Nature First

Outdoor Life the Friluftsliv Way

Bob Henderson, Nils Vikander, Bob Henderson, Nils Vikander

• Publisher: Natural Heritage
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN: 9781897045213
• eBook ISBN: 9781459718395
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Ecology
• Index: Biological Sciences

Nature First combines the Scandinavian approach to creating a relationship with nature (known as friluftsliv ) with efforts by Canadian and international educators to adapt this wisdom and apply it to everyday life experiences in the open air. The word friluftsliv literally refers to "free-air life" or outdoor life. A word saturated with values, the concept can permeate deeply and playfully into one's cultural being and personal psyche, thus influencing the way one perceives and interacts with nature on a daily basis.

For centuries, the North American approach has been one of domination and bringing nature under control, in many cases abusing our natural environment in the process. The friluftsliv way of being on "talking terms with nature, " developing an "insider's" relationship with nature, offers the rich potential of allowing us as cohabiters on the Earth to recreate, rejuvenate and restore the balance among all living things.

Nature First is the first English-language anthology to bring together the perspectives and experiences of North American, Norwegian, Swedish and other international outdoor writers, all friluftsliv thinkers and doers. Here, the thirty contributors' use of history, sociology, psychology, philosophy and outdoor education writings blend to provide an understanding of how friluftsliv applies to everyday life.

The book presents an alternative to much of the personal growth/adventure-based literature that tends to dominate our current approach to the outdoor activity. Folklore, heritage, adventure travel, crafts, place-based education and the daily outings of families all have a role to play in promoting an understanding of both the ordinary and the mystical importance of this Nordic tradition. Dedicated to parents, travel guides, educators and generally to participants in the outdoors, Nature First provides a compellingly fresh approach to life in the out-of-doors.

PART I

Scandinavian

A Commentary on Nils-Aslak Valkeapää’s “I Converse With the Earth”

Contribution by Benjamin Gaglioti

The piece that I chose to represent the idea of friluftsliv for today’s world is from The Sun My Father by Nils Aslak Valkeapää. The few lines that present the philosophy of living a free air life are in the eighth poem of this famous Sami book of poems.

I converse with the earth

and hear the creeks answer

their voices the sound of silve

I converse with the earth

beyond time.

These lines fly off the paper and are followed by the reader into a long relationship to the natural world. A dialogue is portrayed between land and humans, which is precisely what is necessary in defining an active life outdoors. Whether this interaction is done by farming for years, subsistence hunting, observing nature, or glancing out the window during a busy day. It is a moment or a lifetime of space silence and wonder that comes through to humans in many forms of environments. Open air that answers our questions and satisfies our hungers. These connections can be made everyday or never, but they are responsible for a life in the open air. A life that is interrupted by episodes outside the boundaries of time and place.

CHAPTER 1

NORWEGIAN FRILUFTSLIV: A LIFELONG COMMUNAL PROCESS

Børge Dahle

A master’s student defending his thesis closed the defence by asking, “Why has 20 years of research in friluftsliv not managed to capture the essence of the phenomenon of friluftsliv?” Perhaps the student is right, or perhaps he has not found the right sources. But the question at least is interesting. What is the essence of the cultural phenomenon – friluftsliv?

I believe that friluftsliv, first and foremost, is about feeling the joy of being out in nature, alone or with others, experiencing pleasure and harmony with the surroundings – being in nature and doing something that is meaningful.

What is the Essence of Norwegian Friluftsliv?

A description of people’s practice of friluftsliv can be structured in the following way: The clearly dominant form of Norwegian friluftsliv is that people, starting from their own homes or cabins, go out into nature on walks alone or together with others, family and friends, in order to come back later in the day to their own home or cabin. The motives for these walks are often many and complex – to experience nature, to be sociable, to exert physical activity, and so forth. The walks are often longest on Saturdays or Sundays, but are often taken during the week. This is “daily walk friluftsliv.” The essence of friluftsliv is the simplicity with which people can engage with nature in a meaningful way – without the trappings of expensive gadgets or equipment.

When the typical Norwegian friluftsliv individuals go out, they are often on foot or, in winter, on skis. A small group bicycle, and even fewer use other means of transportation such as boats, canoes or skates. In addition to the nature wanderer satisfying the motives mentioned earlier, a relatively large group, as a part of their walk, may want to engage in other interests such as fishing, hunting, berry picking, mushroom gathering, photography, looking at plants and birds, and other such outdoor activities.

