Sixty Degrees North (25 page)

In the months that followed I began to write every day, more than I had ever written before. I started work on what I thought was a novel: the story of a man's return to the islands after many years away. In that story, the man – I never chose a name for the character, he was simply ‘the man' – reconnected himself with his home by walking, obsessively, the places he once knew. The steps he took not only rejoined him to the place, physically, they also drew him back, through his own history and into the history of the islands themselves. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that, through his physical connection, he drew the past upwards into the present. To fuel this work, I read books about Shetland history. I read novels and poetry. I visited the archives and the museum, and I learned much that I had never before been interested in learning. Through that anonymous character, I strove to relate myself to a place from which, previously, I had always maintained a distance.

It was then, in that time of research and writing, that I realised something which now seems obvious: that this history in which I was immersing myself was not separate from me. These islands' history could be my own. Though I had no connection by blood to Shetland, though my ancestors so far as I know had nothing whatsoever to do with the place, none of that truly mattered. The ancestors of whom I am aware lived in Norfolk and Cornwall and Ireland, places I know hardly at all. My connection to those places, carried in fragments of DNA, has little real meaning. Certainly it means nothing when compared to the connections I have made in my own lifetime. For culture and history are not carried in the blood. Nor is identity. These things are not inherited, they exist only through acquaintance and familiarity. They exist in attachment.

As I came to understand that fact, a sense of relief washed over me like a slow sigh, and I began to imagine that a matter had been settled and that something broken was on its way towards repair. By day, as a reporter, I wrote about Shetland's present; by night I read and wrote about its past. As familiarity and acquaintance grew, attachment brimmed within me.

In Turku, the country's second city, I boarded one of the enormous ferries that ply back and forth between Finland, Sweden and the Åland Islands. In the terminal, crowds had gathered in advance of departure time, laughing, talking cheerfully to each other, and once on board they filed into cafés, restaurants and – most popular of all – the duty-free shop. Soon, the ship was full of people, most of them weighed down by bags of alcohol and cigarettes.

Åland is separated from mainland Finland by a stretch of the Baltic that never fully unleashes itself from the land. From Turku we passed densely forested islands with bright
summer houses at the shore. And though, as the morning progressed, the islands thinned out and decreased in size until an almost open sea stretched out around us, here still were holms and islets, some as smooth and subtle as whales' backs, just breaking the surface. From the boat, these islands looked as though they had just risen up from beneath the water – which in fact many have. The land here is rising at fifty centimetres per century, so new islands are emerging all the time. And when they do so, it doesn't take long before they are occupied by trees. Even the smallest of skerries, it seemed, had at least one rising from it. Coming from a place where such extravagant vegetation needs to be coaxed and coddled from the ground, it was amazing to see this profusion. In the Baltic, trees won't take no for an answer.

The sixtieth parallel runs through the south of the Åland archipelago, not far from the capital, Mariehamn, where we docked around lunchtime. Disembarking, with rucksack slung over my shoulder, I was surprised to see most of my fellow passengers walk out from the ferry and then straight back on to another one heading in the opposite direction. For the majority, it turns out, the journey is simply the first half of a full day's cruise to Åland and back, with good food and tax-free shopping more important than the destination. I stepped out into the town's grey winter light and headed for my hotel.

If there is ambiguity in the relationship between Swedish Finns and the state in which they live, in Åland the situation is rather different. Here, there is less ambiguity and more complexity. These islands belong, officially, to Finland, but they are culturally Swedish and politically autonomous. The residents are highly independent-minded. The archipelago has its own parliament, its own bank, its own flag and its own unique system of government. Despite a population of fewer than 30,000, spread over 65 inhabited islands, Åland has the power to legislate on areas such as education, health
care, the environment, policing, transport and communications. It is, to all extents and purposes, a tiny state operating within a larger one, and its separation from that larger state is fiercely maintained. Finnish is not an official language in these islands, and the army of Finland is not welcome on its shores.

This strange situation did not come about because of a long-held sense of nationhood here (unlike, say, in the Faroe Islands). Instead, it was the result of a peculiar and, in hindsight, rather enlightened decision by the League of Nations. For centuries these islands had been a de facto part of Sweden, but in 1809 they were annexed together with Finland. Åland became, then, part of the grand duchy that survived until the revolution of 1917. At that time, as Finland prepared to announce its own independence, Ålanders demanded that the islands should be returned to Sweden, both for reasons of cultural continuity and to be brought under the protection of an established and stable state. But given the history of this region, the request was not a simple one to grant, and when the three sides failed to agree, the matter was referred instead to the League of Nations. In attempting to come up with a solution that would please everyone, the League settled on a compromise. Rather than staying with one state or joining another, Åland would instead become autonomous and demilitarised. It would function within the state of Finland, but its Swedishness would be enshrined in law. It would be, in other words, neither one thing nor the other. Such a precarious compromise could easily have been a disaster, but in this case it was not. In fact, it turned out remarkably well. Today islanders are proud of their autonomy and what they have done with it. They maintain strong links with both neighbours, but have fostered and cultivated a sense of distinctiveness and independence that is now, almost a century later, firmly embedded.

