I had my first real step into non-...shall we say marinated Finnish culture a couple weekends ago, when a Finnish friend took myself and another Canadian hunting with him at his home near Kuopio. My Canadian friend had been hunting before and shot a gun multiple times in her life as she competed in biathlon, so I was the only one new to both the hunting and firearms "scene". The Finn was concerned (and I must admit that I was, too) that I would "lose it" when they killed a rabbit and he would have to deal with female emotions; an unpleasant scenario even when you don't have a dead animal lying at your feet waiting to be gutted.
After a nice breakfast of leftover's from our hostess' restaurant, we started off the morning with firing practice. As I had never held a gun before, let alone fired one...this seemed like a good idea. Our Finnish friend had two guns that he took out hunting. One was a double barreled shotgun and the other was a pumping shot gun. Please note that I have no idea what the technical terms for these guns are, so excuse my juvenile nomenclature. The double barreled gun had the barrels stacked on top of each other and two triggers, one for each. You used the same sight for both barrels and picked which one you used based on how far away your target was. The lower barrel was for when the target was close to you and you use the trigger that is further way from your hand to fire it. They put one bullet in and let me try this gun first. My target was a pop bottle stuck onto a tree branch and we fired from the side of the road. Thus fulfilling all hicks with shotgun stereotypes in one go. To make it even more Rambo-esque I got to try out the pumping one as well, ejecting the cartridge like the veteran himself...well, kinda.
After target practice we went to a woodlot and met up with my friend's dad for the actual hunting. As much of the land is privately owned in Finland, if you are interested in hunting, you belong to (and pay dues to) a hunting club in your area. These hunting clubs talk to local woodlot owners in the area and organize permission to hunt on their land or really to have access to the land for hunting. Besides that, there are a certain number of licenses allocated to each species for each hunting club. So, if you were hunting something big, like a moose, everyone would go out together and you would share what you killed. We were just hunting bunnies (technically hares) though, so it was just a small group of us.
To start off with my friend's dad was going to be the "dog", meaning that he would go on the other side of the bushes and try to scare the rabbits out. Our mission was simple....shoot the bunnies, not him. As resident photographer and person not allowed to shoot a gun at living things (rightly so I might add), I took my place firmly behind both hunters and "dog" while we waited for the rabbits to be scared out of their homes. Despite the best efforts of our pseudo-canine friend, there were no rabbits to be seen. Our next attempt was to move into the more forested area and look for rabbits hiding in their. Again the dog walked along the outskirts of the woodlot trying to scare the rabbits in our direction. We had been walking around for only about 5 minutes before a white flash passed by just in front of us. My Canadian friend had enough time to say "Th..." before our Finnish friend had shot it. There's that mandatory military training paying off!
The waiting and being a photographer was fun, but this was the part I found the most interesting. Keeping an eye on me to see if I was going to "lose it" the Finn brought the bunny over to us. I was surprised at how big it was and the lack of blood. He explained that because the shot gun releases tons of little pellets, the animal gets shocked into dying by the physical impact rather than from the bullet piercing their skin. The next step was to gut the rabbit (a girl that I named Jana after the Finnish work for hare: janis). To do this you make a small cut just below the belly button and rip the hole big enough to fit your hand in and then some. Then you stick your hand in a just pull out all of the intestines and organs. The scientist in me came out as I looked through all the different organs and partially digested food, but I think the part that really struck me was how simple it was to do. Just a small cut and you can take out all of an animal's (or a person's) organs, it makes it seem like a natural process. After the rabbit had been gutted, they put branches into its body cavity to keep it from collapsing and put the rabbit on its stomach to drain the blood.
While waiting for the blood to drain, toasted (without my prompting I swear!) the life of the rabbit with yrttisnapsi (herb schnapps, which tastes kinda of like Jägermeister). Something that I have always found really interesting is how there is so much negative publicity about hunters when generally they're quite an environmental bunch. They are usually very considerate of the impact they have on the environment and are often the first ones to notice changes in wildlife populations. It's such a shame that their intimate relationship with wildlife is not better exploited in conservation policies, but back to the hunting trip!
