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I just saw ice in the water outside my window in the airplane! I took a picture since this is the first time I have ever seen ice in my life. There is so much of it that I thought I was looking at white clouds. Look at the picture closely. Do you see the reason I knew it was ice? Next you will see

Somebody finally asked me why we do this. What do we gain after tromping through the Finnish woods all day, or after finding a few flakes of quartz stone from 5000 years ago? Would it matter if we didn’t do it? In the short term, the answer is easy. Everything we do and everything we find (and don't

I usually have a very good sense of direction, because I know the sun rises in the east, crosses the sky to the south, and sets in the west. In Finland at this time of year it is usually cloudy and you can’t see the sun. Even when you can, it just goes in circles and circles around the horizon

Hey Climate Pathfinders, my hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark is doing many things to help the environment! All 4 of their hotels are carbon neutral. Do you know what that means? It means that they have added up the energy their hotels use to find out the amount of CO2 their hotels produce. They buy CO2

I was invited by language teacher Sirpa Walton to visit the Yli-Ii School. Ms. Walton teaches English and Swedish to middle school students. All Finnish school kids study English and Swedish, and some take German or Russian as well. Ms. Walton is Finnish but is married to an Englishman

Every Wednesday we meet for lunch at the Kierikki Stone Age Center and build a fire inside one of the Stone Age row houses. Or, we cook outside if the weather is nice. We roast makkara (Finnish hot dogs) on sticks over the fire. It’s a lot of fun. We also take "cookie breaks” halfway through

Finland is famous for modern architecture, particularly the works of Eliel and Eero Saarinen and Alvar Aalto. Finland is less well-known for traditional buildings, but there are some very attractive ones here. People who know me know which I prefer. But, judge for yourself! Here are photos

I like this passage from the*** Kalevala*** (see my post from May 8.) A young woman, just married, is about to leave the home she grew up in and go away to live with her husband’s extended family. It is a tense moment. Her mother lashes out at her unexpectedly: * ‘Go along, sold maid with him now