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Wolley proposed at first to send to the inn in Muonioniska, and engage a room, but afterwards arranged with a Norsk carpenter, who lived on the hill above, to give us quarters in his house, so that we might be near enough to take our meals together. Nothing could have suited us better.
He helped us to get our horses, although we were detained an hour, as only one horse is kept in readiness at these stations, and the neighbourhood must be scoured to procure another. I employed the time in learning a few Finnish words the whole travelling-stock, in fact, on which I made the journey to Muonioniska.
She chuckled very much over the drawing, saying that the dress was exactly right. In the afternoon we took another reindeer drive to Muonioniska, paying a visit to Pastor Fali, the clergyman whom we had met at Forström's. This time I succeeded very well, making the trip without a single overturn, though with several mishaps. Mr. Wolley lost the way, and we drove about at random for some time.
His father had some misgivings on account of his timidity, but he was so ambitious to give satisfaction that we found him forward enough. I have already described the country through which we passed, as it was merely a continuation of the scenery below Muonioniska low, wooded hills, white plains, and everywhere snow, snow, snow, silence and death.
We now turned northward through the village, flying around many sharp corners, but this I found comparatively easy work. But for the snow I had taken in, which now began to melt, I got on finely in spite of the falling flakes, which beat in our faces. Von Buch, in his journey through Lapland in 1807, speaks of Muonioniska as "a village with an inn where they have silver spoons."
In the grey Arctic twilight, gliding noiselessly and swiftly over the snow, with the low huts of Muonioniska dimly seen in the distance before me, I had my first true experience of Lapland travelling.
This was Muoniovara, on the Swedish side the end of our Finnish journey. As we drove up to the red two-story house, a short man with dark whiskers and a commercial air came forward to meet us. I accosted him in Swedish, asking him whether the house was an inn. He replied in the negative, adding that the only inn was in Muonioniska, on the Russian side, a mile or more distant.
From Muonioniska I travelled on between the Muonio and Ouanasjoki rivers. Wasara, the younger, was the son of a very rich Lapp who owned nearly ten thousand reindeer, and possessed besides a good bank account. Pinta was poor, the possessor of only about one hundred reindeer, which pastured with those of his elder brother. Pinta was about thirty years old; Wasara about twenty-five.
We were in excellent spirits, in the hope of reaching Muonioniska before dark, but the steady trot of our horses brought us out of the woods by noon, and we saw before us the long, scattering village, a mile or two distant, across the river. To our left, on a gentle slope, stood a red, two-story building, surrounded by out-houses, with a few humbler habitations in its vicinity.
Beyond the snowy floor of the lake and the river Muonio stretched the scattering huts of Muonioniska, with the church overlooking them, and the round, white peak of Ollastyntre rising above his belt of black woods to the south.
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