Stories from lakes
(and a bit ashore, too)

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Steamboat Tarjanne is the last steamboat operating in a scheduled long-haul traffic on the Finnish lake area. The steamer is still cruising between Tampere, Ruovesi and Virrat just as it was 115 years ago. The video below provides a glimpse into the steamboat's long history. Although the video was made in 2020, the history of the steamboat remains unchanged. The Importance of Water Transport in the Early 20th Century The story...
The weather conditions for Nordic skating have varied a lot this season. Unfortunately (for skating enthusiasts), it has been snowing rather quickly every time after there has been a longer period of subzero temperatures. So, the skating season in the lake areas has been challenging. However, there are nice options for skating such as kicksledding. Even though it's really different, one can stay on ice at least. Below you can...
A Nordic skating tour from Tampere to Virrat (or vice versa) has been one of my skating dreams. I have done this trip in parts (part 1, part 2) in 2019, but never in one day. And truth speaking, it remained a very distant dream even four years ago. The route itself is very familiar to me: I used to work aboard steamboat Tarjanne in the beginning of the...

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I got the idea about starting this blog when I was building a website for Villipihlaja experience and activity service provider—website design is something...
When I started this blog, one of my aims was to present some tourism service providers which I use myself or that I am...
In the previous text about activities in Tampere I dealt with activities in and around nature. As Tampere is—at least in the Finnish scale—a...
In many tourism and travel research surveys, culture is one of the most important reasons to visit a certain destination. The problem is—if there...

Mikko Manka

In the winter, I conduct different (applied) studies of tourism (and try to advance my PhD on the history of Interrail). In the summertime you can probably find me aboard Finnish steamboats, in the winter (tour) skating over ice. In this blog, you will find stories about skating, steamboats, tourism and research. Perhaps something else, too. The opinions are my own, you can't blame anyone else.
Welcome aboard!

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