Fjällvandring

Getting back to this blog has been a challenge. It has been an intense few weeks. The good news is that I am working my way back up Maslow’s hierarchy, i.e. feeling less like I am simply trying to find security and more like I am here for a reason (thanks Kim!). The best news of the past week, however, is the fact that my Mom has a new hip! Thanks to her attitude and the wonders of the Mayo Clinic…She’s up and moving, perhaps even charting her next trip on the Superior Hiking Trail!? Miss you Mom!

I’m back from my Friluftsliv conference adventure. A most innovative conference--hiking (approx. 70 km or 42 miles) while discussing the various topics and most importantly, being immersed in our connection to the natural world. Presenters had prepared papers to share their topics to set the stage for each hike; as we hiked we were to discuss the various ideas while enjoying the old barren mts. of the Swedish region of Jämtland.

A day of glorious sunshine followed by days of rain, wind and even a bit of snow—intense hiking! Imagine walking across a mountainous sponge of flowing water for three days! The ground was so saturated it was as if the whole landscape was a shallow stream! Luckily, attitudes were positive.

And in reality, the weather did not stop us! Discussions were rich and evenings were spent “catching up” on ideas. It was a group intent on exploring places and ideas. The ideas to explore were, in part, definitional essays on the history and origins of Friluftsliv.

(New Canadian friends, Emily and Bryan.)

For those of you wondering just what this Friluftsliv is all about, let me share an overview of the concept…The literal translation is “open-air life” yet in many texts Friluftsliv get translated into English as “outdoor recreation.” Outdoor Recreation is, however, a poor translation, insufficient as it does not provide any direct connection to the essential relationship with the natural world; Friluftsliv makes that connection.

Friluftsliv is meaningful and joyful recreational experiences in the natural world that contribute to our connection to nature.

Place and the experience of place are essential to the idea. I like to think of Friluftsliv as a bridge between our affective (or emotional) connections to nature and the way in which we think about it (our cognitive experiences) as mediated by our physical (or kinesthetic) experiences. Friluftsliv is a merging of outdoor recreation, outdoor education, place-based education and environmental education…we get very hung up on labels in academia, for sure! And in my field, walls seem to get built between environmental education and outdoor education/recreation; I am hoping to help knock some of these walls down with a little help from Friluftsliv!

The conference had a distinctly Norwegian approach which highlights the cultural significance of these ideas to the Norwegian people. Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen (Peer Gynt, A Doll’s House, Brand, The Master Builder, etc.) is credited as putting into print the actual word Friluftsliv in his epic poem: På Vidderne (On The Heights) from the mid 19^th century. Ibsen was an important cultural figure to Norway’s emergence as a nation and the romantic ideals of a dramatic and powerful nature infused his work (think Thoreau, Hudson Valley Group or Group of Seven in North America). Scholars describe the Norwegian embrace of the notion of hiking in the mts, of Friluftsliv, as cultural identity. Thinking about these cultural connections to the natural world is refreshing and exciting. (Picture of the Norwegian Border crossing!)

Enough of this history right now, but I will return to it as I am in the midst of a literature review of these ideas. It is not my belief that I can somehow transport the cultural significance of Friluftsliv back to Minnesota, but was reminded in a conversation with Norwegian Friluftsliv icon Nils Faarlund that it is the common values between Nordic Frilutsliv and related North American concepts that are worth exploring and promoting; thus, more about these common values in upcoming posts…

(Nils Faarlund and students from Norway and Arizona!)

After the conference I hiked a few more days on my own—I figured I had traveled so far, that I needed to soak up the mts. as much as possible. I find these mts. to give me a profound sense of freedom (Free-luftsliv!?). It is an expansive and barren landscape…old mts. shaped by the glaciers and now ruled by the elements. I hiked into this landscape solo from the lively community of the conference. I did not talk to a single person for the two days immediately following the conference. I ate blueberries and hiked!

Two more pictures:

This photo is of a young man’s electrical tape design is from the beautiful city of Trondheim. Temporary urban art, what a brilliant idea! It was fun to watch him work, he was fast and deliberate. The other photo I wish to share can be found via this link:

http://z.about.com/d/architecture/1/0/A/q/OsloOperaHouseNorway-ErikBerg.jpg

Copy this link and check out the Opera House in Oslo. It is the most interesting public architecture I have ever seen. I walked all over the building at 6 AM while waiting for a train North to Trondheim…the building truly invites you to explore...space and place. It was a dramatic cultural space as harbinger to my time spent considering the nature and culture of Friluftsliv!

