The Nordic concept of friluftsliv – outdoor life
seattletimes.com
seattletimes.com
An appreciation of and desire to be in nature is part of almost every society on the planet. The difference is if we can afford to be in nature and if we have access to it. The part about allemansrätten, which is the right go access nature and lands which don't belong to you, is correct though and I don't think many countries grant their citizens those rights.
I live in a small town in Washington. Not long after I moved here, I saw a video that listed this town as one of the ten worst cities to live in for Washington state. It listed high unemployment, high drug use and the big zinger was fewest sunny days.
I hear all kinds of trash talk about the weather out here which both amuses and aggravates me because I moved here for the very temperate weather. I live without a car and it rarely gets below freezing here and it rarely gets all that hot. It rains a lot and I wish there were more awnings in the downtown area, but the rain tends to be light, so I don't care that much. I grew up in Georgia which has terrible, terrible storms on a regular basis.
The article also explicitly states that Seattle has "deep Scandinavian roots." So it is trying to appeal to locals in a way that they should be able to readily identify with and embrace.
This is not a generic article. It is very much a localized article with a particular audience and time and place in mind. And for that reason, the references make a lot of sense.
Det finnes ikke dårlig vær, bare dårlige klær
It translates to "There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing" :)
And it's not some mantra or "special thing" really - just get dressed so that you're not wet or cold and you can enjoy the environment no matter what the weather is.
Warm gloves, waterproof boots/shoes, warm upper body clothes primarily. That's it. I find it nicer to focus on layers on the upper body since it's easier to add/remove according to activity etc, than lower body, and it'll affect the lower body temps more than warming the lower body will affect the upper body.
Is there a name for this? Can we call it "Wellness clickbait"?
It's definitely a thing: "What we could learn from the [country that's somewhat 'exotic'] art of [a word in their native language, maybe translated]"
Here's a good one: "Hever Castle is encouraging visitors to try the Japanese art of forest bathing". What is forest bathing, you ask? "Forest bathing, or shinrin-yoku is simply spending time outdoors under the canopy of trees to improve health and wellbeing".
But "Follow the Japanese art of forest bathing" is a much better headline than "try going for a walk in the forest".
https://www.kentonline.co.uk/whats-on/news/follow-the-japane...
My pet peeve is getting asked "I [heard/read] that people put chips in their arms there?!" (presumably for payments..?) - both by Swedes about Japan and Japanese about Sweden.
One difference I absolutely do see is what it means to "go camping". Growing up it usually meant bring your gear, hike out, picking some spot in the wilderness. In Japan that's something that is quite rare, "camping" almost always involves campsites.
It's also a bit of chicken-and-egg thing with normalization in the culture - wherever you go in Japan you can generally find affordable accommodation not too far, whereas in Sweden it's more of a luxury.
Campsites are also great because you can rent all the equipment you'll only need once a year, for the summer camp few days with your family as the Japanese working force does not have a lot of holidays.
Also the equipment can get expensive fast if you want to camp comfortably, and would require storing space the Japanese people do not have at home and thus would need to rent ...
Nevetheless, I think camping is getting popular and more and more people are buying equipment.
And it has indeed been a growing trend in the last couple of years, specifically with heavy imagery and inspiration from Scandinavia.
Though poorly-worded, it can challenge us to look at mundane things with a fresh point of view.
Yes it's still a simple walk in the forest. No, there's no magical Avatar-style glow of light envelopping us and varying with each step we take in the forest.
But in a world where everything is edulcorated by marketing and by superlatives (think Instagram "perfectness"), it can be easy to loose sight of how wonderful a simple walk in a humble forest can be.
The same trail in the same woods will never look the same twice. Same trees that don't move, yet things change in subtle ways with both fauna and flora which evolve within this life-sustaining playground.
I have never heard this described as "the Japanese art of forest bathing", yet that describes a walk in the woods rather well.
Of course, like any new novelty that comes our way, it's always possible to just cargo-cult it because it sounds cool and not realize what it's trying to get at. And you are right, this is further encouraged by the wellness clickbait. But I'd like to suggest it's possible to look beyond that.
