In the movie “Hanna,” a man and his teenage daughter are living off the land in the wilds of Finland, at Kuusamo, just south of the Arctic Circle near the Russian border. It’s snowy and cold, an extreme environment with permafrost visible in one scene (though Spring seems to be in the air). Father and daughter wear fur clothing and live in a two-story cabin built of what appear to be split-rail logs and rough-hewn boards.
The “cabin” is little more than a semi-heated shed, providing only the shelter to keep off the worst weather. During the day, doors and windows are left open to the cold. At night, or in wind or weather, they close them, but large cracks are visible that let in cold air. They wear fur clothing in the cabin, and get warm sitting close to a massive fireplace with a cave-sized hearth. A second fire burns in a chimney niche in Hanna’s loft above, next to where she sleeps under a heavy fur coverlet.
I researched this a bit on the net. It appears that, in fact, Finnish cabins generally are of very high quality: tightly built, cozy, and nicely detailed. The bare shelter cabin in “Hanna” doesn’t appear in any ordinary Finnish context I found. I could find no explanation on official “Hanna” sites.
–Might such rough shelter actually be used in seasonal reindeer herding in Finland (the Saami cabins I found in National Geographic were all well-built), or more typical of another Arctic culture or of an earlier time?
–Or is this dwelling purely a creation of the director‘s visual storytelling, emphasizing a primitive life without real cultural context? Is it intended to carry some reference to Grimm‘s Fairy Tales?
If you want to see a documentary on what one man in the Alaskan wilderness can accomplish with simple hand tools, go to Youtube and search for Alone in the Wilderness. Dick Proenneke was da’ man!
Read a book once that explained how the proper, Northern-European, log cabin allowed the settling of northern North America, as the wattle and daub brought over by the Brits was useless against the climate.
This is what you read at lunch before the internet, though it’s probably on Google Books
But yeah, the father was probably not Bob the Builder, but that description is not far off from what I’ve read. I believe the technical term is “shit holes.”
Haven’t seen the film, but from the description in the OP, it seems the film makers have not tried to recreate any one past reality but have opted for the usual impressionistic, anachronistic approach, with elements of Siberian fisher-hunter-herder and historic Finnish peasant lifeways freely mixed with dramatic licence.
Visible cracks letting in cold air are a filmmaker fantasy. Surviving the winter is accomplished by making the building “airtight” using moss, flax or other compressible vegetable material between the layers of logs, as was standard practice. Also, no sane person would keep doors and windows open through the day in wintertime. Used intelligently (heat preservation-wise), axe-hewn log cabins with a hearth are quite comfy through the winter.
Two-story log cabins with a chimney are historic peasant houses that no fur parka-wearing hunter folk had, but traditional log dwelling design and architecture progressed all the way to the end of the 1800’s: the cabin in the film would’ve been primitive and poorly-made some 400 years ago. Modern log building tech (“the ordinary Finnish context”) is yet another thing, altogether.
Also, there is no permafrost in Finland, and the climate in Kuusamo is drastically more benign than at comparable latitude in North America, thanks to the Gulf Stream.
According to the interwebs, Finland does have permafrost.
Since Hanna’s father exposes her to an insanely high level of physical training, it’s not impossible that he’s okay with cracks between logs to toughen her up and keep her from ever becoming comfortable. In fact that’s what that whole part of the movie is about, right? Toughening up Hanna for the big reveal.
So it’s not authentic in that anyone would normally find something to stick in those cracks, but in the context of the movie, it’s fine.
I wonder where does it say so? I have studied Circumpolar geology and biology, and the fact (according to everything I’ve been presented with) is that there is no permafrost in Finland, apart from tiny patches of it in specific types of swamp in the very northernmost Lapland and on top of some of the highest peaks there. Nowhere else in the 337 000 km2 land. Nowhere where there are buildings, roads or other infrastructure. Kuusamo lies some 300 km south of these tiny patches of swamp and mountain permafrost in Finland.
To say Finland has permafrost is like saying there are walnut trees in Alaska. I’m sure there are individual walnut trees in Alaskan arboretums, sheltered city gardens etc. But walnut trees have no role whatsoever in the Alaskan realm, just like permafrost has none in Finland. Granted, Finland is an anomaly in this regard, as permafrost is a major phenomena with a profound presence most everywhere else at similar latitudes.
Well I don’t want to get into the disagreement over permafrost but I feel an obligation to explain my remark on it.
In the scene where Eric digs up the electronic signaling equipment the sides of the hole APPEAR to me to have the ice crystalization you find below the surface with permafrost, which I have seen for myself in Fairbanks, Alaska (didn’t notice any Walnut trees there–but Alaska gardeners love a challenge).
Kuusamo is just south of the Arctic Circle, like Fairbanks. In Fairbanks, temps went as low as -60 while I was there, and permafrost was an everyday engineering consideration when building anything. “Frost heaves” distort the highways like rollercoasters and require regular maintenance. If Kuusamo is much warmer, that is interesting indeed.
I’ve been to the Arctic Circle in Finland in summer, nearly at the eastern border at one point, and I can confirm there is no permafrost there. I’ve also been 130 miles north of the Arctic Circle in Sweden and there was no permafrost there either.
Actually I might be wrong about the far north of Sweden - when I was there the temperature was about 25C so I didn’t really consider whether there would be underground permafrost.
“There was a lot of research into cabins from all over the world. Then we settled on a more traditional Northern European cabin and built it – as much as possible – in a naturalistic way.”
My expertise is non-existent, but I have to point out that you said there was no permafrost in Finland, whereas clearly there is some. My source was this, which says ‘extensive’ permafrost exists, plus some linkings of the International Permafrost Association to places with lovely names like Litto. I assume you know your stuff better than me, and that it’s limited to the north…fine, I was just reacting to the declarative “no”.
But putting that aside, since you know your stuff, a question: why is permafrost a big deal? Why is there an international association dedicated to it? For me it was just a word I learned in 8th grade earth science and never thought about again, but clearly there’s something more to it…there are actually annual conferences!
The reason permafrost is important is that if you build a structure or a road on permafrost, the permafrost will melt, the ice will turn to water and drain away, the soil will sink, and your structure will slump over.
To build on permafrost you have to use special techniques. Best way is to build your strucutre on pilings that can be adjusted to keep your house level, with plenty of air space under the house. A traditional foundation would result in disaster.
However, even in Alaska it’s not like there’s permafrost everywhere. You can pretty much tell what areas have permafrost by the vegetation. Permafrost traps water near the surface, so permafrost areas are boggy. But plants can’t send down deep roots, so the trees are small and gnarled, like this: Paleoclimatology | National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)
Just so we’re clear, “permafrost” means areas where the subsoil remains frozen even in summer. This isn’t the same thing as permanent ice cover in summer, which is a glacier, not permafrost.
So you have soil with an active layer that freezes and thaws during winter and summer, then layers of permafrost which can include ice wedges, and then below that warmer lower layers that never freeze.
All of Europe is warmer than North America at the same latitude. Spain is roughly at the same latitude as Lake Michigan; a lot of Spain has the same weather as Baja California.