Moving On

I think I wrote that I would not blog again until after my return from the Mts., however, I have a few minutes today, a few thoughts to share, and a few pictures…

Maggan and family (sans Alex) came into town last night. To any of you who do not know Maggan, here is her picture with her sweetheart Ulrik, a friendly and warm man. Oddly enough, Maggan has the distinction of being my only personal connection to High School—we have been friends that long, which really qualifies us as family. Below are pictures of the rest of the gang from this weekend (Really friendly and charming young folks):

Jacob (Maggan’s son) and Robin (Ulrik’s son) with Ulrik. And Victoria (Ulrik’s daughter) and Madde (Victoria’s friend and housemate) with Maggan. Maggan and Ulrik chose this weekend to visit as Victoria has a fotboll match (soccer) tomorrow. Victoria plays on one of the women’s professional leagues in Sweden; I am sorry I will miss the game, but not sorry that I will be in a train rolling North through Norway.

A few minutes ago my co-hort colleagues began the comprehensive exam in Duluth; the very exam I completed yesterday. I can only hope by now everyone is calm and settled into his or her ideas. I am so relieved to be done. Mixed emotions are still swirling, but they are subsiding. I can’t decide if the process was a good one? Yes, spending time this summer digging into study and review was useful, enlightening and even inspiring at times. However, when I consider the product, I am less than inspired. It seems that after a summer of preparations, there is so much more we could have to show for it. Topics to present to the next co-hort, opinion pieces for the newspaper, or even simply essays for our own development--if we could have written an essay with full access to the resources we had assembled over the previous two years and with full support of our APA guidelines, then more energy would have been productively directed. I think a fair amount of energy is derailed into the test anxiety, note preparations, and unofficial APA work. Despite my complaints, I feel lucky to have been granted the flexibility to take the test here and feel that Lynn (one of our instructors) communicated so carefully (and supportively) with me so as to alleviate any logistical concerns.

The test itself? A long day of writing and pondering and reconsidering ideas that I have been considering for weeks…second-guessing and a few inspired changes to the game plan…things were going well; my biggest concern was the Word progran in Swedish and the fact that the Swedish keyboard is different. For example, You need to be careful to avoid: ä, ö, and å. Further, I use too many semicolons and on the Swedish keyboard the semicolon is somewhere in the vicinity of Q, not down by L (and it requires a “Shift key”). Ugh! And with each Word command, I had to think twice… "Spara som” Ok yes, that means “save as.” Some of you (Shannon) know me as a less than gifted hunter and pecker on the keyboard, thus imagine how slowly I was typing! I did think to myself that if this is the worst of my experience, I am doing OK, and then after 7+ hours into the allotted exam time, the computer I was using shut down; seriously, it made a weird noise and shut down. Done. Needless to say I was shocked. I spent the next 30 minutes with two helpful Swedes helping retrieving the documents and getting a different computer to finish working on the exam. Thus the final 10 minutes of actual work time? A panicked scramble…the careful editing I knew I needed was replaced with a 10-minute sprint. I still don’t know if all of my previous changes were saved? I will have to hope that the content is sufficient in case the details are messy…Anyhow, I emerged into the daylight in a stupor; Maggan and Ulrik must have thought I was drugged.

I can’t face the thought of not passing; I’ll trust the effort was good enough and start thinking North.

One last picture, one that Kerry, Amelia and Peter might like…a candy store in Göteborg…you walk around with a big spoon and fill your bag! Jacob (in the picture) made two loops around the place!

I send my love.

Missing Home

I'm struggling. I have this great opportunity in front of me and so many interesting possibilities ahead, but for some reason I'm stuck in a bit of feeling sorry for myself. I miss Kerry, I miss Bugs (in that order, promise). I miss all my friends in Duluth. I miss Duluth. I think I feel so melancholic because I'm in a weird transition...between being there and being here...Special thanks to Kerry for being available to Skype with and Kaija for kind words during a rough patch.

