Finland

I had visited  Finland several times when, in 1998, the British Council funded me to teach some undergraduate writing courses at the University of Vaassa in the north west part of the country. It was an ideal opportunity to research background for the Tuomas Envall story line in The Story of My Face. I still remember very vividly my first extended encounter with a place that had real winters. When I arrived, the sea was frozen and people were driving their cars across the bay. In some lights, the  sea ice had a wonderful, milky turquoise glow, (which, of course, refused to show itself in photographs).  By the first of May, little snow remained and most of the ice was soft; people were getting out their boats. The village of Elojoki, where Natalie arrives at the beginning of the book, is an invented place, more northerly and more inland that Vaassa itself.

Read: The Pike's Heart Traveller writing award 1992.

Finland:

priesthouse = The priest's house, now a museum, at Körsnas
The church at Närpesbirches = Along with conifers, birches are the predominant vegetation in the area and through much of Finland.
turquoiseice= This comes some way to capturing the incredible colours of the ice.
watchingitmelt = My daughter and I.
springfinland= Spring: no flowers, little greeness. A matter of the ice departing and the land revealing itself again.
may1= Patches of soft ice linger on but May 1st is the traditional time to get the boat out again.