The Bluest Skies in the World, the Purest Waters on Earth

Discovering tiny wonders on Lake Päijänne’s islands — Kelvenne and Lietsaari

Here in Finland, the season is changing to autumn. I can feel the wind is different and the trees are dropping a few yellow leaves infrequently. It’s like autumn is playing hide and seek, giggling behind the late summer sunlight.

These views always make me feel a deep love for Finland. Might we have the bluest skies and purest waters in the world? Who could deny that while watching these pictures from Lake Päijänne?

We drink the water of this lake as tap water. There is the world’s longest tunnel through rock (120 km), and it leads fresh water from Lake Päijänne to a water treatment plant in Helsinki. The water of Päijänne is also quite safe to drink straight from the lake.

A few weeks ago, we made a nice boat trip to Päijänne National Park with my family, my dad, and his partner. We visited two islands — Lietsaari, which is known for its sharp sandy tip, and Kelvenne, which is a long ridge island and the heart of the national park.

We went at high speed and it was quite windy, so it was a bumpy drive. The water felt hard under the boat. The children liked it though. They found it exciting.

Our boat is Yamarin. It has a covered bow, which is perfect with children and an open back, though there is a removable canopy for rain. Two back seats and two front seats — one for the captain, one for the bowman. These are foldable so there is the possibility of two spaces for sleeping.

A swim ladder on the back makes it easy to go swimming and climb back almost everywhere. This boat is perfect for our family for day trips, but sleeping here with three children and two adults is quite tight — but possible.

Lietsaari

Then we arrived at the island Lietsaari. First, we found a caterpillar of the eyed hawkmoth (Smerinthus ocellata, Finn. Sinisilmäkiitäjä). It really caught our eyes on the sand with its bright green body. It’s going to be an awesome moth with eye-like patterns. We admired it for a while, then we gently placed it on a leaf of a tree.

Afterwards, I learned a bit about the life of the eyed hawkmoth and regretted lifting it high. I read that they drop themselves to the ground to dig and cocoon. But I hope it enjoyed dropping again. I guess not every eyed hawkmoth has the opportunity to jump bungee twice.

When we got to the sandy tip of the island, the children acted like they were on beach holiday. The 8-year-old ran to the shoreline and enjoyed every wave with wide smile on his face. The 5-year-old just sat on the beach, pushed fingers and toes into the warm sand and gazed at the horizon. The 3-year-old found a log and started to roll it around the beach. Well, maybe that’s not what you normally do on beach day, but she enjoyed the feeling of control.

Nature on this island’s shore is mostly pines and pine snags. Pine is my favourite tree, and this next picture shows quite well why. I love how they look against the blue sky. Their trunks are so ruggedly beautiful. They grow even in harsh habitats, and each tree is different from the other.

Pines saved many people during the famine years in the 1800s. People made special flour from the substance under pine bark. In Finnish, pine is called mänty. Pines have a special skill to create bark that protects them from forest fires. No wonder they’re not just survivors, but true lifesavers — a tree with attitude! I’d love to hear what your favourite tree is and why.

Kelvenne

Then it was time to get back to the boat and head to the neighboring island, Kelvenne. It was formed during the last Ice Age, and it’s part of a longer esker line. The ridge continues on the bottom of the lake and rises up from the water, while other ridges nearby appear as smaller echoes of the same ancient formation, their tops just peeking above the lake’s surface.

In the 60s, there were plans to turn Kelvenne into a holiday resort with a hotel, casino and shopping centre. There’s probably no need to even mention that it’s a good thing it never happened. That was the era when nature values started to be truly understood, and nature conservation became an important agenda in Finland, starting the process of forming many national parks and protecting many species by law.

My partner made a fire while the rest of us wondered at the ‘golden’ flecks in the waterline. It was most likely mica (a mineral), but we had fun joking whether it could be gold, even though gold would never be so light.

We had a lovely evening by the campfire. The children were playing in the water and climbing the trees, and we enjoyed the views and the coffee by the fire. It was one of those perfect moments where nothing else mattered but the warmth of the fire and the joy around us.

Last time at this same campsite, everything went a bit wrong, but this time not a single sausage was burned. Even my Substack info card was still where I left it last time. That makes me think that maybe that gold in the water was real gold after all.