Essays
Philosophical and Political
2022 The Northern Route – Nuuksio National Park
2 October: The travel agent arranged a guide to take me to Nuuksio National Park, a tiny park (barely over 50 square km) northwest of Helsinki. We canoed across a small lake, hiked for a couple hours, and canoed back. I usually feel intimacy and affection for places...
2022 The Northern Route – Autumn in Helsinki
1 October: Arrived by train in Helsinki yesterday evening. The terrain between Rovaniemi and Helsinki didn’t change noticeably from what I’d seen before. As I’ve learned both visually and by talking to Finns, this is not a mountainous country; I think someone said the...
2022 The Northern Route – Near Nordkapp
27 September: We’re about an hour away from the farthest point north we go—71 degrees. We will dock and I’ll join a tour to the North Cape (Nordkapp), return for my last night onboard, and then tomorrow it’s Kirkenes and the bus south. The terrain is still mountainous...
2022 The Northern Route – Near Trondheim Norway
24th September: I could see it happening yesterday afternoon and now, this second morning, it continues—the terrain changes, becomes lower and less treed mountains. Bergen’s latitude is 60.4 degrees N. and now we’re above 63 degrees, although I’m not sure exactly...
2022 The Northern Route – Gudvangen Norway
23 September: On the ferry north, as expected (or hoped after the relative disappointment of Greenland’s coast), it is mountains covered in trees and islands, inlets, islets, water cascading down from remnant snow, and communities and houses strung out irregularly....
2022 The Northern Route – Norway
The trip from Oslo to Bergen was the first time ever that I’ve felt shuffled around in a prototypical “tour” group. Thirteen hours from point to point with five changes of transport (train to train to boat to bus and back to train)—a recipe for exhaustion and...
