OUR NORDIC ROOTS

Spring in Lapland, the spark that started it all

This was a great time for canoeing. High water levels and good speed in the rapids, getting close to nature, socialising and relaxing together in the Swedish wilderness. Well that was the plan. But when setting up camp after a day of paddling the air was filled with mosquitoes. Six people, two small tents and a million mosquitoes rather destroyed the socialising and relaxing together. So there I was, sitting on a stone beside the river
brushing away the mosquitoes, thinking about how the optimal tent for relaxing together could be designed. It’s not so easy to socialise and relax when insects are greedily trying to feed off you and when the tents are too small for everyone to fit into one tent. Now, let’s see, wouldn’t it be good if… and then you could… and then perhaps…?

Many years then passed before I returned to that line of thought.

It was in the village of Moskosel in Lapland’s inland where the ideas which had formed while sitting on that stone were to be revived and developed, more than ten years later. I had just moved into the village and was working as a church warden. One evening, as I was changing a bulb in the church hall, it was not only the lamp that lit up. Standing on a chair, I suddenly had the idea of my life, namely to start making Nordic tipis!

Photo: Felix Groteloh