White-water rafting tours are a major source of income in Kuusamo

Rural community has 50 rubber boat skippers

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By Tapio Mainio
     
      "This helmet is too big", says Anni Himanen, 12, as she prepares to shoot the rapids with 30 classmates in Käylä in Kuusamo near the Russian border.
      When everyone is fitted up, Janne Tahkola of the adventure holiday operator Kitkan safarit explains safety procedures to the 6th grade pupils on a spring excursion from the Jokivarsi School of Jämsä in Central Finland.
      "We know how to swim. We took the sea monster course during gym class", says Minna Toivonen, who is somewhat excited nevertheless.
     
Whitewater tourism gives work to more than ten companies in Kuusamo, which is home to a total of 50 trained rubber boat skippers.
      The rafting season began a week earlier, and an endless flow of rubber boats can be seen in the rushing water.Kitkan safarit alone has three departures every day. Each year brings more rubber rafts, and more entrepreneurs.
      The most enthusiastic customers are groups of schoolchildren and Dutch tourists.
      "The safari companies have drafted new and uniform safety and rescue instructions, because the skippers will sometimes work with equipment of other companies", Tahkola explains. No serious accidents have occurred, even though thousands of visitors take part in the tours every summer.
     
The Jämsä schoolchildren took a 15-kilometre family route of seven rapids from Kählä to Juuma. Children as young as five can take the trip if accompanied by their parents. Those taking the wilder route downstream from Juuma must be at least 18 years of age.
      That route includes the wildest rapids of Kuusamo: Jyrävä, which actually has to be bypassed, followed by Niskakoski, Myllykoski, and Aallokkokoski.
      On that trip, it is possible to get off at Vattumutka, or to continue to the border, where the boats are taken out of the river and driven back. The distance from Käylä to the border is 33 kilometres.
     
Jyrävä is too rough to take tourists down, because it includes a nine-metre vertical drop.
      "Arto Palosaari, who used to be a safari entrepreneur, went down the Jyrävä in a rubber boat in 1993. He loaded the boat with stones for ballast. The stones flew out at Jyrävä, but he survived because he had tied himself down", Tahkola explains.
      Shooting the rapids used to be done in wooden boats. In the 1960s Ville Kurtti went down the Peurakoski rapids with a group of German tourists. The wooden boat capsised and broke in the Saarikoski rapids, and the travellers had to swim to shore.
      "The Germans asked what the extra event would cost. Ville charged them 50 markka", Tahkola recalls.
     
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 23.5.2005  

More on this subject:
 Power companies once wanted to dam Kuusamo rapids
 Kuusamo gets over a million tourists each year

Links:
  City of Kuusamo website

TAPIO MAINIO / Helsingin Sanomat
tapio.mainio@hs.fi