From southern France to northern Finland

kuva: Mathilde Neveux

My name is Mathilde Neveux and I’m from southern France. I had two months long internship both in Anne and Janne Jurva's farm in Loue and in Meän Liha, which is a sausage factory in Loue.

The school I go to in France is called Montpellier SupAgro. It's and engeneering school of agronomy (agriculture and food processing). This school is specialised in tropical agriculture and wine, which is a bit far from the everyday life in Finnish Lapland.

Kuva: Lapin materiaalipankki

kuva: Arktinen biotalous

But how did I ended up in Finnish Lapland from all the places in the world? I found this internship thanks to Petri, a farmer in Tornio, that one of my friends knew. The way from southern France from Lapland was long. First I took a train to Paris and then two flights, one to Helsinki and another one to Kemi. Niina Jurva, the daughter of the farm, picked me up there in car.

During the internship I worked in the farm mostly with Anne Jurva. We milked cows every morning and evening, cleaned the ban, gave food to animals, fixed the fences and made new ones, moved the animals and so on. So you could say that my work included everything that one has to do in the farms on daily basis. I also went to Meän Liha more or less once a week and helped with everything there too: cutting meat, making sausages, packaging...

Thanks to Jurva's family I have learnt a lot about Lapland, Finnish culture and working in the farm. In the farm observing the animals is the most important way to notice every disease and having the right equipment is essential. The communication between the staff is very important too.

Kuva: Lapin materiaalipankki

When it comes to Finnish way of life I have been to some houses in Lapland. It amazes me that they are all made of wood and colored red, yellow and blue. I have noticed that Finnish people take a lot of coffee time, and I’ve learned to love "pulla". Finnish people love eating sausages, and I like them too! If you want good ones, sausages from Meän Liha are very good! The only thing that disturbed me a bite was the lack of local fruits and vegetable (even if in Jurva's farm there were some strawberries and raspberries). But potatoes are also good!

Kuva: Arktinen biotalous

In my opinion wind turbines in Loue are beautiful and fit in the landscape very well. We weren't disturbed about the noise. It was also nice to see that in Finland for example cans and bottles are recycled: people have to take them back to the store to have money. We don’t have this kind of system in France yet.

Finland and especially Lapland is full of forests and animals in it. It's a pleasure to see all those reindeers and a diversity of animals there. I really enjoyed my stay in Lapland. I think that Lapland is wild and beautiful!