Finland in November - Welcome to the Dark Side
“Maa martaana makaa”
Burning the kekripukki (Image courtesy of The Foundation for Peasant Culture - talonpoikaiskulttuurisäätiö)
In this week’s edition of Figuring Out Finland, we will look at the onset of winter, the ancient Finnish tradition of Kekri and its influence on Finnish end-of-year celebrations, and how to cope during the darkest time of the year.
November in Finland
Strategies for coping with the darkness
Kekri: Life, death, and the time between
My stupid mistake of the week
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November in Finland
“Nobody in their right mind would come to Helsinki in November. Except you, you badass. Welcome!”
This is perhaps the best line about Finnish November ever.
Although it was widely published in international media at the time as being in Helsinki/Vantaa Airport, it was in fact a banner outside the Helsinki Exhibition Centre (Messukeskus) for SLUSH in 2016.
So why would nobody in their right mind come to Finland in November?
Well, if you have ever spent a November in Finland, particularly Southern Finland, you will know why.
It is dark, cold, and nowadays, wet.
That said, in general autumn throughout Finland is stunningly beautiful.
In a country with so much forest, the mixture of deciduous trees and evergreens often produces colours and scenery that is simply breathtaking.
In Finnish, this palette of autumn colours has its own word ruska.
Ruska normally starts in September and lasts into October.
It is a wonderful time to enjoy the colours of forests, as well as the last of the berries and mushrooms, and even the last few warm days of the year.
It is the final splash of colour and light before summertime officially ends and the dark and cold begin to draw in.
Summertime or “daylight saving” as it is often called nowadays ends at the end of October.
The clocks are turned back and the night arrives one hour earlier.
November is quite literally the beginning of the dark times.
The Finnish word for November is marraskuu, quite literally “the dead month”.
In Finnish, marras has various meanings all relating to death. The subtitle of this edition maa martaana makaa means “the ground lies dead”.
Marras or more precisely an inflected form of the word marta refers to the souls of those who have died or who are dying.
The leaves have fallen, the crops are harvested, everything is preparing to “die” for the winter.
Even the light is dying.
Due to its latitude at 60 degrees north and above, Finland experiences huge fluctuations in the amount of daylight throughout the year.
Helsinki, for example, has over 18 hours of daylight at midsummer, but only about 6 at mid winter.
At the beginning of the ruska period in September, there is still about 14 hours of daylight and beautiful colours everywhere.
Moving the clocks back one hour at the end of October exacerbates the reduction in daylight hours from over 11 hours in October to only 8 hours in November.
By the end of November, the amount is down to just over 6 hours.
This reduction in daylight hours coupled with the generally inclement weather makes the difference between October and November striking.
For many, November is the most miserable month of the year.
Indeed, Hartwall Gin Long Drink, or lonkero as it is known colloquially in Finland, saw a marketing opportunity in this misery.
In collaboration with Foreca, a private Finnish weather forecasting company, they collected data on cloud cover, average rainfall, and average humidity from 1991 to 2020.
Based on an analysis of this data, they found that the greyest day of the year or vuoden harmain päivä in Finnish is usually around the second week of November.
The specific date changes from year to year, but conveniently for a company in the business of selling alcoholic drinks, the Greyest Day of the Year seems to always fall on the second Saturday in November.
This year, the Greyest Day of the Year will be celebrated on Saturday 9th November.
It’s clear that this is more of a marketing ploy than anything else, but the fact that the data points to the greyest day being in November tells you a lot about November in Finland.
Strategies for coping with the darkness
Bright Light Therapy Lamp
Opinion is divided on the efficacy of bright light therapy lamps, and part of the reason might be the name in English.
The word “therapy” promises a little too much in my opinion.
In Finnish they are simply called kirkasvalolamppu, which just means “bright light lamp”.
No promises in Finland - what you see is what you get.
Promises aside, I have used a bright light lamp for several years during the darkest time of the year, and I think it does help a little.
According to the instructions (and some online research) the bright light lamp should be used first thing in the morning in order to get as much bright light into your eyes (read: your brain) as soon as possible.
This early-morning high dose of bright light reacts with the adenosine remaining in your brain after sleeping clearing it out and improving alertness and wakefulness.
Apparently, avoiding caffeine for the first couple of hours is also advisable as caffeine simply blocks the adenosine receptors in the brain fooling you (your brain) into thinking that you are more alert than you actually are.
The adenosine will come back to haunt you later once the caffeine wears off.
