The Spanish flu, now called an influenza pandemic, a world-embracing epidemic, broke out at the end of the first World War in the spring of 1918. About 30-40 million people in the world died from the Spanish flu. In Finland in 1918-1920, about 30,000 more people than normally died. The greatest amount of these were due to influenza. In addition to this, at least 2,500 red partisan prisoners in prisoner of war camps were victims of influenza during the civil war. One of the unusual characteristics of the Spanish flu was the exceptional number of young adults who died.

In Finland, as in other countries, the Spanish flu broke out in waves of a few month intervals. The deadliest wave was in autumn, 1918, when the influenza spread nearly immediately to all inhabited parts of the earth. It even reached Lapland and in Kittilä, for example, nearly 40 inhabitants died. The disease was rather docile in Inari then and did not spread much.

The final display of the Spanish flu began in December, 1919. In Finland the most devastating wave of influenza was experienced in Inari. Inari and Utsjoki regional physician Yrjö Jukola noted that the first to fall ill to influenza occurred on the 10th of January, 1920 in the village of Kaamanen. The patients became infected on a market trip to the village of Näätämö on the Norwegian side. The disease spread rapidly throughout the whole of Kaamanen and to other villages.

The symptoms of the Spanish flu were at their worst exceptionally severe. Young people could die from pneumonia caused by the virus even in a couple days. Additional horrific symptoms were the patients becoming blue and hemorrhaging.

Dr. Jukola wired the Department of Health a distress signal, “The Spanish flu spread all over Lapland and rages extremely difficult, death toll high, send itinerant nurses to assist.”

Many contemporary stories tell how people left from remote villages to the church village to seek help, but became exhausted during the trip and died from the cold. A pharmacist named Eränen said, “There were many a deathbed here that were just cleaned, but – cold.”

A nurse attested that the Spanish flu opened “the eyes of the people to see that the disease was really infectious.” Lusman Piettari did not allow any travelers into his house and Lusmaniemi was thus spared from the disease – almost the only house in the whole municipality. There were no effective medicines against the influenza, but the people put their trust in three things: alcohol, tar and sauna.

The first week in February was the worst. Up to 80 Inari citizens died then. There were so many corpses, that some had to be buried in mass graves. In all, the Spanish flu killed in a two months period 190 people in Inari, or nearly a tenth of the population in the municipality.

Mortalities among the Sámi and Finnish populations were about the same amount. The Spanish flu was anyway a graver blow to the Sámi society because it reduced their ability to resist pressures from the Finns. The Spanish flu occurred before the union of Petsamo when many Finns moved to Inari.

The Spanish flu left about 120 orphans. The children were cared for partly with collections in new orphanages in a fully Finnish language environment, which served to promote the Finnish culture.

The catastrophe in Inari was due to the sum of many factors. Society was unprotected from the killer virus. People move around a lot during the winter and this led to the instantaneous spread of the epidemic to nearly all villages. The sudden falling ill of the working population led to the collapse of a relief network. Parents in families tried up to the end to perform essential tasks even while sick. It is impossible to say how many died directly due to influenza and how many from lack of basic care, cold and thirst.

Eila Linnanmäki

“Horrible News from Inari”

“A 13 year old boy from Menesjärvi village skied 40 kilometers to Inari to get bread and other necessities. He was the only inhabitant in his house. His mother was already here for care previously. The boy stayed at a few houses and said in the morning that he saw many angels driving reindeer in his dreams. The boy was sure that now his mother was dead – the angels had come with the reindeer to get his mother. I admitted that that was true. Mournful tears fell onto the young Lapp boy’s cheek…
A cousin of the above mentioned boy was sent to the same village with goods. He arrived at a house, but it was deserted. He went to the barn and found a mother dead with her two children there. The youngest of the children opened his eyes, but could not speak. In a moment, he too was but a corpse. They had crawled into the barn but didn’t have the strength to look for firewood – and milk would have been even closer. Everything ended there. The cow was led to be cared for by people in another village.”

- Pharmacist Eränan’s account in Pohjolan Sanomat newspaper 3.3.1920