Santalahti nature trail

2. Seafarer’s guide

Seafarers’ navigation marks are an essential part of the maritime environment. Signs relating to navigation are protected by law, and their deliberate damaging is a punishable deed.

3. Table-top Norway spruce

Table-top Norway spruce (Picea abies f. tabulaeformis) means a topless forest spruce, which grows horizontally but not much vertically. In old beliefs and in colloquial language, this growth phenomenon of the spruce was called the table of Tapio, the forest god.

4. Shingle beach

Shingle beaches are natural formations that emerged after the ice age. They were formed as ice pushed stones into embankments on what was the seaside area at that time. In the old days, people imagined that the devil himself had gathered stones into fields that he cultivated.

5. Waterfront plants

This rocky beach is home to some typical seaside plants of the area.

Grill place

Possibility to grill with a sea view. Please bring your own firewood, and take your rubbish with you upon leaving.

6. Seaside pine forest

The seaside pines with their shield bark are as much as 200 years old.

7. Bog depression

The bog depression located on a barren cliff offers a habitat for plants usually found on bogs, such as marsh Labrador tea, hare’s-tail cottongrass and small red peat moss. 

8. Map of the nearest islands

You are standing on a seaside cliff that is over 1,500 million years old. In good weather you can see the island of Kaunissaari in Pyhtää.

9. Stone steps

The stone steps in front of you are the steps of Syrak protected by the Antiquities Act. The steps have been named after Syrak Mussalo, who built them in the late 19th century.

10. Rapakivi granite

Much of the bedrock in the Kymenlaakso region is composed of rapakivi granites. The deposit belongs to the large rapakivi massif of Vyborg (South-East Finland), which extends from the Loviisa region to the eastern side of Vyborg in Russia. Some of the rapakivi types, such as the boulder in front of you, gradually degrade into gravel-like material. Rapakivi, the Finnish name of this rock type, is also its English name, which reflects its regional specialty. Rapakivi granites formed about 1.6 billion years ago.

11. Dead standing tree

Dead standing trees have dried up and dropped their bark. The spirality of the trunk characteristic of dead standing trees is due to the distortion of the meristem during the growth of the tree.

12. Aspen

The aspen is an important tree species in terms of forest biodiversity and landscape management, and it is a so-called key species. The aspen has an incredible number of companion organisms: about 1,000 species, about 120 of which depend on the aspen. More than 50 of the species that are dependent on the aspen are endangered.

13. Triangulation tower

This site used to house a 10.2-metre tall triangulation tower built in 1954. All that remains of the tower now are the mounting irons and the number 53 of the tower chiselled in the cliff. Triangulation is based on geometry. Satellite positioning systems replaced triangulation. 

14. Ferns

Fern forests and groves that are in pristine condition are so-called key biotopes, in other words valuable habitats of forest nature, whose characteristics must be preserved in forest management. 

Viewpoint

Viewpoint by the Niinilahti bay.

15. Erratic boulder

This erratic boulder may have been carried up to dozens of kilometres by the continental glacier from the place where it was disengaged from the bedrock. Large erratic boulders, boulder fields and cobble deposits on the ground are significant small-scale geological sites, some of which are also protected by the Nature Conservation Act.

16. Transmission line area

The terrain must be kept clear under an electricity transmission line. This make the forests more fragmented, but on the other hand it also increases diversity and enables the formation of meadows and other habitats.

17. Mossy fairy-tale forest

Mossy fairy-tale forest and fairy-tale character’s hole.

18. Flood meadow wetland

Small red peat mosses, many sedge plants as well as the bog arum with its beautiful flowers but poisonous berries thrive in the wetland habitat.

19. Decaying wood

The amount of decaying wood in a pristine forest can be up to dozens of times greater than the amount of such wood in managed forests. Hundreds of species of fungi, lichens, mosses and various insects depend on decaying wood. Many hole nesters such as the willow tit and the black woodpecker are also dependent on decaying wood. 

20. Piles of stones that supported searchlights

These stone piles were piled up during the Continuation War (1941 - 1944) to support spotlights that used to be located here. 

21. Old gravel pit

A lot of subsoil water is filtered especially in ridge areas and sandy coniferous forest areas. Sometimes the subsoil water rises above the ground or flows into a waterway. In this case the subsoil water is referred to as a spring. At this point, subsoil water has risen to the ground because gravel has been taken from the ground up to the level of the subsoil water.