I have tried this caffeine-delay technique and I have to say that the benefits were marginal to none.
Prof. Andrew Huberman on his Huberman Lab podcast talks about his own morning routine with sunlight and caffeine (or abstention from it) ad nauseam.
Like him or loathe him, he is Professor of Ophthalmology at Stanford University, so I tend to believe what he is saying.
You can make up your own mind after watching this clip.
My personal advice: it’s November in Finland - just enjoy your morning coffee!
Exercise
I would recommend exercise at any time of the year, but particularly in the darkest months.
I’m not talking about pumping iron in the gym with the taste of blood in your mouth, although if that’s your thing, go for it.
I find that a brisk early morning walk can really energise me for the day, even if it’s still dark or just a crappy grey November day.
If we are lucky enough to get a bright morning or indeed any sunshine in November, I would absolutely prioritise that.
By that I mean, drop everything that you are doing (if possible) and get outside in that sunshine if only for a minute.
The amount of sunlight we get in Finland in November is seriously low.
Unhealthily low.
If for some strange reason the sun does break through the clouds - GET OUT IN IT!
We need the sunlight on our skin, and our muscles, bones and joints need to move.
It’s very easy to spend the whole day at your desk, sit in the car or on the bus/train, and then collapse in front of Netflix.
We all do it.
More than we should perhaps in November.
Move when you can.
Vitamin D
This is what your body needs from the sunlight.
Mehiläinen has this to say about Vitamin D:
“The most important function of vitamin D is to increase the absorption of calcium and phosphorus in the intestinal system, and its key effect is to strengthen the skeletal system of adolescents and adults. Vitamin D also increases the absorption of iron, zinc and magnesium. In addition to these effects, vitamin D is likely to have several other health effects, as it regulates the activity of hundreds of genes in the body.”
In short, we simply don’t get enough Vitamin D in Finland either from the food we eat or sunlight in the winter.
Every healthcare professional in Finland I have ever spoken to about Vitamin D has recommended some sort of supplement.
I am not a healthcare professional, and I am not going to recommend any supplement.
However, I do recommend that you take a look at Mehiläinen’s pages on Vitamin D and make your own decisions concerning supplements and your own health.
Hobbies
Unless you like walking or running at night in the rain, it’s a good idea to find yourself a hobby that takes place indoors.
If you lean towards extrovert and enjoy social interaction, maybe a team sport, or some sort of art/craft group might be an option.
If you lean towards introvert, start reading those books that you promised yourself you would read over the summer, catch up on your gaming, or whatever makes you happy.
Long November nights are a great time to catch up on all the stuff you put to one side while you were enjoying the endless light of summer.
Personally, I like to find new topics to dive into.
I don’t go too deep into anything, I just browse lots of topics that interest me until one or two of them jump out at me.
Then it’s down the rabbit hole.
They often become the topic of interest for the rest of the winter.
Candles
A lot cheaper than bright light (therapy) lamps and Vit. D supplements, candles are great for those looooong November nights.
They can make any room cosy and inviting, and if you live in an old house like we do, they add to the ambient temperature of the room.
Close the blinds or curtains, forget about the crappy weather, and enjoy your evening by candlelight.
Kekri: Life, death, and the liminal space between
The ancient Finnish tradition of Kekri is a fascinating and complex topic.
It deserves far more attention than I can reasonably give it in this newsletter, but it is such an important part of the end-of-the-year in Finland and surprisingly few people know much about it.
Even native Finns.
So, what follows is an attempt at an overview of the Kekri tradition in Finland and its meaning and importance to the agrarian society that celebrated it.
I will attempt to explain how Kekri has slowly morphed from a pagan harvest festival that celebrated the year’s harvest, abundance, and connection to the spirits of dead ancestors, into Halloween, the Day of the Dead, and ultimately, Christmas in modern Finland.
That’s a lot to pack into a newsletter about coping with winter, but please take the time to read the overview and have a look at the links provided.
You will have a much better understanding of the last two months of the year, the darkest time of the year, in Finland for sure.
An ancient tradition
Kekritär (Image courtesy of The Foundation for Peasant Culture - talonpoikaiskulttuurisäätio)
Celebrations of the autumn harvest have existed since prehistory.
Autumn harvest festivals were a celebration of the end of the growing season, the outdoor grazing of livestock and the slaughtering of animals for their meat.
In Finland in particular, this all had to be successfully completed before the long winter set in. This far north, there were no second chances if the food ran out.
