How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb

Cooling off after a sauna on Risholmen, Sanna's family island. Photo / Matt Kennedy-Good

Although I moved to Finland more than eight months ago, it is only recently that I have realised the mortal danger I am in.

As a New Zealander, I am accustomed to living in one of the most benign environments in the world. While growing up the only I time I saw poisonous animals, war or serious pollution was on television.

Far from taking this safety for granted, it is something that I have always found as a source of comfort and even pride. Australians can have their stack of medals, I would think to myself as I read the depressing Olympic tallies, but silly little pieces of gold aren't going to save them from a tsunami of deadly snakes, crocodiles and dingos.

With its clean streets, abundant forests and responsible government, I assumed Finland would be a safe place to live like NZ. It is only now that I am actually spending some time outdoors, that I have realised how wrong I was.

Much of summer, for Finns, is spent away from the cities in summer houses by a lake or the sea.

I was mightily impressed when I first heard that not only did my soon-to-be girlfriend Sanna have a summer house by the sea, her extended family owned the whole island it was on. By the time I found out that this is quite common in a country which holds world records for most second houses per capita, most lakes (187,888) and most islands (179,584) it was too late: I had already moved to Helsinki to live with her.

While at this island, along with eating, fishing, swimming and taking saunas, it has become a hobby of mine to find new ways to die.

Like the strange looking guy in a trench coat on the street after dark, moose are the most obvious danger. With their long, thin legs and heavy, ungainly bodies, if you crash into a moose the chances are it will plough through your windscreen. Even with thousands of kilometres of high fences to keep them off the roads, they still kill many Finns each year.

If a moose doesn't get you on the way to your summer house, snakes might once you are there. Last weekend I was blundering barefoot through the grass impressing Sanna with the hardiness of my soles, when I came face to face with a black and yellow snake.

Sanna - who I pushed in front of me (she had shoes on) - identified it as of the non-poisonous variety, but informed me that there were potentially lethal vipers around as well.

Other dangers in the Finnish countryside that you won't find in NZ include:

Bears - not usually aggressive, one did attack a women in northern Finland just last week.

Ticks - apparently these little black bugs are not male ladybirds or "ladyboys" as I thought, but rather skin burrowing terrors that can give you Lyme disease. Don't let them fool you.

Fish - only after eating a second helping of fresh flounder on Sunday was I told by Sanna's Uncle that that fish from the area should not be eaten more than once a week due to toxic levels of dioxins.

Russians - Although historically a serious threat to Finland, recently the only injuries they have caused is by crashing into people on the ski-fields.

But looming above all these dangers is a monster that New Zealand has fought hard to keep from its shores: Nuclear power.

Even above our anti-snake policy, our anti-nuclear stance has always been a source of pride and identity for New Zealanders. Every day on my way to college I recall driving passed a sign saying "Upper Hutt: Proudly nuclear free."

Until global warming and the recent spike in oil prices brought the energy debate back to the front pages, I had assumed that nuclear power was, as a 2002 French Government report said "a monster with no future."

Finland, one might think, with thousands of lakes, a low population and a responsible Government would be the last place that would need to take any risks with nuclear power. After all, in Finland (and in Britain, Germany and Sweden) there are still restrictions on eating berries, fish and mushrooms in certain areas because of fallout from Chernobyl.

The problem is that Finland is flat. It might have the most lakes in the world, but they aren't much good for generating electricity. It also has one of the highest per capita rates of power consumption in the world, equal to that of the US and double that of New Zealand (which doesn't surprise me given we couldn't turn our apartment's heating off during the winter, even when we went on holiday).

To meet its power hungry needs, Finland has long relied upon nuclear power. Far from seeing this as a problem, Finns see it as part of the solution to reducing carbon emissions and reliance on fossil fuels. Currently, not far from Helsinki, an international consortium is building the world's first third generation nuclear power plant.

When this plant finally starts working - it is years behind schedule and billions over budget - it will cut greenhouse emissions equal to all of Finland's transport emissions.

With snakes in the grass, moose on the roads, ticks in the trees, Russians on the ski-fields and nuclear power in every home, I am now living in the nightmare that I always considered myself lucky to avoid.

The thing is, when you actually live with these things they barely cross your mind. Nobody else seems to be bothered by them, and worrying would be tiresome, especially when the risk of falling victim to any of them is statistically slight.

The only loss then, is the feeling of pride and security derived from living in an anti-nuclear and anti-snake environment. Although it is impossible to put a price on safety (or pride), if I had to, I would say that it is a fair trade off for a warm house and the fun of spotting moose in the countryside.*

*I reserve the right to change my mind about this if there is a nuclear meltdown.

Matt Kennedy-Good

Photo above: Moose, Porkkala. Photo / Matt Kennedy-Good