In July 2024, some members of The OSS Team travelled deep into the Finnish wilderness to swim through the Oulanka National Park. Could it be the best swim in the world?
‘I’m never doing another swim event again,’ Kari sobbed, two days before we were due to depart. We’d got it into our heads to swim 12km down a remote river on the edge of the Arctic Circle, but training hadn’t gone to plan. (When does it?)
We have been swim buddies for a long time. Kari holds the distinction of being the first person to test the swim events I set up – the Bantham Swoosh, Hurly Burly and Dart 10K. She’s a pioneer who’s bold enough to never follow the rules. But the Downhill Swim had overwhelmed her. All the usual fears were there – cold, fitness, etc. – plus a new one: being the slowest. We’d never talked about age. There was no need. Being the slowest had never happened before. But there we were, alongside younger and ex-club swimmers, ages 34, 39, 54 and 74.
We tend to prepare for swim events by swimming longer distances more often, but the leap from the 10km river swims we’re both familiar with to this unknown 12km distance meant we had to do ‘training’. So I made a plan, with weeks, sets and objectives. I got my head around the idea of two-hour training swims and cold sprint sessions, while our WhatsApp group buzzed with swim speeds and progress. Kari was not in her element.
Just before we left, an event email pinged into my inbox. ‘If the water is below 12 degrees, then swimmers must wear boots and gloves.’ ‘Hm,’ I said to myself, ‘if the water is below 12 degrees, we have much worse problems than accessories.’ Cold is my weak spot and we’d estimated this was going to take at least three hours. That didn’t feel like a distance I could manage.
And so (‘Kari, don’t even think about not coming!’), we set off, feeling unprepared, with no idea what was going to happen, only to return home a few days later convinced that we’d experienced one of – if not the – best swim events in the world.
Cameron Alexander
Reino Hartikainen
The midnight sun, reindeer watching from the breach, authentic wood-fires saunas: the Downhill Swim is uniquely Finnish. But perhaps the most Finnish thing of all was the start line, with the promise of a full morning immersed in nature stretching out ahead of us.
Finland is famously one of the happiest countries in the world and what stands out for me is just how much time the Finns spend outdoors. Days outside seem to begin with an attitude of openness, discovery and a relaxed sense of time, as though you’re opening a door from our hectic lives to a place which is always ready for an adventure.
Cameron (my swim buddy) and I left the UK bellyaching about whether we were fit enough to swim 12km, but we ended up doubling the distance to 24km. Why? Because the conditions were amazing: the sun shining, the water warm, the flow high, with beautiful boreal forest everywhere you looked. I stopped thinking of the event as an endurance challenge. ‘Let’s just have a good day out there,’ we agreed. ‘The last couple of hours might be a little desperate, but hey ho.’
Cameron Alexander
In 2024, 100 pairs of swimmers set off at 8am from the 24km start line, followed at 11am by the the same number again from the 12km start line. It took a while for the initial crowd to dissipate, but once we reached 6km, the field was spread, with pairs of swimmers on their own journeys down the Oulanka.
This requirement is all about safety: every pair has to take tow floats, with a charged phone, the Event Directors’ contact details, emergency blankets and compression bandages.
But whatever the practical reasons behind the rule – and the difficulty of finding someone who is not only the same pace as you but who you also want to travel to Finland with and swim alongside for 5+ hours! – there is an unexpected benefit: the whole swim revolves around your partnership. It’s not you vs. the finish line. It’s not you in a conversation with yourself. It’s a joint endeavour: you belong to each other; you’re experiencing something extraordinary together; and, all the time, you’re looking out for them, in both senses of the phrase.
‘Did you have any special moments?’ asked Amanda, part of the second duo in our OSS Team. Yes, I had one: while chatty to begin with, weaving between all the other swimmers, Cameron and I fell into a period of silence, checking on each other visually but trying to make good progress. We were swimming over riffles – bodies flat, speed increasing, skimming over the stones – and I felt so grateful to him for sharing this quiet moment with me, to be out here on a day like this.
Cameron Alexander
Cameron Alexander
Need I say more?
Cameron Alexander
Cameron Alexander
With every stroke, there is so much to see. At the start, the gorge is narrow and the pine, spruce and larch forest is tall, but the landscape begins to open out, until the river is flanked by warm sandy alluvial beaches. During our swim, the sky was blue, the water clear and the swoosh so strong that the riverbed actually blurred at times from the speed. We spent the entire swim following trails of bubbles to find the fastest part of the current.
Before the swim, my biggest concern was the cold, but because the river is so shallow in parts, we could feel the temperature rising as the kilometres swooshed past. By the end, the water was 18 degrees. Add it all together and these are unforgettable conditions for a swim.
Reino Hartikainen
Before we set off, as we changed in small clusters under the trees, balancing between bilberry bushes, I stashed some gels in the legs of my wetsuit. But it turned out there was no need. Instead, there were feeding stations at 8, 14, 16, 18 and 21km. At each station, we scrambled out onto deserted beaches with smoking fires, where we enjoyed Maxim bars, sweets and drinks from an upturned canoe.
Swimming can be a lonely sport, but these impromptu camps, where we chatted to the other pairs, felt like small parties, with all of us dangling tow-float balloons between our legs. These were special moments which helped break up the distance. Once we’d reached 14km, it felt as though we were almost there. Not only were we now in the realms of a distance we’d swum before (‘only 10km to go!’), we had 2km before the next feeding station. And then the next two, and the next two, and so on, until the end.
Cameron Alexander
Cameron Alexander
Cameron Alexander
‘There will be limited space in the saunas, but that’s never stopped a Finn,’ the Event Director quipped. ‘I know you North Americans have issues with nudity but Finns don’t, so get used to it.’ I had to giggle at the openness of it all. No sucking of teeth, no toxic customer feedback, no trying to please everyone all the time – forget it. These guys weren’t hamstrung by consumer reviews. As it turned out, there was plenty of room in the saunas. (And, yes, people did wear their cossies.)
Simo Vilhunen
Simo Vilhunen
‘The official measure of the downhill is very fast,’ the Event Director explained.
‘Will there be a lead canoe?’ asked one nervous Brit.
‘No.’
‘But I paddled it the other day and there seemed to be options on the route?’
‘Well, we haven’t lost anyone yet! Next?’
I couldn’t stop smiling: what a great culture! If I’d answered questions like this while running the Dart 10K, there would have been tuts, eye-rolls and frustrated whispers of unprofessionalism and ineptitude. Running outdoor events in the UK is a masterclass in micromanagement. Not here. People have respect for the outdoors. You can manage your own risks and make the most of the world around you.
And guess what, Kari loved it. (‘But I am never doing another one!’)
Simo Vilhunen
So, are you persuaded? Keen to experience it for yourself?
Here’s what you need to know: