Trip 42 — Fasta Åland Walk

Day 2: Mariehamn to Djurvik
Friday, 21 June 2024

Today: 23783 steps/19.26 km/11.97 mi/3h 29m
Total: 24828 steps/19.98 km/12.41 mi/3h 37m

I was all set to walk out of Mariehamn. I had food for a few days (no restaurants but tomorrow's guesthouse will give me dinner). I'd refilled a bottle with water. I had about €65 in cash, which ought to be plenty, since I'd been able to use a card for everything on this trip so far.

Or would it? Was it Fasta Åland or Prince Edward Island that had a couple of lodgings that required cash? The planning was starting to blur. But it was the latter, I was sure of it.

I looked through my list of places to stay. Most I'd marked "paid in full." But...ah, yes. Saltvik B&B, who had responded to my e-mailed inquiry from mid-December at the end of March, saying that they had space. Something told me they might not be technologically up to speed.

And I wouldn't pass any ATMs between Mariehamn and Saltvik. Guess I'd better go back over to the east side and get some paper money. Why couldn't I have thought of this yesterday?

But that 18-minute delay turned out to be for the best. I hit the bridge out of Mariehamn just before noon, only to hear accordion music and see people rushing through a wooded area to a clearing by the water. I'd mistaken it for a campground, but then it hit me what was going on.

Today and tomorrow are the Midsummer holiday, with today (Midsummer's Eve) having the bulk of the festivities. Maypoles are hoisted around the island (and Sweden in general). The owner of my guesthouse tonight had said that the nearest maypole hoisting would happen in Gottby at 4 p.m. Here I'd stumbled upon another one, only because I forgot to get cash yesterday.

This maypole was about 50 feet tall and sported two cross poles, each with two clusters of garlands and streamers in the colors of the Åland flag (red, yellow, and blue). It was topped with a flapping figure of a man not unlike the ones filled with air that point you into highway restaurants. It took a few men about three minutes to get the maypole fully upright, using various long X-shaped prods.

Once the maypole was up, the Åland national anthem was sung, and then children's songs were performed by the accordion players as the kids and a few adults danced around the maypole. Then a sweet Midsummer egg bread was served, along with coffee and apple juice.

I crossed the bridge into the Möckelö peninsula and looped around the south for a view back across to Mariehamn's western harbor and a brief trail through the woods. This seemed to be a modern upscale suburb of the capital, with large homes and new ones under construction. It smelled of freshly mown grass, and there was the occasional cheer from a Midsummer gathering. Another bridge brought me past the airport (you can fly here from Stockholm, Turku, and Helsinki) and then I detoured south once more, to Kungsö.

Kungsö probably got its name from the 12th-century arrival of King Erik the Holy. Back then, it was a separate island, and for much of its history there were only four homesteads. During World War I, the Russians built a military road, barracks for 100 people, a lookout tower, and a coastal battery as part of a defensive network that stretched to Hiiumaa and Saaremaa in Estonia.

The remains of these fortifications can still be seen. The lookout tower is in excellent shape, although it wasn't open for climbing. Part of the battery is intact, and some of the barracks' and other buildings' foundations remain. It's a hilly area, with moss-covered rocks. Most of the road has been kept in good condition, although the path up to the barracks seemed needlessly winding and rocky.

It was already past 3:00 and I was still a few kilometers away from Gottby. I wasn't sure where in Gottby the maypole would be hoisted, but it became clear when I saw people walking, biking, and driving there. The turnout, and the maypole itself, were much larger here, with a crowd of about 200.

A flag bearer and a pair of violinists ushered in the flower-clad women who brought the adornments for the maypole. Many of the crowd were white; many of the women and girls had wreaths in their hair. While the maypole was dressed, the violinists and a guitarist played folk melodies — the violinists in unison, the guitarist better practiced on the chord changes than on their timing.

This maypole must have been almost 75 feet tall, and the men struggled with it. A large group of them heaved at it with their prods, lifting it a few degrees every couple of minutes and then rushing off to — as I imagine it — consult their physics textbooks and scribble some calculations before rearranging themselves for the next attack. Sometimes they looked at the maypole helplessly. The musicians ran out of music. I wondered whether the Swedish being spoken around me was comments about 15 men taking 18 minutes to get their wood up.

But maybe it's supposed to be like that. It wouldn't be as much fun if the thing were on hydraulics.

It finally rose all the way, and cheers and applause followed its being hammered into place. The adornments were abundant, with streamers in a multitude of colors and a pinwheel of sailboats near the top. Then the violinists resumed (with the guitarist now leading the children in singing, in his own tempo) and the cake and beverages were served.

From Gottby it was a half-hour's walk to Djurviks Gästgård, a collection of red buildings near a small beach opposite a small island. I was enveloped by crisp, clean air and brilliant sunshine.

"This place is so lovely. I wish I had more than one night," I told Olivia, who had introduced herself as the owners' youngest daughter. On school holiday from Uppsala, she's been roped into helping out with the guesthouse for the summer.

Dinner was from my backpack: herring and smoked eel from Lisa Elmqvist's market section, plus tomatoes, cheese, and bread from a supermarket in Mariehamn. But the kitchen is communal at Djurviks Gästgård, and I used my helplessness at locating an obscure item — "Do you know where I can find a dish?" — as a way to finagle an invitation to the Midsummer party that people were having in one of the buildings by the beach.

I joined them at the end, for strawberries and beer. They were three couples: a combination of Finns, Swedes, and one Welshman (there's a delightful coastal walk there, he said). After a discussion of Finnish linguistics, our conversation turned to inspiration and the fact that it's never too late to do something you want to do.

"I applied to law school at age fifty-three," Johanna said. "I didn't tell anyone. Then I was accepted. I told Nicolas, 'I'm going to get a law degree.' He said, "OK, if that's what you want to do." (Of course, it helps to have the financial means to follow through with such plans.)

And Sirpa had retired, only to study champagne and become the Finnish distributor for a new label.

We talked about travel whimsy — walking 26 islands, for example, or the tradition of Harriet's husband's family, to pull the name of a Finnish region out of a hat and then go biking there. I told them about the book I'm planning for when the Abecedarian Walks are done.

"But it can't just be, 'Look, I've done this.' There's something more important about it, but I'm not sure what it is."

"The necessity of walking," Harriet said.

Something to think about for tomorrow's 37 kilometers.

Go on to day 3