The Song of the Riverside

[ EPF 2019 FINALIST ]

We need to understand where we are and how we got here. Once we are clear on these issues we can move forward…. (Thomas Berry) Rivers have river rights as well as humans have human rights. People, communities, environments, and nature have deep interrelated connection. A connection that is more complex than an ownership of land, a fishing permit, a cottage on the riverside, or a beautiful sundown on the opposite shore of the river. The name of the river in these photos is Iijoki. The name comes from an ancient word of Sami (’iddja’, ’ijje’), which means ’night’. So, the name of this river is Night. Night- River flows through Yli-Ii, the riverside village, which belongs now to bigger city of Oulu. It means that there are no public services any more. The village is disappearing. Night-River is full of songs of memories, and its riverbanks are full of people with these memories. Some of them are sacred, silenced, or even untold. Usually it seems that nobody wants to remember the song of the unforgotten village – and the blocked river. But some of the songs are still alive, or they are waking up through the people, who are starting to re-member the song of the wild, free-flowing river.

You need a light to walk along the unknown path to your dream.

A man has heard the river singing a sad song.

A surge tank for the thousands smells, and a listening dog – it’s that time of the year.

This landscape gives you a permission to be who you really are. But it’s only the landscape, not the people.

The last wild ones – a ringer man and a young Ural owl.

The deserted gazebo of the secret kisses.

The last will.

Looking for habitants of the wilderness.

This is the back part of my next Metamorphosis – ready to flow with the river. Its teardrops have covered my back.

Ludicrous droll family, who does whatever it will.

Stolen dreams.

There’s a dark land in the North, where people can create their own light – when it’s the darkest time of the year.

The landscape of the village, and the diversity and ecology of native nature, changed totally during the 1960s, when the river was dammed – and there were built many hydroelectric power-plants in it. The damming of the river was one of the biggest eco catastrophes in the area of North Finland. But it was also catastrophic for the whole society of the village and its families in many – maybe still unidentified and unconscious – ways. Nowadays the eco catastrophes is still going strong – in clearcutting and swamp ditching. But the second longest river in Finland – with its 150 rapids – is still alive under all the constructions, destructions of riverbeds, and hydroelectric dams. It lives also in peoples’ minds and bodies, in their eyes and destinies.

What more should I need? Everything is here, near. Simple life – fresh bread and catch of the upcoming summer makes you happy.

One light in the dark is the light of the belief system. But a Spirit of Riverside does not know any systems, because it’s the system itself. Natural system.

One of the Riverside Factories of Today. Unnatural System.

Why did you have to go? Where did you go? I do not recognize your shape any more, it has disappeared into the shadows. I still miss you.

I used to know this wilderness, this riverside, and all the birds and fish of it. I used to know all the paths. Now I am just standing here and looking at the devastated landscape. They have blocked the flow of water, logged the growth of trees. What can I do?

The Fall.

Please, forgive me, what I have done. Forgive all my sins, A Holy Spirit of the Swamp.

You do not want to know anything of my life under the red lights. Anyway, this is not Pigalle, or Reeperbahn. This is the red life of the livestock.

Looking for a luckier dawn.

The Earth gives you what you want, but it also leaves you addicted to it.

At some night, in some of my dreams, I am still traveling through the riverside. It can’t get me from its grip, It has decided to take me home. I am almost there. When I will raise my eyes to look the whole view, I may see where I am, who I am.

Once upon a time there was a huge, long river, which was full of big salmons, who swam up the river every summer. When people blocked the river, and the salmons could not gain, and they changed themselves to rainbows. Sometimes, somewhere, in the riverside of some wild little river, which still exists, you could trap a fish called rainbow trout. She will tell you the ancient love story of the big wild rivers and salmons.

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The Emerging Photographer Fund is supported by generous donors to the Magnum Foundation