Southern Finland

This scene is an original illustration set in Southern Finland. It lies in high latitudes, where the climate is subarctic — long freezing winters, brief summers.

A jagged skyline of dense spruce is reflected in a mirror-calm lake. A falu-red timber cabin with white window frames sits on the shore, a grey jetty in front of it with an overturned rowboat. A white birch leans into the frame, its leaves just beginning to turn.

Why are Nordic timber houses painted this particular red?

Falu red is an iron-oxide paint that preserves untreated timber cheaply, and it spread across the Nordic countries because the pigment was a by-product of copper mining. Spruce and birch together, with birch turning first, mark the southern edge of the boreal forest. A lake this still, this early, in air cold enough to colour leaves, places the morning in early autumn at a high northern latitude.

Terpano is a free daily geography puzzle. You study one original illustration, place a pin on a borderless terrain map, and see how close you were. There is no account and no sign-up; progress stays in your own browser. It plays in 11 languages.