How to make money on flood waters.

TALLINN - We are in the 5th season: The snow melts, the bogs and marshes fill up, the rivers swell and the marshland and forest landscape of Soomaa National Park gets flooded. This is termed the 5th season by locals and annually attracts a number of tourists who wish to explore the nature landscape from just above water level.

"Mind your head" is heard while gliding slowly and gently, just below spruce branches, in a flooded forest, passing by tree trunks flooded, in water meters deep, silently paddling, a landscape transformed, with water everywhere, elsewhere a seeming disaster and cause of trouble; here, a well-understood part of life, and a yearly occasion to explore the wilderness.

Passing traffic signs and country roads, where the only vehicles to traverse are canoes, past flooded farm houses, a swing hanging from a tree above the waters, only accessible from your canoe, open, ice-topped lakes. Remember your woolen gloves. Explore this yourself, the flooded lakes of Soomaa.

According to Mart Reimann, Estonia has a good mixture of culture and nature to offer tourists who come to explore the country's wilderness by traditional and less traditional means. Reimann lectures at Tallinn University on the topics of ecotourism and environmental conservation. Together with several partners he also runs a tourist company based at his parent's farm in northern Estonia. Sea-kayaking, canoeing trips, bog-shoeing and winter kicksledging are typical, traditional activities, Reimann says. Rafting is not traditional, but has been developed as a nature-tourism activity in recent years.

His company offers foreign tourists bog-shoeing trips into Estonia's marshlands, otherwise inaccessible areas. The bog-shoes are flat, hard-plastic boards, about 50 cm. long and 30 cm. wide, strapped beneath walking-boots. Just as snowshoes prevent a person from sinking into the snow, bog-shoes prevent the wearer from sinking into the bog. "In olden days the bogs and marshes were important places of refuge, where enemies would be prone to sinking, but where locals wearing bog-shoes could easily escape,"

Reimann says. Reimann and his company arrange sea-kayaking trips on the northern coast off Estonia, as well as on the Norwegian west coast. The 80 km kayak-trip from Estonia to Finland is a yearly achievement, and according to Reimann, "a nice day-trip." Reimann and a group of friends once paddled to Sweden, a distance of 170 km. However, a normal tourist affair is much less strenuous and lasts for anywhere between 3 hours and 3 days.

In Soomaa National Park this year, the 5th season started on March 18, notes Aivar Ruukel, guide and nature tourism entrepreneur. "Last month we had 500 participants in our guided, as well as self-guided, canoeing tours. We marked a special route in the flooded area, and people got a map," Ruukel says. "This is the busiest season. From now on and for the next 6 months we do canoeing trips on the rivers that are not so crowded."

Ruukel admits that it is not easy to base a business on a short season like the flooding in springtime. "The tourism business is global and competition is tight," says Ruukel who runs a hostel within the borders of the national park, 45 km east of Parnu in southern Estonia. From here he offers self-guided canoeing trips at 20 euros per person, guided tours and the building of wooden dugout canoes, as well as berry picking, wildlife watching and a number of other nature activities.

Soomaa National Park is the second largest national park in Estonia, after Lahemaa National Park in the north. It was established in 1993 to protect large raised bogs, flood plain grasslands, forests and meandering rivers. Each spring the water flows over flood plain grasslands and forests and covers roads, disrupting connection with the outer world for several weeks. In some years the spring floods have risen by a meter a day for 3-4 days.

The Estonian tourist industry has seen a slight increase in the number of visitors since last year, according to recent statistics from Statistics Estonia. Especially the number of foreign tourists is increasing. Last year revenues generated from tourist accommodation again reached 2008-levels after a decline in the crisis years of 2009 and 2010. The 'touring services' revenues still have a fair way to go before reaching pre-crisis levels, currently comprising about two-thirds of 2008 figures.