“Let all the wise be wise in their wits, and let me, with my love, be a fool”
It was with this very quote from Edward Stachura’s Siekierezada that one of the books Monika and I took on this year’s expedition began. And no quote could better capture how we must have looked in the eyes of our neighbors over the past few weeks, as almost daily - spending countless hours in the underground garage - we crawled into our car’s trunk through the half-open tailgate or side doors.
It is impossible to capture the beauty of Scandinavia in words, videos, or photos, but we did our best to chronologically capture the finest moments in this nearly 10-minute film.
Later on, it only got funnier: taking measurements, cutting upholstery foam right there in the garage, repeatedly hauling up and down the exact same storage boxes boldly labeled “WARM”, “COLD”, “HYGIENE”, and “SINS”. Bearing in mind the inevitability of my upcoming 35th birthday, I truly tried my best to at least look serious while carrying that massive box labeled “SINS”, or when pressing hardware store underlayment against the car windows, propped up with colorful drinking straws.
Today, I don’t even know where or how it all started. Even less do I remember the exact moment when I forgot that carrying a kayak on the roof rack over distances greater than 100 km always stresses me out a bit, and when I happily accepted the fact that for the upcoming journey, I would have two 5-meter kayaks on the roof of the car and drive with them beyond the Arctic Circle. With kayaks to the edge of Europe.
And all of this just to feel that freedom once again, exactly the kind I always experience during our long, strange journeys together. And what just a few weeks ago seemed funny, stressful, or foolish (because why sleep in a trunk or cover nearly 7600 kilometers with kayaks on the roof?), today I already know gave us true freedom and the adventure of a lifetime.
When we set out from Gdańsk three weeks ago to reach the North Cape, the plan was simple: sleep, paddle, and hike wherever we want. Let us not be limited by hotels, kayak rental shops, or even the night (by the time we crossed the Arctic Circle, the midnight sun was upon us). Into the packed car, I tossed a tent as well, and on my phone, I jotted down a few spots we absolutely wanted to see or paddle along the way north - the exact route or the places where we would stop to sleep no longer mattered to us.
And so, what started as a trip to the North Cape turned into a journey not only across the whole of Norway, but also through Sweden and a corner of Finland. An expedition whose beauty is best described by Monia’s question, which I heard while kayaking the Nærøyfjord:
“And what now?”
At first, I thought Monia was simply asking what was next on our simple list, but before I could answer, another question came:
“And what are we going to do next year?”
I left the question unanswered, hoping that later in the trip I would come up with some proposal. The moment I launched my kayak at the northern edge of Europe, I already knew that I wouldn’t be coming up with any such proposal anytime soon. Not now…