Aavasaksa is a wooded hill rising above the Torne river on the Finnish side of the border with Sweden, near the town of Ylitornio, just south of the Arctic Circle. It is a modest height, around 240 metres, but it has a remarkable history. In 1736 and 1737, a French expedition led by Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis came to the Torne valley to measure the length of a degree of latitude near the pole, and their observations helped prove that the earth is flattened at the poles, as Newton had predicted. Over a century later, Aavasaksa became one of the points of the Struve Geodetic Arc, the chain of survey stations running from Norway to the Black Sea, inscribed by UNESCO in 2005.
The hill has long been a place of celebration. Because of its height and location, the midnight sun can be seen from the summit around midsummer, even though the hill lies just south of the Arctic Circle, and people have gathered here for midsummer festivities for centuries. A wooden lodge on the summit was built in the nineteenth century for an imperial visit, when Finland was a grand duchy under the Russian tsar. The view from the top over the Torne river, the forests and the Swedish village of Övertorneå across the water is wide and beautiful.
The riding in the Torne valley is a northern pleasure. The roads along the river, on both the Finnish and Swedish sides, run through forests of pine and birch, with long gentle curves and very little traffic. Surfaces are generally good, but frost damage can leave bumps and cracks, and gravel is common on minor roads. Reindeer wander freely on the roads, and they are a real hazard, especially at dusk. The riding season is short, from late May to September, with the midnight sun in June and July and autumn colours, called ruska, in early September. Mosquitoes can be fierce in summer.
Ylitornio, about ten kilometres away, has fuel, shops and cafés, and Övertorneå, across the bridge in Sweden, has similar services. The road up the hill is short and steep, and the summit has a viewpoint. Local food includes reindeer, salmon from the river, and cloudberries in late summer. Ride up the hill, look over the valley, and imagine the French scientists in their wigs and coats, measuring the earth in the northern wilderness.