Midsummer in a Cabin Without Electricity Is the Only Holiday I Need

In Finland, Midsummer is the moment the cities empty. On the Friday before the weekend, everyone drives out to a cabin by a lake, and Helsinki turns into a ghost town with empty trams. For the past eleven years, my family and I have gone to the same rented cabin on a lake in Central Finland, about three hours north of Tampere. It has no electricity, a wood stove, an outhouse, and a rowing boat with one slightly shorter oar.

I want to describe what we do there, because it is the simplest holiday I know and the one I look forward to most.

Arriving

The road ends about two hundred metres from the cabin, and the last part is a footpath through birch and blueberry bushes. The first thing we do every year is open all the windows and shutters, sweep out the dead flies and spiders, and hang the bedding outside to air. Then I check the boat for leaks. It has leaked a little every year for eleven years and has never sunk.

The cabin belongs to an old man named Veikko who lives in the nearest village. He leaves a bag of new potatoes and a jar of his wife's rhubarb jam on the table for us. We have never once been there at the same time.

The light that does not end

At this latitude in late June, the sun sets for only an hour or two, and it never gets truly dark. The sky goes pale orange around midnight, then pale yellow, then it is morning again. The first night always confuses my body. I lie in bed at one in the morning reading without a lamp.

This is the strangest and best part. Without electricity, without dark, time loses its shape. We eat when we are hungry. We sleep when we are tired. My teenage son, who at home cannot be pried out of bed before noon, wakes at five and goes fishing.

What we eat

Midsummer food is simple. New potatoes boiled with dill and served with butter. Pickled herring from a jar. Smoked salmon. Sausages grilled over the fire. Strawberries, which in late June are just arriving and taste like nothing else in the year. We cook on the wood stove or on the fire pit by the shore.

The bonfire

On Midsummer Eve, many lakeside communities light a big bonfire, a kokko, on the shore. Ours is across the lake, built by the families on the other side. Around ten in the evening we row out into the middle of the lake and watch it burn while the sky stays light behind it. You can hear accordion music drifting over the water and sometimes singing. Then we row back slowly, my son complaining about the short oar.

Going home

After four days we pack up, close the shutters, and leave a thank-you note for Veikko along with some chocolate. Every year I promise myself I will bring the slowness back to the city with me. Every year I last about a week.

But I always have the next June to look forward to, and the cabin, and the boat that never quite sinks.