Mariehamn sits on a long peninsula, with a deep harbour on one side where the ferries come in and a shallow one on
the other, for pleasure craft. In the smaller harbour, expensive boats were hidden beneath plastic wrappers, while the wharf was chock-a-block with empty spaces, to be filled by summer visitors.

I strolled across the bridge to Lilla Holmen, a snowy, wooded park that was more or less empty of people. An aviary stood among the trees there, teeming with zebra finches, budgerigars, parrots and love birds, and there was even a tortoise, lying still in the corner. Outside in the park were giant rabbits in hutches, and three peacocks that approached me, then raised and shook their fans as though in protest.

There is an unmistakable air of self-confidence to Mariehamn. The town feels like what it almost is: the capital of a tiny Nordic nation. The wide linden-lined boulevards; the grand clapboard villas; the lively, pedestrianised streets: Mariehamn pulses with a kind of energy that belies its scale. Just 11,000 people live in this town, and yet it seems many times bigger. It feels creative and vibrant and prosperous. In the summer this place would be full of visitors – Finns and Scandinavians, mostly – but in January there were few of us around. Yet unlike in Ekenäs, that didn't feel like a loss. There was no sense of limbo, or of absence. Tourists bring money to the islands, but they don't bring purpose. Åland's focus is upon itself and its own concerns. After all, how many other communities of 28,000 can boast two daily newspapers, two commercial radio stations and one public service broadcaster?

I couldn't help comparing this place with home, and with Shetland's own capital, Lerwick. As I wandered Mariehamn's rather grand streets I thought of the streets in which I grew up. In the time I've known it, my home town has changed significantly, and despite the islands' wealth it has begun to look a little run down. An enormous supermarket on the edge of town has sucked much of the life from its centre. Once home to a host of independent businesses, the
town's main shopping street is now a place of hairdressers and charity shops, and Lerwick's museum and its recently-built arts centre are outstanding in part because of what they are set against.

I wondered then, as I have often wondered, whether more autonomy could have brought some of the benefits to Shetland that Åland has seen, and I think perhaps it could. But Åland's success has been bolstered by two factors that are not on Shetland's side: geography and climate. These islands are not just beautiful, they are also sunny and warm in summer, and therefore very popular with tourists. Åland is also fortunate to lie halfway between two wealthy countries, and a tax agreement means that Finns and Swedes can take day cruises here and come home with bags full of cheap booze. Åland is politically autonomous, but it is still financially reliant on its neighbours. In the 1930s, the largest fleet of sailing ships in the world was owned by the Åland businessman Gustaf Erikson, and the economy is still very much dependent on the sea. The ferries which today carry around a million passengers each year back and forth across the Gulf of Bothnia are, by a considerable margin, these islands' biggest industry.

Wandering on a half-faded afternoon, I stepped on impulse in to the Åland Emigrants Institute, which occupies an unassuming building set back from Norre Esplanadgaten, one of the main streets in the centre of town. I'd read somewhere that there was an exhibition inside, but the institute is not a promising looking place and it wasn't clear if visitors were actually welcome. Inside there was little to indicate whether I was in the right place at all, just a narrow hallway and corridor with an office at the far end, its door open. I turned to go again, disappointed, but was stopped as I did so by a woman beckoning me back. ‘It's not really an exhibition,'
she said, in answer to my question. ‘It's just a few things. But do come in anyway.'

The office was cramped. Inside were two large desks facing each other, with books and files and folders stacked everywhere around the room. The exhibition, as warned, consisted of a few odds and ends – some old photographs, crockery and medals – but I wasn't really shown any of it. Instead I was sat down, offered a cup of tea, then bombarded with questions.

The woman who had shown me in was Eva Meyer, the director of the institute, and her colleague at the other desk was Maria Jarlsdotter Enckell, a researcher. Eva was middle-aged, quiet and attentive; Maria was in her seventies, with well-tended white hair, and a pair of glasses clutched in her hands. As I sipped at my tea, the two women asked about my travels. Where was I from? Where had I been? Where was I going next? Why was I doing it? We spoke about the sixtieth parallel, and about the countries through which it passed. They liked the idea of my journey, they told me; they liked the connections that it made. Eva took a globe from the corner of the room and returned to her desk, turning it slowly as we spoke, her finger following the line. Both women had been to Alaska recently, they said, to attend a conference about Russian America. I told them about my own time there, and about the village of Ninilchik, with its little Orthodox church. Eva and Maria looked at each other, their eyes widening. ‘Ninilchik? Really?' they asked. I nodded and waited for an explanation.

I had arrived at the institute at 3.30 p.m., half an hour before it was supposed to close. But at four o'clock Maria and Eva were only just beginning their story. The place of Finns in Russian history, they told me, had been vastly underestimated, particularly in terms of its colonial expansion. After all, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Russia was still struggling to man its overseas developments.
St Petersburg was only a hundred years old, and the country simply didn't have enough trained and experienced seamen. Residents of the grand duchy, with its longer maritime history, were extremely useful and often were willing recruits. The Russian American Company offered Finns the security of a seven-year contract in Alaska, with as much salmon as they could eat, as well as an annual salary and accommodation. By signing on as mariners, or with other trades and skills, the men would have a chance to climb in society, working their way up from cabin boy to skipper.