feminist solitary hiking project

1. There can be a lot do discover around your own home. On day 4 on the hike I was curious how far I might be away from home. I checked it, the air line was just 4km. I smiled, I still felt like I am on a big adventure (the furthest distance was 12km).
2. These kilometer amounts and sights are not a result by accident. I planned them very consciously. On the one hand I wanted to have a trail showing what a various nature is right next to Helsinki, combining historical and cultural sights. On the other hand I tried to build up a trail to enable that feeling Rebecca Solnit describes in the quote from the beginning. This is for me the core joy of hiking. And to reach that, I tried to create a good balance between these forest paths, easy going dirt roads, wild and solitude places reachable only over off-trail sections, parts with social life around you, “climbing” up hills with stunning views, focusing sometimes on reading the map as well as parts where you can just let it go and walk. I focused on some kind of daily balance but also choose different emphases for each day. Creating a process from a more solitude and peaceful beginning over a middle “peak” to a smooth ending.
3. These “numbers” are the result of putting all my heart and passion as well as my experience I gained from hiking about 3000km (mostly solo) in that trail. From hiking a long distance trail, to 7-10 day hikes on marked hiking routes, hiking without a trail in the wilderness areas of Lapland, sleeping regularly in the nearby forest (alsop through winter) and planing more and more hikes which started in front of my own door. The first Hike from these 3000 km was a 2-day, 50 km hike following a river in Germany ending at my childhood home/parents place. So somehow I’m back to with what I started some years ago. A good base for planing that trail for the needs of different people are the skills I learned while my nature guide studies combined with my social work background.
4. About drains and forest industry: There is amazing nature on the trail, mostly thanks to a lot of nature reserve areas. But you will also see and feel how forest industry has it’s impact on nature. Sometimes the trail goes along a border of a more natural growing forest and a commercial forest. I’m sure you will notice the difference. On one side walking is easy and you might see a lot of different things, from stunning old trees to funny colorful Polypores. Then maybe suddenly walking gets difficult, you have to concentrate more, not to stumble, and somehow it looks more sad and a little bit dead. The most difficult terrain to walk on this trail is not the open swamp, but a commercial forest, where a forest machine has eaten it’s way through.  Apropo swamps. A third from Finland’s land surface are swamplands. But about a half of it have been drained by digging ditches in order to use them for forestry purposes. In Finland you can find about 1,4 million kilometers of ditches. Every third ditch of the world was digged in Finland. (Juntti 2019, p. 94) For me personally the surroundings of ditches are the most saddest landscape. About a fifth of the area that was drained, was done for nothing, because forest was still not growing (Juntti 2019, p. 97). I think I saw a lot of places like that. On the map there is still the name of the former swamp, but it is not there any more, also not really a forest, just human made dead ground.  On one of the hills on the trail, when I was enjoying the few, I met some locals.They first told me, I am the first one, they see hiking here with a backpack and tent, usually there is nobody or someone riding a horse. They are coming every day to check if there is something new. They called the view “perinnemaisema”, what means heritage-landscape (meadows, old barns, etc). They had to admit, there was nothing new throughout the last years, beside new clearcut areas.
   • Juntti, Pekka (2019): Tuli tummat vedet.. In: Jokiranta, Juntti, Ruohonen, Räinä (2019): Metsä meidän jälkemme. P. 93-106
   • Solnit, Rebecca (2022): Wanderlust. A history of Walking.

First I called it just “this trail” or “riot trail 1”, but I wanted a name. The result is the combination of an animal and a plant, which brought me special moments on the trail. The otter and the wild rosemary/marsh rosemary

I have never seen an otter before in my life, but already two times on that trail. First in May, when I hiked a part of it, not knowing yet, that it will be part of that project. I was lying in my tent watching the sunset over the sea and the otter suddenly was swimming just some meters next to me. In October I saw one in a small swamp lake. It was absolutely quiet and the water surface was still. It was magical to hear the sound, of the swimming and diving otter, and see the water movements it created on the surface. Also the otter as a name fits to the trail, as the route has so many lakes, ponds and rivers and the sea, where otters are moving. Otters also don’t hibernate, they are also active in winter. Seeing that in some “animal cards” I have the otter symbolizes playfulness, it couldn’t feel more perfect.

But I also wanted to emphasize with a name a characteristic of the trail, which is very important for me. The swamp parts. I saw in 2022 the first time in my life a swamp and fell in love. I was living in Rovaniemi and after moving to Helsinki, I missed them and started to search swamps near Helsinki. So this trail has about 3km through swamp environment. As a symbol I wanted to have the plant “marsh rosemary” or also called “wild rosemary”, it’s my favorite plant. It grows around swamps and has a strong sweet smell, what you can even notice in winter, when you were digging to deep into the snow, while building up your tent.

Conditions in Finland change a lot through the seasons, so I plan to hike and document it adapted to the season from September to May. 9 months, 9 different ways.  I also do this, because I want to offer different alternatives, to make it possible that women* who maybe go on this trail could do it in their own rhythm and adapt it to their own needs. Some might want to walk 10km per day, some 25km. Some enjoy the rivers parts more and take their time, others the sea-side or the wild swamps.  And as this is no marked trail, I want to provide well structured and researched information, so that it is easy to make own decisions.  Another reason, why I want to offer alternative routes and a lot of sleeping place options, is that it’s good for nature. Although this is a small project and I don’t expect a lot of women* coming here, I still don’t want to “send” all hikers to the same sleeping place, to prevent nature getting frayed at single places. On a third of the trail there are possibilities of official fire places for camping, but the other nights you have to choose/find a wild place. For experienced hikers or people who are familiar with Finnish nature and reading the ground map, this might be easy, but can be challenging if it is your first time. The trail-guide should help you to find your own places or give you security, as you could use the places I tested before.