How Oulu became a must-go place for a for­mer BBC jour­nal­ist? Eri­ka Benke’s sto­ry

Right now, Eri­ka Benke is work­ing as a con­trib­u­tor to BBC News and as a free­lance jour­nal­ist. Before mov­ing to Oulu, she lived in Lon­don for 23 years. She found here the qual­i­ty of life she was look­ing for. “After two years of work­ing in Oulu, I’m still as relaxed as if I was on hol­i­day”, she says.

“I’m a jour­nal­ist. I moved to Oulu from Lon­don in August 2020, after I left my BBC job on a one-year career break.

I had been with the BBC for 25 years at that point and I felt like I need­ed a change.

So why did I switch from the BBC in Lon­don to the city of Oulu?

Between 2017 and 2019, I trav­elled in Fin­land quite exten­sive­ly, pro­duc­ing doc­u­men­taries for BBC News on cli­mate change, the basic income exper­i­ment and Sámi cul­ture — and I fell in love with the coun­try.

I was suf­fo­cat­ing in Lon­don, a bustling city of nine mil­lion, where­as I felt free in Fin­land, with so much more space and more air to breathe. So I start­ed look­ing for some­thing to do in Fin­land dur­ing a career break.

Things began to fall into place when I was film­ing for the BBC in Ii, a small com­mu­ni­ty just north of Oulu, in Novem­ber 2019, and I heard that Oulu was bid­ding to become Euro­pean Union Cul­ture Cap­i­tal in 2026.

I got in touch with the Oulu2026 team and I found out that they need­ed some­body like me to help them: an out­sider with a fresh pair of eyes to pro­duce sto­ries about Oulu that cap­tured the imag­i­na­tion of inter­na­tion­al audi­ences and set Oulu apart from the oth­er two Finnish cities com­pet­ing for the 2026 EU cul­ture cap­i­tal title.

In short, it sound­ed like my dream job – so I packed my bags and came to live in Oulu long-term.

What I love about Oulu in a pro­fes­sion­al sense

Very sim­ply, I love what I’m doing.

Fin­land is under­re­port­ed in the inter­na­tion­al media, which is not right: the coun­try has amaz­ing sto­ries that the whole world could learn from.

I find it very reward­ing to dig out sto­ries that raise the pro­file of Oulu abroad – and it’s so much fun work­ing on them as well.

Take the sto­ry of win­ter cycling: in Oulu, it’s noth­ing spe­cial. After all, life in win­ter goes on as nor­mal, includ­ing cycling. We have 900 kms of bike paths with excel­lent main­te­nance that enables res­i­dents to safe­ly cycle dur­ing five or six months of snow on the ground.

It may be noth­ing out of ordi­nary in Oulu but for peo­ple out­side Fin­land, it’s a fas­ci­nat­ing sto­ry. In the rest of Europe even the tini­est amount of snow rou­tine­ly caus­es trav­el chaos.

With snow and ice becom­ing increas­ing­ly rare else­where in the world, I realised the win­ter was a unique – and beau­ti­ful – visu­al sell­ing point of Oulu and pro­duced sev­er­al oth­er sto­ries using that theme.

I inter­viewed Mat­ti Lat­va-aho, the leader Finland’s 6G project, while he was ice-fish­ing on the frozen sea. I used the images of fish­ing nets to explain the future of mobile com­mu­ni­ca­tion net­works. The net-net­work sym­bol­ism, link­ing ancient fish­ing tra­di­tions to state-of-the-art tech­nol­o­gy, has helped cre­ate a huge­ly sym­bol­ic and total­ly stun­ning video.

In addi­tion to sup­port­ing the Oulu 2026 bid, I’ve also enjoyed pro­duc­ing videos for recruit­ment cam­paigns run by Business­Oulu.

Oulu, just like the rest of Fin­land, needs to attract inter­na­tion­al tal­ent. There’s a short­age of labour in gen­er­al, and in Oulu, a short­age of IT spe­cial­ists in par­tic­u­lar.

I’ve made plen­ty of videos to encour­age for­eign­ers to take up jobs in Oulu.

I inter­viewed Indi­an, Brazil­ian, Mex­i­can and Pol­ish soft­ware engi­neers and researchers who’ve moved to Oulu for work. Many of them work for Nokia, many oth­ers are researchers at the uni­ver­si­ty.

They told me what they loved about liv­ing and work­ing in Oulu. Many of the things they said coin­cid­ed with my own expe­ri­ence, with equal­i­ty and work-life bal­ance com­ing on top of the “best of Oulu” list.

A young Brazil­ian woman made it a point that being a for­eign woman is not an obsta­cle to achiev­ing any­thing in Oulu. I think it’s very true: Fin­land is very dif­fer­ent from many oth­er coun­tries in the world where bal­anc­ing work and fam­i­ly life can be dif­fi­cult and women are paid less than male coun­ter­parts.

What I love per­son­al­ly in Oulu

I had always felt a bond when I vis­it­ed Oulu before I moved here – but after liv­ing here per­ma­nent­ly for about a month, I was sure that I’d found my spir­i­tu­al home.

Most of all, I love hav­ing beau­ti­ful unspoilt nature on my doorstep. I step out­side my flat, which is a ten-minute bike ride from the city cen­tre, and in two min­utes’ walk I’m in the for­est. If I go the oth­er way, I get to the sea­side.

I love being out­doors and I love win­ter. It’s so easy to run, ski and swim in Oulu – wher­ev­er you are, it only takes a few min­utes to get to a breath­tak­ing­ly beau­ti­ful spot to exer­cise.

I live a peace­ful, qui­et and healthy life in Oulu and I’m very hap­py here. So there was no way I could say “no” to an offer of exten­sion when my first year was up: after two years of work­ing in Oulu, I’m still as relaxed as if I was on hol­i­day.”

Tal­ent sto­ries you may be inter­est­ed in:

The incred­i­ble jour­ney of Chiara Boset­ti

Vik­tors Sobolevs: “If you want to work in Oulu, believe in your­self and push hard”

Déb­o­ra Oliveira: “Dur­ing my first walks in Oulu, I felt like I was in a fairy tale”

Doris Yue believes her dreams will come true in Oulu

Jun­naid Iqbal: ”You must come to Oulu with an open mind and a big smile”

Tama­ra Louis: “Oulu is a per­fect envi­ron­ment for fam­i­lies”

Sharmin Farah: “North­ern Lights – the best thing to expe­ri­ence while liv­ing in Oulu”