ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates popular outdoor practices such as the Finnish innovation of walking with poles known as 'Nordic Walking', as well as the rekindled wave of pilgrimage in the Nordic countries during recent decades. The Nordic countries, like most of Europe, faced a complex political situation in the early 1800s. The Napoleonic Wars brought about substantial changes with long-lasting consequences. The centrality of nature in the Nordic Romantic nationalism not only engendered a new way of looking upon nature and landscape, but also established the use of nature, through various outdoor practices, as a 'Nordic national characteristic'. Nordic Walking has gained particular popularity in northern and central Europe, especially in German-speaking countries. The pilgrim pastor Fjalar Lundell of the Swedish-speaking pilgrim centre in Sibbo, Finland, has long experience in Nordic pilgrimage work and sees the accentuation of the practices of a slower pace and reflection as characteristic of the Nordic pilgrimage culture.
