October 16, 2025
I walk through spruce forest and pass a few small tarns. Ice has begun to form on the surface of the water. After a few kilometers, the landscape shifts, and the pines take over. I arrive at a ridge where two giant old pines stand. I hug one of them — it feels comforting.
I continue onward, and here the forest is dominated by pine. Around me, traces of fire mark the oldest trees — black char covering their surfaces.
The October sun still brings warmth, while the cold northwest wind reminds me that winter is approaching.
I reach a stream and make a small fire for coffee and lunch. There are no signs of human activity here. No stumps from forestry. Not even traces of Sámi activity. It is an ancient landscape, left untouched since the ice age.
On the charcoal of the oldest pines grows a special lichen, the Clam Lichen (Carbonicola anthracophila). It grows only here, on the charred surface of old, resin-rich wood. A patient species, its existence depends on fire and time. It takes hundreds of years for a pine to grow old; then a natural fire must occur, and only after another few hundred years does the lichen begin to grow.
It is a small detail in the landscape — a small detail that tells a story far larger than I can comprehend.
