I reserved from the local library a book by Yrjö Teeriaho titled The Princess of Eastern Wilderness (in Finnish, Itä-Kairan prinsessa). The book tells of a legend of Lapland, a woman who walks alone across the forests and swamps of Lapland. She is in fact a real person, now over 70 years old, and still going for long walks alone.
If you make a Google image search with the phrase "Itäkairan prinsessa" you get lots of hits, due to articles about her published in Finnish newspapers. She hasn't taken photographs during the walks, but she has kept diaries, documenting how it feels to be alone in the wilderness, for several weeks at a time.
The idea of going for a two week long walk through wilderness, carrying everything needed with you was something that occasionally tempted me when I was younger, but these days I'm too fond of sleeping in a warm bed each night. And reading books and other such pleasures. However, going for long walks alone, that is something I understand very well, in reasonable dozes.
These photographs were taken late in the evening on August 8th.
(Posting title is from the poem The Stars and the Moon by Grace Schulman.)
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