Another important part of the practice of Norwegian friluftsliv is a tour over several days, staying overnight in tents or cabins. These trips are usually taken during the weekends or on vacation time – “vacation friluftsliv.” The motives are the same as for the daily-walk friluftsliv.

The Norwegian touring culture has been passed on from generation to generation, and has its own rituals that must be learned. The following are some examples of the Norwegian friluftsliv tradition:

Day Trip 1:

Breakfast together on Sunday morning. Everyone knows that the family is soon on its way to the woods. The thermoses are filled with coffee or tea for the adults and, with hot chocolate for the children. The necessary clothing and equipment for the temperature and weather are found. Some extra clothes are put in the backpack. In a short time, without any particular discussion or planning, the family is out walking in the forest, where they are likely to meet neighbours and acquaintances, stop for a chat, looking at and talking about phenomena in nature and the cultural landscape. The social high point of the trip involves sitting down, taking out the thermoses and having lunch, perhaps lighting a fire and talking in friendly tones about things that have happened, future plans and dreams. Then the trip home starts. It is good to get home, to take a shower and cleanse sweaty bodies and have dinner together, followed by lounging about on the sofas or on the throw rugs.

Friluftsliv needs the family to continue to be a living cultural phenomenon and the family needs friluftsliv to ensure positive ways of sharing times together.

Day Trip 2:

In Tuesday’s newspaper there was an article on where “Wednesday’s exercise” would meet, the tour for this week. Most of the group are single retirees. For most, “Wednesday’s exercise” is perhaps their most important social network. Every Wednesday at 10:30 a.m., throughout the year, 40 to 70 enthusiastic walkers meet. The tour goes to one of the cabins in the forest. The path varies from time to time.

These are people who have practised friluftsliv throughout a long life, and friluftsliv is the foundation upon which they have built a lifetime of quality experiences, and they have continued this practice into this last phase of their lives.

Overnight Tour 1:

A group of women teachers have talked for a long time about taking a common tour in the mountains. They have used many work breaks to plan; they have looked forward to it, but have also considered the challenges. They have to find a time that suits leaving their children and husbands behind for a period of time. They ask themselves, “Am I in good enough condition? Do I need to train a little bit before the trip?”

Now the day is here. The backpack is carefully packed. Some experienced mountain backpackers still have their old “pink” anorak (wind jacket) – this makes the group feel confident. But some have a new multicoloured anorak and are pretty excited about how the tour will be. They get on the train. At last they are on their way to the first Norwegian Tourist Association (DNT) cabin. They walk and talk excitedly. They worry about their husbands and children, stop often, eat and talk, look at the magnificent landscape. Soon they feel free. They manage to forget children, husbands and the worries from a long and tiring school year. They get a four-person room in the cabin, where the conversation continues. They put on the clean sweaters they have knitted and go down to be served dinner, coffee and cake in front of the fireplace. They massage their sore thighs and get ready for the next day.

Friluftsliv gives us breathing room in a busy world. Friluftsliv gives us an experience of freedom.

Overnight Trip 2:

He has read books about hunting and fishing during the entire winter. He has tied some trout flies. He doesn’t meet his old school friend very often, but the yearly fishing trip holds them together. They can talk for a long time on the telephone. The conversations have to do with last summer’s fishing trip and mostly about the big one that got away. What will next summer’s fishing trip be like?

The day is here. This year both men take their sons with them. They drive a long way to get to this year’s spot. They buy food on the road. With heavy bags they arrive at the “fishing water” and set up camp. It doesn’t take long before all of them are at the water with their fishing poles in hand. It has been 30 years since the men met at elementary school as young boys, but now it is as if time has stood still. Family, colleagues, economic problems and stocks are forgotten. There is only one thing important in the world. The situation is here and now – the boys that need to be taught, the friends from school, the fishing poles and the trout that will soon take the fly.

Friluftsliv gives us excitement. Friluftsliv gives us dreams. Friluftsliv is a gift from the parent to the children.

Friluftsliv: Lifelong Learning

What characterizes the cultural phenomenon of friluftsliv? What separates its practice from the practice of other more commercial international leisure-time culture in nature activities? The following points illustrate the significant elements:

• experiencing nature is key,

• practising friluftsliv is not dependent on large costs for travelling and equipment,

• the nature and cultural landscape used is easily accessible from permanent residences and holiday cabins,

• the passing of tradition is strongly anchored in natural social groups such as family and friends,¹

• friluftsliv is not dependant on organizations: it is possible for individuals to choose their own time and place for practising it.

