Kilpisjärvi Biological Station is celebrating its 60th anniversary in 2024. To mark the occasion, we asked researchers working at the station about their (fondest) memories of ‘Kilppari’.
University Researcher Jan Weckström notes that Kilpisjärvi boasts some of the cleanest air in Europe and the shores of its remote lakes remain largely undisturbed by human activity. This makes them particularly well-suited to his research on environmental history.
- There’s never a dull moment in Kilpisjärvi, whether you’re in or out of the station. Everyone should experience the station and its surrounding nature at least once in their lives,” says Weckström.
- In 1994 we went on long walks in the area to collect water samples and sediment from remote lakes. It turned out to be a good year for the autumnal moth. After carrying a rubber boat on our heads for a few kilometres through a mountain birch forest, we laid down the boat and found its bottom covered by a moving green carpet, a few centimetres thick. It was also a banner year for mosquitoes and black flies – I once swatted 44 mosquitoes with a single blow.
Professor Kimmo Kahilainen has been visiting Kilpisjärvi and its surrounding areas as well as the wider Tornio–Muonionjoki river basin for research on fish, including their food webs, since autumn 2002.
-We used to spend dark September nights criss-crossing Lake Kilpisjärvi to assess fish stocks using an echo sounder. Although common whitefish stocks were successfully estimated in autumn 2020, a major lemming migration caused confusion. Hundreds of lemmings were spotted swimming in the lake at night. As morning broke, we looked on with wonder at rafts of drowned lemmings especially off Malla, where the wind and current would often carry them. That autumn, lemmings seemed to be everywhere and were dined on by all sorts of animals, including the hungry pike inhabiting the local small lakes,” recounts Kahilainen.
-I remember particularly well one early May day when I got a call from the village about a white-tailed eagle at the roadside. The station’s bird specialists distinguished themselves by fetching and bringing it to the station. Placed in a chicken wire pen, the eagle was named Ilmari. He kept a fisherman busy for a few weeks, as it turned out Arctic charr was his favourite, preferred over many other fresh- and saltwater fish. Ilmari the eagle eventually recovered and one day ‘escaped’ by darting past the person come to bring food, spreading its wings and flying towards the Arctic Ocean. He hasn’t been seen near the station since,” states Kahilainen.
Researcher Anna Virkkala’s work in Kilpisjärvi focuses on ecosystem carbon sinks. She conducts a wide range of measurements in shrubs, meadows, bare, rugged landscapes, and palsa mires in permafrost areas. Virkkala has encountered unexpected weather conditions in Kilpisjärvi, including snow showers in June, sudden squalls in July and sweltering summer days. Most recently, she witnessed the first snow in September, which fell as harebells and a few buttercups remained in bloom.
-I’ve many happy memories particularly from the station cafeteria after returning from a field trip with ruddy cheeks and our backs aching from carrying measuring equipment, and eating and laughing there together.
-I had another type of emotional experience in August 2024 when we celebrated the newly set-up measuring station by serving sparkling wine and biscuits. We had told the other station researchers at breakfast that the carbon station was close to completion and asked them to come over at noon, but weren’t expecting a rush of visitors. Around noon, however, both familiar faces and new friends wandered over from all directions to raise a toast for the new infrastructure,” she explains.
Academy Research Fellow Elina Kaarlejärvi is investigating the combined effects of global warming and herbivore activity (including reindeer herding) on the diversity of fell vegetation and the functions of the fell ecosystem, such as nutrient cycling.
-Kilpisjärvi is home to a range of experts: the villagers have helped me with everything from drilling missing holes in a research instrument to fixing a punctured tyre, she says.