Sami Maaranen
53 supporters
Canoeing the Kokemäki River 4/6

Canoeing the Kokemäki River 4/6

Oct 18, 2022

This a series of posts about paddling the whole Kokemäenjoki ("Kokemäki River") and out to Reposaari island at the Bothnia Sea with my friend A-J. It was 130 kilometer journey and took six amazing days of adventuring.


Canoeing the Kokemäki River - part 4/6

The Day of the Kingfisher

16th of August | 2022

We woke up to the couple of squirrels running around and frolicking in the nearby pines. It was early morning, the sun was just rising. We decided to go at summer camp property to make breakfast. There was a good fireplace terrace outside the sauna cabin which you could enter freely, and since there was no-one there we borrowed the facilities to make porridge with our trusty portable cooking device. While making the breakfast we charged our cellphones and powerbanks from the outdoors power sockets. The morning was partly cloudy, we felt spry, and hurried to get paddling in the cool of the dawn. Well, it didn't take long before the accumulating muscle strain could be felt again, but we've used to live with it by now.

In less than an hour we reached our first stop of the day. The swimming beach of Harjavalta. It was the most luxurious swimming beach on this journey with nice benches and indoors toilet with electric lights and warm water. Wow. We hadn't seen those inventions for a few days.

After a nice break at the swimming beach we headed onwards, and soon there was yet another had seen hydroelectric power plant in our way. And this was a bit different kind of challenge. Yes, again we would have to roll the canoe quite a distance to reach the river after the power plant, but now there was also a huge elevation gap to overcome.

This is a view from the Harjavalta hydroelectric power plant bridge. There's the deep river in the distance, but it's also way down below.

And the way to go to down there at the river, would be to carry the canoe down these narrow and steep stairs. And here it's only the first of the three stairs sections to be seen.

Luckily A-J had summoned his brother who lives nearby at the location to assist us. It was quite a stair running workout to first bring all the backpacks and gear down the stairs, and then follow carrying the canoe, but nothing too demanding for us.

After rolling the canoe through a beautiful groves for a good while we reached the river again, took a little break and went paddling again. From there on the river was a common for its rapid fishing possibilities for a good while. For this reason there were quite a few shelters on the way, and decent currents too which carried us along more nice and easily than ever before on the journey.
One of the many shelters by the river today. Here we stopped to prepare a quick lunch of the day.
And then off to paddle again ...


Our next destination was a swimming beach at Nakkila, and now we would have to paddle the first real rapids on our way - the rapids of Arantila. Shortly before the rapids we made a simple rapid paddling strategy and agreed of short commands to use ("left", "right", "don't paddle", "paddle", "rock ahead" etc.) and there we went.

Here we go paddling the first rapids of the journey.

It wasn't too wild, nor too difficult. It was fun! After the rapids there was a swimming beach where A-J had summoned more of his relatives who live nearby. We we're welcomed at the shore as a great adventurers. We had a nice break there, telling stories from the journey and relaxing before the last leg of the day.

For the night we were heading at the shelter about one hour paddling distance away. It would be located in the near vicinity of another rapids. On the way there was 1,5 kilometers long narrow island in the river called Church Island. According to folklore there had been a church in the middle ages, and the earliest known settlement from 1500's.
The shores around the island were really interesting, lush in green, with almost tropical feeling. And suddenly a small bird bounced off from the shore and started circling above the river. At first we thought it was one of the ordinary aquatic birds of the river, but as it approached us the glowing blue coloring was clearly noticed. A-J recognized it as a Common Kingfisher. Despite of the name it's not a common species in Finland. It's estimated that there are only 1-10 nesting couples in whole Finland. We had been astonished many times on the journey, but this did beat all the previous wildlife encounters. The kingfisher flew past us and fled out of sight downstream.
This is the spot where we encounter the Kingfisher. We stayed there for a good while if it would return and A-J could get a photo. Here he is wading and lurking with his camera. But the King went fishing somewhere else... so we also went paddling onward.

Today we were approaching our night-to-spend destination in so nicely early that we decided to get on shore and explore the Church Island a bit. It's completely uninhabited island, but there were large fields with some crops growing. The long and ancient history of human presence at the island was also clearly felt as we discovered a small cemetery with only a few graves.
The oldest graves at the Church Island were from the mid 1800's, and even today there were fresh flowers. Some people are regularly respecting the to late ones of their family at this almost private-like cemetery, which isn't all too easy to reach.

Shortly before 8 p.m. the shelter we were about to spend the night came in our sight. It was a located in a small island in the middle of a bit more fierce rapids than earlier today. So, we entered the Ruskilankoski (Ruskila Rapids) using our short and simple command based paddling strategy.

Here we go paddling the Ruskilankoski (Ruskila Rapids) and entering the shore of the shelter island.

The rapids look, feel and sound way different from the distance than when you're actually paddling in there. So, here's the Ruskilankoski seen from the shelter island. This is the current we paddled trough, then took a tight curve to the right and entered the shelter island pretty much from straight behind the camera view.

Today we had paddled around 19 kilometers, and with the help of currents it had gone quite swiftly. We had plenty of daylight left to enjoy explore the surroundings at the shelter island and set up our camp.


A-J did some photographing, I went for a walk and swim. The shelter was nice and spacious and we could easily hang both of the hammocks well under the roof.

Today we also had lots of energy to spend for cooking, so we combined many different ingredients and ended up making quite experimental late night supper based on buckwheat pasta, soya chunks, coconut milk, and special seasoning.

It was slow cooking, though, so it was already dark when we finally got eat the experimental main dish. The moon was slowly raising, the rapids kept roaring, and it was close to midnight when we finally get to sleep. It was such amazing day, and today the river had felt like more of a river than ever before.

This was the fourth day. Stay tuned for the next post.


Now should you feel like buying a coffee for a weary paddler one of the upsides is that every supporter gets e-mail notifications when future posts are up.

Enjoy this post?

Buy Sami Maaranen a coffee

2 comments

More from Sami Maaranen