August 17, 2026
After five days in the field, I am beginning to find my way back into the spruce forest. Each morning I head out and wander through the landscape, and each day I find something new. A small clearing where moose have lain down to rest, a stand of old trees, a large decaying log with fungi growing from its surface. The sound. The smell. The light.
The understanding of this landscape comes not by passing through it, but by being present in it.
~August 19, 2026
I wake to the sound of rain on the tent. After a few turns in my sleeping bag, I head out to gather firewood to make coffee. Everything is wet after yesterday’s rain, but in my pocket is a handful of dry birch bark.
I step beneath a spruce and break off a few twigs. On another spruce trunk I find a piece of resin, which I pry loose with the tip of my knife.
I place the birch bark underneath and lay the resin on top. Once it catches fire, I add the spruce twigs. When they begin to burn, I add pieces of rotten spruce wood. Surprisingly, the rotten wood burns well even when wet. Eventually, the fire grows strong enough, and I put the coffee pot on.
When the coffee boils, I lift it from the fire and pour it into my wooden cup just as the sun breaks through. I sit in the unexpected sunlight, drinking my morning coffee. Life isn’t so bad after all.
~August 20, 2026
I head out at dawn. Mist moves across the landscape, and the sky is clear. For the first time in a week, the light is there.
As the sun rises, the dew on the marsh turns to frost. Beautiful. Magical. I spend hours searching for the light — for stillness and movement. By the time the sun disappears behind the clouds, I am exhausted.
In the afternoon, I wash myself in the stream and rinse my clothes, hanging them to dry in a nearby birch.
Somewhere across the tarn, I hear a black woodpecker calling.
August 21, 2026
Mist once again lies across the open stretches of land. The sun rises on the other side of the lake, playing through the treetops.
A whooper swan is resting some distance away. I take my time, letting the morning unfold around me.
As the sun climbs higher, the light plays across the landscape and reaches down into the vegetation. Heather, dwarf birch and bog bilberry glisten with dew. A palette of late summer.
Eventually, the warmth of the sun awakens the landscape’s smaller inhabitants, and before long mosquitoes and midges are swarming around me. The romantic in me gives way to practicality.
~August 22, 2026
I cross the marsh and enter the dense forest growing on a slope sheltered from the winter storms. Someone has been here very recently; the smell of moose is in the air.
Morning light filters through the trees, illuminating the beard lichens hanging from the branches. I watch them sway gently in the wind, backlit by the sun.
~August 23, 2026
After breakfast, I make my way up into the higher forest. The weather is clear, and a cool northwesterly wind keeps the mosquitoes away.
After a few hours of creative work, I sit down in a small clearing. The wind whispers softly through the treetops above me. Just as softly, the light filters down through the canopy. I am surrounded by old spruce trees, standing and fallen.
I close my eyes and imagine what it would be like if this forest had been logged. I would no longer hear the wind through the treetops. The light would no longer be filtered through the canopy. The damp ground, with its mosses and ferns, would dry out.
There would be no Siberian jay to visit me, nor would I hear the black woodpecker drumming in the distance. This world would simply be gone.
August 25, 2026
I hike up onto a rocky ledge for a view across the landscape. I look out over a horizon of old-growth forest. Closest to me stand old trees covered in lichens. Behind me, a moose trail winds through the forest. On one of the nearest trees, a three-toed woodpecker is searching for insects under the bark. I pick a handful of large, dark blue bilberries and sit down in the sunshine for a while, taking in the view.
~August 26, 2026
I wake before dawn. A thin mist lies over the marsh. Before sunrise, the clouds turn violet and pink. Two spruce trees at the edge of the marsh catch my eye, and I stop to photograph them. I have walked here many times before, yet somehow never really seen them.
After a few hours with the camera, I make a small fire and boil coffee. I prepare breakfast slowly before breaking camp. It feels melancholy. During the weeks I have been here, this place, this old forest, has slowly gotten under my skin. It has done something to me that I still cannot quite put into words.
