Paper short abstract:

Our forest-related experiences and meanings are embedded in time. The past, present, and future human-forest relationships described in written reminiscences are the source of this research. They are scrutinized with the concept of time and in the context of time.

Paper long abstract:

Forests exist in Finnish people’s everyday life. Their lives, cultures, institutions, and societal structures are affected by forests.

Human-forest relationships (defined in Halla et al. 2023) intrinsically include time and temporality, however, these aspects are seldom scrutinized in popular or scientific publications. This paper studies how time and temporality express themselves in written reminiscences ‘Me and the forest’ collected in 2020.

The source material includes around 300 texts about writers’ relationship with the forest. Texts are analysed in the light of earlier research and theories concerning time and temporalities. Close reading revealed the abundance of time-related expressions hidden in texts.

Forest-related activities and memories help us to recognise otherwise invisible time. (Urry 2000). Texts of these experiences recall Ingold’s (1993) A-series and taskspace where the past and future are involved within the present. Also, connections to Koselleck’s (2004[1979]) ideas about the continuity of time (Space of Experience and Horizon of Expectation) are found in texts.

Various times (natural time, societal time, clock-time, etc.) are reflected in source texts. However, the forest seems to slow time, for a moment releasing writers from the rhythm of present society. (Adam 2006). Besides current experiences, many writers share their childhood forest-related memories. Writers seem to pass on the ‘forest-message’ from previous generations to their descendants. Forests that we see today are created by those who lived before us.