Oulu, Finland
February 18-24, 2007
The evening of Saturday, February 17th, Dennis Gautreau, Mike Tracy and I left Logan Airport (Boston) for Heathrow Airport (London). Two additional flights on Sunday, February 18th got us into Oulu around 5:00 PM. The trip was being made to visit Kemira Oyj, Oulu to assist in the upgrade of a microwave system there.
Finnish flag
Finland's national anthem, Maamme (Our Land) is playing in the background if you have sound turned on.
Finland Coat of Arms
Our Land
Our land, our land, our fatherland,
Sound loud, O name of worth!
No mount that meets the heaven's band,
No hidden vale, no wave-washed strand,
Is loved, as is our native North,
Our own forefathers' earth.
We entered Finland through the international airport, Vantaa, at Helsinki in the southern province. Helsinki is the capitol of Finland.
From Helsinki we flew to Oulu in the Oulu province. While on this trip we also took the opportunity to drive up just north of Rovaniemi in the Lapland province to the Artic Circle.
Finland's people number in excess of 5-million. Over 2-million live in the southern Finland (Etelä-Suomen lääni), almost 2-million live in western Finland (Länsi-Suomen lääni), over 500,000 live in eastern Finland (Itä-Suomen lääni), just under 500,000 live in the Oulu province (Oulun lääni), just under 200,000 live in Lapland (Lapin lääni), and finally about 26,000 live in the Åland Islands (Ahvenanmaan lääni). These are the six provinces (läänit) of Finland. The system of provinces was created in 1634, and its makeup was changed drastically in 1997, when the number of the provinces was reduced from 12 to 6. This effectively made the remaining six provinces purely administrative units, as linguistic and cultural boundaries do not follow the borders of the current provinces. The current (as of this writing) Finnish president is Tarja Halonen. She began her first term of office in 2000 and was re-elected on January 29, 2006. Her current term expires in 2012. She is the eleventh President of Finland and the first woman to hold the office.
The Helsinki Coat of Arms.
On this trip we really only spent a few hours in Helsinki . . . actually the international airport, Vantaa. I guess you really can not count that as a visit to Helsinki, but I thought the Coat of Arms was neat and wanted to include it on the web-page . . . so here it is.
Back to Mike's Business Trips - Index Page
Page 1 - Introduction, Oulu trip, February 2007
Page 4 - Rovaniemi, Arctic Circle