Interestingly, in addition to the Norwegian tradition of friluftsliv, we can also see that the international leisure activity culture in nature has spread in Norway. These international “outdoors activities” are first and foremost activity-motivated and tied to facilities in nature. The activities are most often organized and are set up through commercial interests or institutions that run education programs or short courses. This leisure activity culture is often a part of the commercial travel industry and organized as long trips, expeditions or “adventures.” They sell as experience packages.

The international activity culture has gained much of its inspiration from well-known persons who have made widely-known expeditions. Central to Norway are the role models of Fridtjof Nansen and Roald Amundsen as known through their Northwest Passage and Polar expeditions. This type of approach to nature has also gained inspiration from military survival practices and from travel writings based on canoe expeditions through, for example, Canada’s deep “wilderness” areas.

It is unfortunate, but understandable, that those universities and colleges with a special responsibility for arranging individual Norwegian day trips and celebrating friluftsliv, have let themselves be taken in by the international leisure activity culture. Likewise, leisure activity culture and “expeditions” experienced through the education of teachers have been taken deeper into the state school system. Under the theme of friluftsliv, ski days are arranged with Telemark skiing and snowboarding, as are “expeditions” with canoes and sleeping in snow caves in the mountains. Is this the way to learn the key elements of Norwegian friluftsliv tradition?

What is worrying the institutions protecting friluftsliv, is that more and more of today’s young people than before are missing traditional friluftsliv and instead are participating in the international leisure activity culture. To what degree this concern is based on qualified research results or only on a feeling of a situation is somewhat unclear. The leisure-time patterns of youth must be systematically mapped as youth patterns function differently in different communities and cultures. What is possible to assert is that children who have been socialized in the ways of Norwegian friluftsliv return to this tradition when they themselves have established families. This is true whether they were only partly or even not engage in friluftsliv during their youth. Let youth be allowed to have their own activity culture for, as the Nordic expression goes, “they do not forget mother’s milk so fast.”

The most effective way to maintain Norwegian friluftsliv tradition will be to ensure that children are socialized within traditional friluftsliv while they are at an age when their leisure time is spent together with their parents. Traditional friluftsliv is open for all and can be practised throughout one’s lifetime.

The patterns of friluftsliv demonstrated by the Norwegian people have been constant and are still relatively stable. It is still the simple foot tour and ski trip based on motives of enjoying nature, health and camaraderie, and on developing nature interests that are strongly dominant. “The people’s friluftsliv” is still highly alive, but a lifestyle with stress has meant that some people’s practice of friluftsliv has been substantially reduced.

Pressure on the traditional patterns of friluftsliv has been great in past decades. The general development of society and the introduction of new activities and varied leisure time are some of the more important reasons for this. But pedagogic institutions have also worked to create new forms of friluftsliv activities. A “sportification” of friluftsliv has occurred. In the competition for students, colleges, folk colleges and sports institutes have needed to target themselves at youth groups. They have chosen to emphasize new trends in outdoor activities and “adventure” tours, even ones to foreign countries.

Despite this, throughout the country, the pattern of friluftsliv has shown itself to be relatively stable. This can be explained by the fact that the youth groups have never been and are not currently a decisive factor for Norwegian friluftsliv. It is the age groups before and after adolescence that are dominant and decisive in friluftsliv. Friluftsliv is an activity form that is practised from birth to the grave.

What is the “Knowledge Status” for Norwegian Friluftsliv?

That friluftsliv still has a large following in Norway can first and foremost be explained by the fact that it is deeply established in the common culture, where the practice of friluftsliv “tacit knowledge” is still passed on from generation to generation. Additionally, our settlement structure is relatively continuous. Even at the beginning of this new century, all Norwegians still had a very short distance to travel to nature and to cultural landscapes where friluftsliv can be practised.

We have accumulated a great deal of experience in pedagogical work with friluftsliv over the last thirty years. Different pedagogical methods, such as the following, have been tried. “Conwaying” is defined as sharing the experiences of free nature (nature possessing its own original rhythms) in accord with the patterns of thought and values of the Norwegian tradition of friluftsliv. This happens, in the main, in smaller groups where the emphasis is on the joy of identification with nature as well as inspiring the finding of a route in modernity toward a lifestyle where nature is the home of culture.² Conwaying has become a useful term, and in many ways represents its own culture within friluftsliv. Conwaying represents its own “school” in friluftsliv pedagogy that has b...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Preface: Is a Tree Transplanted to Another Continent the Same Tree? Some Reflections on Friluftsliv in an International Context
• Introduction
• Part I: Scandinavian
• Part II: Canadian
• Part III: International
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Contributors
• Visuals
• About the Editors