Huovisnäreikkö

On the map, Huovisnäreikkö is marked as an official place name. It is left in its natural state as decided by Metsähallitus. The forests around Huovisnäreikkö are taken care of as wished by the author; always following the best current understanding of forest management.

The deep forests of Hallavaara became familiar to Huovinen during hunting trips in his youth, and also when he was in the service of Metsähallitus in the management areas of Lentiira and Sotkamo in the beginning of 1950’s.

Through the hillsides of Hallavaara, Konsta Pylkkänen accompanied scientists to the Kontiomäki station, and to these landscapes Eetvi Manninen left for to track down a marten in the book Dog Nail Clipper. Havukka-aho was located only a bit over mile to the east from Hallavaara. Konsta’s basic philosophy was that a human has the rights of an ant in the world.

Huovisnäreikkö is a bit less than six hectares large protected spruce forest, which is approximately 150 years old. At best, there are 500 cubic metres of timber in each hectare. On the approximately 700 metres long walking path there are paintings, to which Huovinen has chosen extracts from his works.

In Puukansan tarina from 1984 it is written:

”The trees called no shop-floor meetings in which to consider the issue of growth and its everlasting futility, and eventually conclude: we do not want to grow anymore, we shall remain at our present level, we shall settle for our present trunk and foliage. From now on, we shall try to get along on as little energy as possible. We shall thus maintain the status quo, eke out a stunted existence from one day to the next, for why waste effort. No such rebellion was staged.”

There are signs to Huovinäreikkö on the Sotkamo-Ristijärvi –road (888), approximately 25 kilometres to the north from Sotkamo.

– Kansan Uutiset 27.7.2010