We said goodbye to my friend's father and safely tucked Jana in the trunk on a newspaper bed before heading to our next hunting spot. I was always under the impression that hunting was a lot of standing around waiting for animals to show up (which I still think that it is), but we were lucky enough to catch our rabbit within the first 30 minutes of hunting. As we were already successful in our mission, the rest of the day involved less effort on our part in terms of the hunting and was more about wandering around in the woods. We looked for animal tracks in the mud and tried to attract birds with a call whistle. For lunch we made a small campfire and roasted sausages over it on sticks. It was so peaceful to sit out in the woods, eating sausages and warming ourselves by the fire.
We ended up cutting our day a little short because we still had to look for a couple Christmas trees for my friend's house and his neighbour's. In Finnish Christmas tree is joulukuusi or Christmas spruce because they only every use Norway spruce (the original Christmas tree I am told). We had a lot of fun wandering around the forest looking for the perfect Christmas tree. I am a huge fan of weirdly shaped Christmas trees, so I kept getting out voted in favour of a more traditional style. The benefit of spruce is that they are usually very beautifully shaped for Christmas trees, but in terms of ornament possibilities, the lack of branches is very limiting. It all depends on what you like though and we had a lot of fun wandering around in the woods some more anyway.
After our Christmas tree hunt we went back to the house to skin and butcher the rabbit. To do this we went to the wood shed and hung the rabbit up by its neck. To start you make a cut in the skin around the neck and then you just pull downwards. It does not come off quite as easily as pulling down clothing would be, but it looks very similar. It is quite a surreal thing to watch an animal being skinned. It starts to look a bit more human when it loses its fur, but not in a way that creeped me out, more just the realization that all mammals are really very closely related in the grande scheme of things. The only part of the skinning and butchering that irked me was when my friend got to the wrists and ankles, he broke them off rather than attempt to skin their hands. I mean it makes sense because there would be little meat on them and it would be very hard to skin, but that act of breaking bones, or maybe the sound of bones breaking, was the only part that made me twinge a little.
I cannot claim that the experience made me not want to eat meat. On the contrary, the whole process seemed a lot more natural, even more respectful, to me than buying pre-marinated meat wrapped in plastic from a grocery store. I am not 100% sure that the experience changed me at all, but I am glad that I had the opportunity to experience it. I like the idea of hunting and eating hunted meat, but, to be perfectly honest, wandering around in the woods waiting to kill something is a little boring. I would much rather go for a hike and see animals that way...though to be honest, there's not much difference in the two activities. And maybe that says a lot. That the intention behind the activity can change the way the actions feel, but I don't know that it even really does. Maybe it's all in our heads...isn't it usually.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Friday, December 2, 2011
Snow, Slush and Ice
It was brought to my attention that I never mentioned that I got a bike. It was about two months ago that Skeletor and I were brought together and it has been a wonderful relationship ever since. But like every good relationship it has its ups and its downs. The latest down has been due to the lovely autumn weather we have been having recently. Like autumn back home, the weather has a really hard time making up its mind. Here it alternates between overcast and rainy, and snowy and cold with nice icy bits in between.
It's hard to decide which is the most difficult. The overcast rainy days where you don't see the sun are the ones where you definitely want to take your Vitamin D. I would never have guess what a difference it makes! On the days where I forget to take it, I am sleepy by about 3 in the afternoon as the sun is setting and it is definitely harder to wake up the next morning as well. So the sun kind of makes up for how cold it gets on the cold clear days.
In terms of biking though, these days each pose their own challenges. Rain I can handle. As a Vancouver girl it's what I know best, but cycling in snow and ice is another story. I was pretty nervous about even attempting to ride my bike in snow. I should mention that Skeletor is a lovely streamline racing bike with very thin tires that have no tread. Excellent for racing along to class in the summer, less so for navigating snow filled roads. So the first day I woke up and it was snowing outside. I left early to give myself enough time and went very slowly to class. And mission accomplished! I made it to school in one piece, faster than walking and didn't fall off my bike, although there were a few narrow misses. The second day I was filled with a little more confidence and sped off to catch up with a friend I saw leaving. About two seconds on the bike and the snow makes my back tire twist out of my control making me fall. Thankfully no one was around, as my friend was long gone at this point, so my dignity remained more or less uninjured like myself.
