the boreal lands between the Baltic and North seas. Metsänpeitto is
well documented into the nineteenth century, and, like other religious
experiences, was more commonly experienced by women and
children. The celebrated Finnish poet V.A. Koskenniemi dedicated a
poem to the condition in 1930. It is a favorite of Marko Leppänen, a
journalist and activist, who read it aloud to me in sonorous,
incomprehensible Finnish on a small island in the Helsinki
archipelago.
“Metsänpeitto is not necessarily negative,” explained Leppänen, a
tall, lean, smooth-skinned man in green woolens standing over a
stunted pine. “Metsänpeitto is about getting lost in beauty. It could
have a taste of freedom, nature-union and joy. The poem is suggesting
that.”
In other words, metsänpeitto is a little like forest-bathing on acid.
It’s very Finnish. It’s also the opposite of the short-term window-
view effect of nature; it represents a deeper surrender to the forces of
the forest. Many health experts here believe modern times call for a
full, if still only occasional, immersion in nature. They’re trying to
figure out how much time outdoors is needed for healthy, ordinary
citizens to stay sane.
Leppänen is fascinated by the mind-altering, health-giving effects
of wildish landscapes, and he wants to share them with others who
visit him on the island of Vartiosaari. One of many small cones of
forested bedrock emerging from the Baltic Sea, the rugged isle lies
within Helsinki’s city limits. In winter, people walk across the sea ice
to get here (and nearly every year someone falls through and drowns).
By the time I arrived on a sunny day in May, the ice had melted and
we took a quick dinghy ride.
Leppänen, who appears ageless but is actually forty-four, is the
island’s unofficial groundskeeper, druid and spokesperson. Amid the
ferns, pines and craggy sea cliffs on the tiny island sit a dozen or so
houses, a grid of garden plots, and, thanks to Leppänen, a nature trail.