I can't quite fully engage here because a part of this transition, a part of "being there" is the exam hanging over my head...Shannon, Suz, Trent and all my EdD buddies have a hell of a test ahead of us this week. We must pass a comprehensive exam over the first two years of our coursework. I can honestly say that studying has been a good experience. I have learned a great deal as I have organized, synthesized and interpreted all of the ideas we are responsible for, but I am so tired of it, so tired; it has gone from being a positive challenge/process to being a heavy weight around my neck. I no longer want to think of contrived examples of "construct validity, " I want to actually compare three items from the Friluftsliv i Forändring survey against the 14 items in the Connectedness to Nature Scale for a REAL measure of construct validity. All right, before many of you tune out due to the geek-speak, my point is that I am really very ready to dive into the research I hope to be doing and this damn test is currently blocking my path. Ok Shannon, Suz, Trent, Brian, Chris, Barb...and all my co-hort friends, here's wishing us a positive end to this crazy few weeks. On Friday I will sit down for a 8 hour trip to hell and on Sat. it is your turn...

Speaking of positive, one of my current goals is to explore the intersect between city and GREEN. I spent a chunk of the past weekend on the Bohusleden (Bohus trail) a trail (not unlike the SHT) that runs not only through Göteborg but throughout this entire coastal region (Bohuslän).

See: http://bohusleden.se/lang/en/

It is exciting to see the trail access to this large city--there's a lot of access related topics I hope to reflect upon and perhaps write about this year...hop on a commuter train for 10 minutes, hop off, walk three blocks and onto the trail. Urban access! I love it. The two pictures are from my explorations on Sunday.


I won't be blogging for a while...after the test I have a short visit from my dear (Swedish) friend Maggan and then it is off to Norway (see, the opportunities are right in front of me--I just need to quench the loneliness and insecurity).

Happy first day of school to all my UMD friends, missing everyone just now.

Lay-out

Dang! I just looked at my post, I thought I had figured out how to keep the font one size and how to make everything look pretty...it all looked good in the "preview" window...and then is all out of whack when I post. Dang! I'll keep trying to figure this out.
(Picture is of me at the end of the commuter train line--the Sea! Saltholmen.)

Trees

I took a break from studying today and went for a jog in the botanical garden—I needed a little ”fri-luft” (free air, open air…). I actually jogged through ”Amerika,” a section of the park featuring North American tree varieties…ran past eastern hemlock and Sitka spruce and even a white pine or two…this arboretum is amazing—expansive and lovely. I jogged past numerous groups of elementary aged students with their teachers which brought me great joy of course! They seemed to have classes set up in the woods, couldn't tell if it was environmental ed. or simply an outdoor classroom...anyhow, they seemed to be actively enjoying themselves.

A part of the arboretum consists of highly sculpted gardens, another part of the arboretum is designed deliberately to feature species from different parts of the word (e.g. the noted "Amerika"), but my favorite part is the wild stretches of West Sweden forest. West Sweden, Västra Götaland of the Göteborg area, is so unlike the extensive boreal forest I associate with Sweden. The climate here along the coast is much more temperate, allowing for an amazing diversity of plant species (diverse relative to the boreal forest). I am shocked by all the hardwoods…oaks, basswoods, maples, beech and birch. I need to work on learning all of the Swedish names for these European relatives of trees I know from home. I will send more pictures, however, here is one of a deep ravine of beech:

Beech are beautiful with their elephant-leg-like trunks and their ability to shade out everything on the forest floor below; they create a very open green-airy feeling. There is a key scene from Ingemar Bergman’s film, The Seventh Seal, from the beech forests of Southern Sweden—magical places.

A part of my return jog is down a very urban corridor…cars, bikes, the commuter trains, buses, walkers…it is a busy and lively stretch, and despite the urban busyness, or perhaps because of it, I am amazed at how people get around. The only way these tightly populated cities can function is the willingness of the majority to walk, or ride (bike, bus or train)...or even car-sharing, the sign on this car reads: "Dela Bil." which means "share car."

I am thinking a lot about transportation these days as I am currently without bike or car, it is not so odd for me to go without my car, but this is the longest bike separation I have experienced in a long time (that will change soon!). Anyhow, I am reminded on how much more we all can do back home to reduce our transportation impact.

One final note in today´s posting. I need to be sure that I let you all know that this is NOT an official Department of State blog and that the views do not represent the Fulbright Program or US Department of State…got it? Simply Tom Beery´s ramblings.