
work with all that rich wildlife.
Personally I have been there only couple of
time and not for short trips, so my photographic work is so far
quite simple. But no doubt that I'll seek myself many, many times
to that fantastic place again.
In this page:
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Here are my companions wondering the growth of the ground.
The nature is whole different compared to
our normal living environment, although Ruka is only ca. three hundred
kilometer away from Oulu. There are much more wild animals around
(although the animal in the picture is not so wild :-)
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There are lots of swamps out there, so it's great that there are
also footbridges [pitkospuut]
going around.
Because hiking is very popular thing do
at Oulanka national park, there are several hundreds of kilometers
guided hiking routes, one of the longest and most popular is the
Karhunkierros.
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|  One
thing I like at wilderness is that you can almost feel the wildlife
around you. When you walk quietly and keep your eyes open, it's
easy to spot animals behind rocks and threes. They are watching
your steps through their kingdom, remaindering that you are just
a visitor out there.
There are also lot's of other things to
you in addition to hiking, some of the visitors like to go to fish
or go along Oulankajoki river by canoe. And of course, winter
gives you several, different outdooring possibilities also.
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| Nature in Oulanka and
Ruka |
|  This
photograph has been taken from the top of Ruka mountain.
There is actually a ski lope going next
to the this three, so it is not so wild around that mountain.
It took about half an hour me to climb up,
and I was gasping quite a lot!
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I was watching these two whooper swans [laulujoutsen] for couple
of days in August 2000.
They had two young with them, so they were
little bit timid [arka],
I think, and therefore hard to photograph at.
And I wasn't so keen on disrupting their
doings, so I stayed behind bushes just learning their habits. Maybe
next time I know more about their way of living and get a better
photographs also..
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|    Here
are couple of close-ups of blueberry and marsh tea [suopursu]
plants.
Because I don't own any macro lenses, these
kind of pictures are more like testing macro work when somebody's
lenses are available for a try.
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|  The
bird is Siberian jay [kuukkeli],
mascot bird of Kainuu Provence.
Can't blame that this bird would be too
shy, because I was actually photographing a mushroom while it landed
quite next to me. There were actually couple of them, and soon they
continued silent low flight bypassing me.
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Well, the subject of this photograph is more like dull, but somehow
I like the mood of last sun rays before sunset.
It was rainy weekend, but there were few
hours when sun shined from a clear sky. It crowned that autumn day.
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