I haven't fallen since then, but I have been more careful in my riding style. Here are some of the tips I have picked up on when cycling in the snow or ice:
1. If you get stuck in a rut (like when driving a car), just go with it. If you try to steer out, you'll just fall.
2. Stay upright when you turn and try to just turn using the handles, not your whole body )a shame because I had just gotten used to turning with my whole body on my new bike).
3. If your back tire starts to fishtail (which happens every time you go through uneven snow or slush) don't steer or brake and just go with it til you have control again.
4. Leave a lot of space between yourself and others because they will fall and you will crash into them.
5. Pump your brakes and start braking way before you need to stop.
6. Wear a helmet and when you inevitably fall try to go limp, so you don't actually get hurt.
Now that you've had your unasked for advice for the day, the only other news that I have is that I am going hunting this weekend for rabbits. I have never been hunting before let alone held a gun, but I have been wanting to get to know Finnish culture more than what is offered at the bar or in my classes, so my friend is taking me hunting near Kuopio. I also kind of feel that as a meat eater, I need to better understand what is involved in the process of killing an animal for this purpose (even though most of our meat is obviously not hunted, but farmed). So I will have to let you all know how my first hunting experience goes. Have a nice weekend!
It's hard to decide which is the most difficult. The overcast rainy days where you don't see the sun are the ones where you definitely want to take your Vitamin D. I would never have guess what a difference it makes! On the days where I forget to take it, I am sleepy by about 3 in the afternoon as the sun is setting and it is definitely harder to wake up the next morning as well. So the sun kind of makes up for how cold it gets on the cold clear days.
In terms of biking though, these days each pose their own challenges. Rain I can handle. As a Vancouver girl it's what I know best, but cycling in snow and ice is another story. I was pretty nervous about even attempting to ride my bike in snow. I should mention that Skeletor is a lovely streamline racing bike with very thin tires that have no tread. Excellent for racing along to class in the summer, less so for navigating snow filled roads. So the first day I woke up and it was snowing outside. I left early to give myself enough time and went very slowly to class. And mission accomplished! I made it to school in one piece, faster than walking and didn't fall off my bike, although there were a few narrow misses. The second day I was filled with a little more confidence and sped off to catch up with a friend I saw leaving. About two seconds on the bike and the snow makes my back tire twist out of my control making me fall. Thankfully no one was around, as my friend was long gone at this point, so my dignity remained more or less uninjured like myself.
I haven't fallen since then, but I have been more careful in my riding style. Here are some of the tips I have picked up on when cycling in the snow or ice:
1. If you get stuck in a rut (like when driving a car), just go with it. If you try to steer out, you'll just fall.
2. Stay upright when you turn and try to just turn using the handles, not your whole body )a shame because I had just gotten used to turning with my whole body on my new bike).
3. If your back tire starts to fishtail (which happens every time you go through uneven snow or slush) don't steer or brake and just go with it til you have control again.
4. Leave a lot of space between yourself and others because they will fall and you will crash into them.
5. Pump your brakes and start braking way before you need to stop.
6. Wear a helmet and when you inevitably fall try to go limp, so you don't actually get hurt.
Now that you've had your unasked for advice for the day, the only other news that I have is that I am going hunting this weekend for rabbits. I have never been hunting before let alone held a gun, but I have been wanting to get to know Finnish culture more than what is offered at the bar or in my classes, so my friend is taking me hunting near Kuopio. I also kind of feel that as a meat eater, I need to better understand what is involved in the process of killing an animal for this purpose (even though most of our meat is obviously not hunted, but farmed). So I will have to let you all know how my first hunting experience goes. Have a nice weekend!
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