Last year I bought a book on ancient rock paintings in Finland. One of the best paintings in Finland is nearby, but very hard to reach. With the recent low temperatures, Jarmo and I figure we could cross the lake to go see it.
If you ever want to see these great paintings, the time to do that is right now. This week, or maybe the next. The summer is coming, access gets impossible, and there is no guarantee that the ice is so nice next year. Go now!
Per the book and Retkipaikka article, the summerhouses next to the rock with the painting block access from the obvious southern direction, and recommend taking a 2km ski from the other side of the lake. We figured we could actually cross the lake from a shorter route on foot, using the route marked with red below:
This route is much more reasonable than the other recommendations, and has only a small lake crossing. But be careful about the ice; right now the ice is in great condition, but there were still ice fishing and possibly some ice swimming holes. Take care!
Parking is still an issue, we parked on the ample space on a bus stop on the main road, but only after searching for a space for a while.
Once you get there, what a wonderful paintings, though! Thousands of years old, perhaps painted at the time that this part of the land was on the seafront, before rising ground has lifted it 20 kilometres inland.
The pictures are very visible and understandable, at least the human ones... there may be a moose, some fish, and a snake-like human also in the picture, but there the viewer's imagination needs to get involved.
The rock painting is at coordinates N 60.186889 E 24.426556.
Video:
(Original source video is also available here.)
More pictures:
There also seems to be a moose (photo by Jarmo):
Posing with the characters (photo by Jarmo):
Here are pictures of the place from the air:
At a nearby thin cape is uninhabited and a nice place to visit:
This article is also available at the TGR site. Tämä blogiartikkeli löytyy myös suomeksi Relaasta. Photos and videos (c) 2018 by Jari Arkko and Jarmo Ruuth. Map excerpt from Karttapaikka. All rights reserved. Music on the video is The Floor Plan by The Silent Partner, freely usable from YouTube music library.
This article was originally published in the Planetskier Blogspot article series. Suomenkielisen version tästä artikkelista "Juusjärven kalliomaalaukset on nähtävissä NYT" voi lukea myös täältä.
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