Wilderness Lessons

Last week I was amazingly lucky to have the opportunity to explore the Arctic wilderness of Finland with Sidetracked Adventure and nine amazing women. We spent 5 days Nordic cross country skiing over fells and through forests making our way to remote huts, our home for the evening. The trip of a lifetime, and honestly I could bore you to distraction telling you how wonderful, challenging, beautiful and raw it was (see below)- but first, I want to talk about the other parts...

Alas, I can not prescribe that we all need to head out to the Artic circle to reconnect with ourselves (if only!) but I want these lessons to be captured, remembered, and not quickly washed away as modern life takes hold once again. So what CAN we do?

Disconnect. Maybe try a weekend with your phone on flight mode, or evening just your mornings until lunchtime? Sever some of that attention-seeking hold it can have over you. Set boundaries. Maybe create an out-of-office email to tell people when you will be checking emails.

Get outside. Go and find your little moment of 'wilderness'. Turn your phone onto flight mode for a while - no music, no podcasts - just you and maybe a friend or two.

Join a group of strangers. As an introvert, I find this incredibly challenging. But we are social animals, we need people - go and join a SUP weekend, walking group, or conservation volunteering day - hear other people's stories, tell them yours.

Challenge yourself. Maybe try something new, or push yourself physically or mentally. Realising that you can do more and are stronger than you think is life-changing.

The trip

After navigating the many forms, tests, and red tape involved in travelling, I landed in Ivalo - a tiny airport buried in the snow in Northern Finland. Even being on a plane, after almost 5 years felt like an adventure in itself - the child-like excitement as we took off, and the joy of just watching the world disappear as we climbed higher, bubbled up from inside.

I made my way to Saariselkä, a small town filled with wooden cabins to meet up with the rest of the team. We headed out the next day to learn how to use the skis before tackling the wilderness. As someone who had never skied before, I was almost at an advantage (just to begin with!) as these skis did not act or react in the say way as those you'd find on the slopes. In trying to tame them, you'd almost always end up on your arse, or face-first into a pile of snow. 'You just have to go with them' was the instruction.

That night we nervously packed and repacked our gear to head out for 5 days off the grid. Aware that you'd have to carry or pull anything, we nervously all packed lightly, knowing that you'd be wearing most items. Heading out the following day, we set out on our adventure into Urho Kekkonen National Park. Instantly heading up a hill, the constant question of 'why were skis the chosen vehicle to get uphill?!' went over and over in my mind as every few steps resulted in slipping backward and desperately clinging onto your poles so the sled didn't pull you all the way to the bottom of the hill. And the down hills became even more questionable - as there was no way to stop or steer...you just had to bend your knees and hope.

The next 5 days fell into the most gloriously simple rhythm. Waking early in our huts to the sound of our guides, Sophie & Daria making fires and putting pots of water to boil to make porridge and fill our flasks for the day. We'd sleepily eat breakfast and drink coffee before layering back up and repacking all of our belongings. We'd spend most of the daylight hours skiing through stunning landscapes. You'd move in and out of rhythms of chatting, laughing, puffing up a hill, or dropping behind the group for some solitude amongst the trees. We'd stop for lunch on the trail, quickly gulping down soup and eating crackers before getting too cold and needing to start moving again. We'd reach each hut at the end end of the day and fall into our routines of fetching water from the nearest river/stream, collecting the firewood, lighting the stove, and hanging all the gear around it to dry for the next day. I initially worried how the long evenings in a hut filled with strangers would go - but after the jobs and a good dinner, sitting and talking, or snoozing or whittling a spoon were more than enough entertainment before getting to bed for the very respectable time of 8 pm.

Almost everyone remarked on the beautiful simplicity that life offered - just moving each day, one simple task, to get from A to B and how it was a life we feel we could really settle into. We traveled between 10 and 23km each day, in temperates from -6 to -27, and largely lived in a world of white, with deep clouds and white snow. On the final 2 days, the blue skies returned, which gave us the glimmer of hope to see the northern lights that evening. A hope, which thankfully came to fruition. We took it in turns to keep watch that night (usually whoever was heading out to the loo) before someone excitedly ran in to tell us they were there. The pictures you see of the lights are not in fact what they look like with the naked eye. What you see are dark shapes in the sky, which shift and move like nothing living. They glow in deep greens from behind the shadow and almost look like someone has thrown powder into the sky. They were mesmerising.