I always knew that I wanted to study at the University of Helsinki, but I never planned a career in research. When Juhani U.E. Lehtonen, my predecessor and the Professor of Ethnology, asked me to become an assistant during the final stages of my studies, he said that the work would include postgraduate studies. When we discussed the subject of my dissertation, I proposed doing research on river driving on the Kemijoki river. I knew the subject like the back of my hand and although it was central to the history of Lapland and Finland, it had not been addressed as a topic for ethnographic research at all.

I distinctly remember the moment I ran upstairs to tell my sister, who was also studying in the Faculty of the Arts, that I would get to research river driving and Lapland. I got the same feeling of elation when I read a review of my dissertation, ‘A requiem of an Era. River Driving in Finnish Lapland’, in the Kainuun Sanomat newspaper. The reviewer thought that reading it was like coming across a good crop of cloudberries in the forest. I felt that I had succeeded in what is important to me as a researcher: writing scientifically relevant research that also offers something to the people which the research concerns. This memory also sums up my appreciation of the 375-year-old University of Helsinki: we are a university for all of Finland!