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Paper short abstract

Finnish mire images on social media foreground duckboards and solitude. Yet directing people to these sites accelerates erosion. Interviews and folk poetry show a long tradition in which withdrawal enables deeper connection with forest and mire worlds.

Paper long abstract

Hiking and nature-oriented leisure are increasingly mediated through digital photography and social media, shaping how landscapes are represented and experienced. In Finnish mire-related posts—on Instagram—duckboards frequently dominate the visual frame, functioning as hyperobjects of the mire environment: elements that recur so persistently they define perception (Morton 2013). These images often depict empty duckboards stretching into open spaces, signalling solitude as a central value in nature experiences. Walking interviews with hikers (2023–2024) confirm this: being alone, or with only a few companions, is considered essential for connection with nature.

However, photographing and directing others to these “instagrammable” sites contributes to erosion and ecological disturbance; in some areas, species have vanished due to intensive photographing.

This preference for isolation resonates with older cultural patterns found in Finno-Karelian-Ingrian lyrical folk poetry. These traditional songs lack a unified concept of “nature,” instead contrasting “forest” with “village.” In women’s worry‑poetry, the forest emerges as an asylum—a refuge for those estranged from human society. While often interpreted as metaphors for sorrow or depression, these texts also reveal a deeper logic: distancing from others enables intimacy with the nonhuman world.

Across centuries, from oral poetry to Instagram feeds, Finnish representations of nature share a persistent motif: solitude as a prerequisite for belonging. Whether through duckboards guiding the gaze or verses envisioning the forest as home, these cultural forms articulate a long‑standing mentality that values withdrawal from social ties to achieve closeness with the environment.

The material consists of ethnographic fieldwork, social media posts, and folk poetry.