Kajaani is a quiet town in central Finland, in the region of Kainuu, but its quiet is deceptive, because in this modest place a good part of Finnish culture was written down. In the 1830s the physician Elias Lönnrot worked here as a district doctor and traveled through the surrounding villages, collecting oral poetry from singers, and from those verses he compiled the Kalevala, the national epic of Finland, first published in 1835. A statue and a small museum in town recall his work.
The town sits on the Kajaani River, between two lakes, and the ruins of a castle, built by the Swedes in the early seventeenth century and destroyed by the Russians in the Great Northern War, still stand by the rapids. The central streets are laid out wide, and a neat town hall and wooden church stand among them. Industry has long included timber and paper, and the region has a strong tradition of rural life.
For riders, the lure is the road north and east. The Raate Road, near the Russian border, was the site of a famous battle in the Winter War of 1939 and 1940, when Finnish troops destroyed Soviet divisions in the forest, and a memorial marks the site. Hossa, farther north, has rock paintings thousands of years old on a lake cliff, and a national park of pine forest. The roads there are long, nearly straight and empty, running through endless forest, with marshes, lakes and the occasional village. Road surfaces are good, but the distances are large, and services are sparse.
Kajaani has fuel, supermarkets and hotels, and it is the place to fill up and eat before heading north. The best months are June to August, with the light lasting almost all night in midsummer, and September, when the colors are spectacular. Winter is long, cold and dark. Reindeer, elk and bears roam the wilderness, and collisions with elk are a genuine risk, so keep speed down and watch the verges. Mosquitoes and midges are intense in July, so bring repellent.