When I arrived in Turku, I was told that it was very safe—the biggest threat was falling on the ice. They weren’t kidding.
In Finland, there is certainly a lot of creative snow removal. Professional snow removing companies help apartment buildings and stores clear their roofs to prevent serious injury from falling ice. A Finnish company invented an ergonomic shovel that you push, which can clear great swaths of snow without hurting your back. Trucks can be seen carrying snow away to dumping sites.
The law says that slippery surfaces have to be "well and sufficiently" cleaned to prevent falls and injuries. Nevertheless, the sidewalks in cities and towns remain remarkably uncleared. I have not seen (or heard) a single snow blower since I arrived. There appears to be little if any use of salt to melt the snow and ice--I’m told this is because it’s bad for the rivers. Instead, gravel is spread on top of the ice and snow (which may or may not have been shoveled) to help make it less slippery.
Everyone complains about the resulting conditions; not just tourists. Sidewalks can be covered in 3-4 inches of slushy snow. Often the temperatures rise above 32 degrees during the day and then plunge at night, so that in the morning the gravel has been covered over by melted and refrozen ice. Until the gravel fairy visits again, walking will be treacherous. Across the country, 20,000 people each month will be injured from slipping on the ice.
Last weekend Benjamin and I and some friends visited Porvoo, a pretty town east of Helsinki with a lovely old section full of shops and cafes and a walking path along the river; a beautiful cathedral at the top of a steep hill, and a park with a statue of Finland’s national poet Johan Ludvig Runeberg, near the home where he grew up. The streets were so icy that our friends gave up on the cathedral; in order to get there Benjamin and I had to gather handfuls of gravel and toss them in front of us step by step so we could climb the hill. The brick pathways of the park looked more like an ice skating rink. Benjamin, in his sneakers, risked life and limb.
Yes, you are right, Benjamin should not have been wearing sneakers. (In his defense, the sidewalks had melted in Helsinki and he thought they would be clear in Porvoo as well.)
Shoes are serious business here. I bought new boots with “grip soles” a few weeks after I arrived, when I realized that the tread on mine were simply insufficient. Many people own boots with spikes built into them or slip-on spikes that you can fit over your regular shoes. In fact, according to a 2005 article, the government encouraged the entrepreneurial development of new kinds of ice-gripping shoes and provided spikes to elderly people for free. It’s a good example of the Finnish mixture of state investment in changing individual behavior. Like the use of reflective “life savers” to make yourself visible to cars in the dark, spiked shoes are seen as the appropriate response to snow and ice—it is your own responsibility to protect yourself from dangerous conditions. But the state (and entrepreneurs) will try to make it easier to do so.
There are cases, though, where this approach falls short. I am amazed by the elderly people I see on the icy sidewalks, some with the Nordic walking sticks, others with the walkers we are used to seeing in the states. Determined and careful, they make their way to their destinations. But I have to imagine that many others fear the icy conditions and stay indoors. Recently Benjamin and I were making our way carefully through six inches of slushy snow and ice on the streets of Helsinki to attend a concert at the public library. I came upon a young man with a cane who stood immobilized on the sidewalk, unable to navigate any further without help. I offered my arm, and we went forward together, very slowly, through the snow and ice, including down a steep set of stairs. He had been in a car accident, and after many surgeries, was relearning how to walk. He too was wearing inappropriate shoes—I still shudder when I think of those leather docksiders, soggy with snow and ice—I’m not sure why, but I imagine they were easy to slip on and off. He was cheerful enough, but once I experienced the streets from his point of view, the lack of snow and ice removal seemed to approach the level of a civil rights violation. This young man certainly did not have equal access to public spaces.
The National Disability Rights Policy, endorsed in 2007, is based on the following main principles: 1. The right of people with disabilities to equality.
2. The right of people with disabilities to inclusion. The preconditions for realization of the inclusion of people with disabilities are e.g.: positive attitudes; taking into account their needs; identification of barriers that restrict their inclusion; and the elimination of such barriers. Consequently action is needed to remove such barriers for inclusion. 3. The right of people with disabilities to necessary services and supportive measures.
I’m not sure whether local disability rights activists find the snow removal issue a concern.
This visiting bloggerfound Finland in the winter highly accessible in his motorized wheelchair, so perhaps it is not as big a problem as I surmise. But when I asked my friend Anne how the elderly and the disabled handle the Finnish winters, she replied that many thousands go to Spain, either just for the winter or permanently. Apparently there is a large expat community in Los Pacos, on the outskirts of the town of Fuengirola, in Malaga province, where Finnish have trained since the 1970s. A nice option for those who can, but not a practical fix for the whole country.
I like to think that part of the reason for all these icy sidewalks is that Finland must be a less litigious country than the US, and that I can appreciate. And I also appreciate how dogs here can go for walks here without harsh salt stinging their little paws. Likewise, I don’t miss the racket that snow blowers cause. But I think often of our Minnesotan neighbors and how we all helped each other clear the snow in front of our homes; those who owned snow blowers would invariably clear not just their own sidewalk but others’ as well. Those of us who had only shovels would help too. It was seen as our civic and neighborly duty to make sure that the route was safe for anyone who needed to go buy groceries or get to the school bus. Store owners and apartment managers wouldn't want to risk anyone falling in front of their doors. In North Carolina, where I live now, people often don’t shovel the occasional snow or clear the ice—sometimes because they don’t own the tools, sometimes because they figure it will melt in a few days at most. It bugs me, but I understand. And I'm glad that Turku goes about its business despite ice conditions that would create a dire emergency in Chapel Hill. But I admit that I am finding it hard to understand the approach here, where snow and ice are a daily fact for months at a time. I love the winter, and don’t wish for it to end quite yet, but I am looking forward to walking without worry.