Trip 42 — Fasta Åland Walk

Day 4: To Skarpnåatö and back
Sunday, 23 June 2024

Today: 28954 steps/23.08 km/14.34 mi/4h 18m
Total: 99961 steps/80.12 km/49.78 mi/14h 34m

At 11:35 p.m., the sky was washed in broad sheets of mauve and pink. In another room at Paradiset, I heard the hissing of a tea kettle.

Only it wasn't another room, and it wasn't a tea kettle. It was at my windows, and it was a chorus of mosquitoes.

Why had they picked this hour to gather at the windowpanes, when I was about to go to bed? Did they think the sunset was as beautiful as I did?

I can sleep through pretty much anything. Flies would have been OK. The cat jumping on my supine body, no problem. But I can't sleep when I know there are mosquitoes in the room.

Most of them seemed more interested in the sunset than in protecting themselves, and I squished a bunch on the windowpanes with my fingers. A few others I caught in my palm. I'd bought a hiking map of Åland in Mariehamn, and inside its vinyl sleeve it was the perfect heft for smashing the others (and the one fly). I must have killed thirty of them. By the time I finished, the windows were as besmirched as those of a New Jersey Transit bus.

And I slept.

What I'd envisioned as a simple up-and-back to Skarpnåtö became much more than that. The village of Sålis, where the Paradiset B&B is located, had another World War I battery built by the Russians just to the north, and so I had to investigate its remains. The old military road began with a rebuilt guardhouse, including a figure of a mustached guard looking out. Past the foundations of the barracks was what's left of the battery and additional fortifications, with a swinging bridge to aid in crossing the rubble.

During the war, Russian soldiers quartered in local homes, including what's now Paradiset. The main house dates from the 1500s, with various additions through the 1900s. Forty soldiers occupied the building, which was owned by a woman fond of alcoholic beverages. Because they were prohibited at the time, she hid them in the toilet. When one of the soldiers found them, she tried to evict them all. She didn't get far in military court.

The military road through the battery site curled around and became a trail with white blazes that eventually rejoined the road near a telephone tower. My map showed where the blazed route continued all the way up to Skarpnåtö, sometimes following the road and sometimes veering off to become a forest trail.

I decided to stick with the blazes. The first turnoff took me across broad rock faces and then into the forest before delivering me back onto the road near the village of Strömma. Strömma's mailboxes were attached to a wooden plank with the names of the owners printed in gorgeous calligraphy. Across the road, a giant barn had been repurposed as an unattended flea market, with instructions to leave cash or pay electronically on the honor system.

The second time the trail left the road, it was a much narrower path, with tall grass; sometimes I had to stoop to avoid branches. Wildflowers in purple, white, and yellow were abundant. The flies were ferocious here. The rock- and twig-strewn path wasn't conducive to quick progress, but I rushed as fast as I could, flailing at the obnoxious insects.

The ground was crawling with ants. I'm repeatedly amazed at how hard they work and collaborate. Many were carrying bits of leaves. Bigger pieces were hauled by several ants together. What looked like a random scurrying of thousands under my feet was no doubt a carefully organized operation undertaken via communication that I had no hope of understanding. For ants, there was a necessity of walking. And I respected them for it.

Until one bit me again.

Eventually the path came to a clearing with a breeze, and the flies went away. I reached the road again and continued to Skarpnåtö, the last village on this peninsula in Fasta Åland's northwest.

Skarpnåtö is a lovely place even if it isn't the name of a movie about air attacks by whirling herring or some such thing. The village center, such as it is, is a large windmill next to a homestead museum exhibiting life in the 1700s. The museum won't open for the season for another three days, but am I not soaking up a similar atmosphere at Paradiset?

A few cows were resting under the windmill. Across the field to the west were rental cabins, and beyond that the sea. I continued for two minutes to the water's edge on the east side, where a ferry service leaves once a day starting tomorrow — twice in July and August — for a restaurant at the western end of Geta, the island's northern region. It takes 25 minutes to cover the five kilometers. But because of the shape of the island, getting there without the ferry is a 53-kilometer, almost-closed-loop journey.

In Skarpnåtö I learned what all the white blazes were about. The Sadelinleden is a 77-kilometer trail that runs from Skarpnåtö all the way around to Geta. Had I known yesterday that it would vie for the easiest-to-follow trail I'd ever walked, I might have looked for it to the west of the Hammarland junction and saved myself some retracing of the Berghamn road. But I wasn't sure I'd find the little connector to Berghamn, and I didn't want to risk a much longer retracing if it didn't exist or was unpassable.

I took the road back to Paradiset, detouring (is it really detouring if it's a longer route by intent?) this time to the east to stay on the Sadelinleden. Anders and Eva, from Oskarshamn in mainland Sweden (named for the first King Oscar), joined me for a dinner of fried perch. They are motorcycling through Åland to visit a friend on one of the eastern islands. Anders has a fondness for vintage motorcycles — he's related to Oscar Hedstrom, part of the Indian Motorcycle legacy in the USA — and that affinity earned him a handshake with the current king, who shares his interest.

Carl Oscar Hedström immigrated with his family from Sweden to Brooklyn when he was nine years old; sometime after that he dropped the "Carl" and the umlaut. His demonstration of a motorized tandem pacing bicycle at the end of the 19th century caught the attention of George Hendee, and the two went into the motorbike business together.

Somewhere in Brooklyn, a plaque marks the location of Oscar Hedstrom's childhood home, or perhaps there's a square named after him. Now, does anyone know where?

Go on to day 5