Half asleep. I turn in my sleeping bag, causing a small cascade of tiny snow crystals to trickle down onto my face. Where am I? I open my eyes and stare at the white ceiling floating just 30 cm above me. Everything around me is white, the silence thick and light at the same time. Not a sound reaches my ears.
I am lying in the Quincy, a snow cave we built, where I spent the night. The night was warm in here, only about -6 degrees Celsius on the sleeping platform. Slowly, I try to peel myself out of my sleeping bag without triggering another crystal shower. I slip into my clothes and push the snow door aside. Outside, the cold bites into my skin; every night it’s -15 to -20 degrees. All moisture freezes around our faces, our hair resembling an unwanted work of art made of ice crystals. Our scale now only has two categories: nose hair freezing temperature yes or no.
Ice flowers and comfort zone in Norwegian
I went to Lynx Vilden for a week – signed up for the Winter Skills Intense course. After my one-year outdoor training, I wanted to push my own boundaries once again – this time a step further, in the Nordic cold. And learning new techniques: building fat lamps and saws, making knives with antler handles, felling trees, building snow shelters, and, of course, continuing to learn fire-making techniques and track reading. I got more than I had hoped for.
Cold, so cold that the water runs down my skin. Icicles hang from the only tap and shatter into a thousand pieces when we hold the bucket for drinking water under it. Only the kettle provides hot water. Ice flowers decorate the windows, like artistic ornaments. In the morning, the kitchen and workshop are just above freezing, and the community room is 8 degrees Celsius. There is no heating, but there is plenty of wood and fire. Everyone makes sure that the flames burn steadily.
There is food with a lot of fat – vegetable and animal, some of it hunted by Lynx himself. It’s a stretch for me as a predominantly vegetarian when seal is served in seal blubber – including a very intense, wafting smell that seems to cling to everything. Pushing boundaries, clearly outside my comfort zone. And yet so comfortable compared to how people lived thousands of years ago. How far removed are we today from living not only on, but with the land that is the basis of our existence? From the natural knowledge of resources, plants, living with the cycle of the seasons, the skills to not only survive in this environment, but to thrive? How many plants can you identify and safely eat?
Intentions and moments of silence
Flickering torches illuminate the trees around us, their light reaching only a few arm’s lengths away. Behind them, the dark Norwegian night is silent, broken only by the crunching of our snowshoes. Without saying a word, we trudge through the snow-covered forest. Fat and pieces of cloth melt in the warmth of our homemade lamps – black drops and red embers trickling quietly into the white snow. No wind, no animal sounds, no noise. Only our steaming breath and our flying thoughts: Why am I here? Our destination is Offering Rock – somewhere in this forest – where we want to step forward with our intention for the week ahead.
We stop and take off our snowshoes. Lynx, our coach for this week, climbs onto a small rock covered with snow and silently begins to clear something in the middle with her hand. The torches are placed in a circle, and a shape slowly emerges in their flickering light. The weathered skull of one of her beloved horses looks at us with dead eyes – her place of power. This is where she wanted to lead us, for the moment, for our intention, for the magic of the night. In the resulting silence, our thoughts form like clouds of breath in front of our mouths – they come and go, dissolving into the whole. We let them arise, rise, and ebb away again. Lynx begins to hum a tune. The repetitive pattern weaves its way through the images in our minds. After a while, we tentatively join in, making room in our throats for a few awkward, rough notes. The beauty of the moment is greater than the sound.
The program included learning how to cut down a tree correctly and process them into fire drill kits and saws. Lynx also showed us how to make knife handles from antlers, so that at the end we could all go home with our own buck saw and knife.
Sauna in the forest: solo moments
After five days, I am alone for the first time. In the sauna, surrounded by tall fir trees, close to the stream where I have just wrested the ice a hole to fill my bucket with water. The fire crackles and pops, filling the room with cozy warmth. The temperature rises faster and faster: 20, 30, 50, 70 degrees. Warm to the bone for the first time. I tend the fire, have the moment all to myself for an hour. I need the time to perceive, to process, to feel.
First: Music – how I’ve missed it. Dancing in the barrel, my hands dipping into the heat high up under the roof, while the floor is still pleasantly cool. Feeling the sounds throughout my whole body. Soon the urge subsides, and I sit down to meditate, something I’ve missed so much for days. Warmth and love fill me and the space around me. Connected to everything and so incredibly alive – here in the forest, somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Norway, while outside the snow slowly falls. So grateful for the moment, the experience, the shifted boundaries. So grateful also for a week completely disconnected from the outside world, offline – but with a whole lot of connection to the inside.
Aftermath: Return to everyday life
Tension pain. Old and new, outside and inside. Warm in bed and freshly showered, I lie in the hotel room, feeling both comfortable and alienated. Like an old shoe that fits like a glove – after being worn in – but has somehow become a little bland. I long for the outdoors, the air and the sky above me. For being offline and the smell of fire. For creating things with my hands. I feel how I feel nothing of my surroundings – walls that separate me from the elements. I feel both gratitude for the warmth and a slight sadness at being cut off and unable to see where the moon stands is in the sky right now. Shortly afterwards, my thoughts jump on to the next thing and my thumb reflexively scrolls through Instagram, emails, Facebook, and the like. Habits, old patterns. What stays, what goes?
About Lynx Vilden: „Rewilding humans“
Rewilding. We know this from animals; step by step, we accustom them to their original habitat and teach them to behave naturally in it. But what about us? Back to our wild nature – rewilding humans is the answer from Lynx Vilden and a group of like-minded people. In their Lithica project, they want to create natural places where a nomadic or semi-nomadic lifestyle is possible. Only with handmade tools, self-made clothing, and Stone Age knowledge. Perhaps a counter-concept to the increasingly digital world, where artificial intelligence and anonymous algorithms determine everyday life? Where the community, real connections, and the core of being human are at the forefront?
I wanted to push boundaries and expand my horizons. What I got – in addition to new skills – was an insight into other ways of life, so far away and so very different from my own. And that’s exactly what made it so valuable. And a week in the biting cold, free from the comforts of central heating, hot showers, notifications, and world events. Instead, I had the smell of fire in my hair, memories of the most beautiful, powdery crystal flakes of my life, and many questions in my luggage on the return trip.
Disclaimer
The text was written entirely without AI by a human (me), but translated using DeepL. This article is not part of an advertising collaboration.