The wellness industry is particularly prone to it, but in general there's a weird social proof thing that humans are prone to doing where ideas and practices aren't evaluated on their own merits but by who's doing them. So people end up roleplaying or cosplaying their imagined version of some other country.
Even allemansrätten is almost always described in very inaccurate and exaggerated terms, as if you could pitch a tent on some monopoly hat wearing rich person's lawn and there's nothing they can do about it. Just no, that's not how it works.
Take it from someone who grew up in Sweden but left as soon as I could - I hate to burst your bubble, but Nordic countries aren't heaven on earth now and never have been. I also have many, many non-Nordic friends who realized their dreams of moving there, only to leave after a year or two because reality didn't align with their nonsensical, wildly inaccurate ideas about what life there should be like.
Same here, it creates unrealistic expectations.
A lot of the things they say about Nordic societies are a bit more two-sided than they are made out in the Anglo media. For instance you don't have very strong job protections in Denmark, and some of the government handouts are dependent on you not having significant savings.
I remember I had an American teacher in school who decided to go back there just because he couldn't fit in socially. Something about the society means that people are hard to get a hold of. They kinda already have the friends they're gonna have. Not everyone is the same of course, but you often find with Scandies their friend slots are full.
The weather is great during the summer. In fact, it's perfect. Not hot enough to be oppressive, sun stays up late. But the rest of the time it's not great. Like today, it's cloudy in Copenhagen, threatening to rain. There's a lot of those days, and the nights get longer. You'll find a lot of the time it's dark when you want to do stuff.
https://nypost.com/2020/10/24/danish-word-samfundssind-may-b...
I don't think there's any worry of that taking off in the US.
If you don't live in Sweden any more, how do you make friends with the non-Nordics who moved to one of the Nordic countries and decided to stay there?
Certainly you likely go to Sweden to visit, but how many non-Nordic friends, who have been there for more than a year or two, are you making during that time?
I live in Sweden and I upvoted bedobi‘s post. I came here with idealistic notions of what Sweden was supposedly like (also encouraged by the myths perpetuated by many expat Swedes that I met), and became disillusioned with the reality pretty quickly.
Now I hate living here but it’s too difficult to leave with a Swedish wife and kids.
I’d say three-quarters of the people that I’ve known through the years who moved here like me, have left by now.
Also I wish people wouldn't constantly be lumping together all the 'Nordic' countries as though they were an interchangeable entity. They have similarities and share similar languages, but the cultural differences are much greater than outsiders appear to think.
In the case of 'friluftsliv' the Norwegian concept is way more generally about hiking in the wilds. (Affluent) Swedes do often spend their summers in a cottage out in the country, but in my experience this involves a pretty static existence in rural surroundings, and physical activity is mostly restricted to going to whatever beach is nearby (either on the coast or an inland lake). I love walking or cycling in the countryside and I'll rarely meet anyone doing the same unless they're walking their dog close to their house.
When I was in Norway it seemed like way more people were interested in putting on a knapsack and heading deep into the forest.
Native Swede here. I felt the same way living in the US (minus the kids). Now having moved back, I realize that the problem was not entirely the US, most of it was my own attitude. I won't claim that every country is equal, but there are often good and bad things about most countries, and I haven't seen a perfect one yet. Being an expat in a country though you will notice every little flaw, or anything that's different from what you're used to. Things that annoyed me disproportionatly included paying rent with paper checks and the look and density of US cities. There were a million things like that, along with more serious issues like politics and healthcare. Meanwhile you are partially (sometimes completely) blind to the problems of your home country.
Try to be cognizant of this and try not to be bitter, it's not worth it.
This is a sideline, but I want to be very clear: I don't hangout with expats (I'd say 90% of my friends are Swedes), and I have no illusions whatsoever about the faults of my original country (the UK), which I would never move back to. As a person who grew up in England with parents from Spain who were Basques, I'm actually very critical of 'patriotic' sentiments, and extremely aware of the personal biases that they involve.
I'm definitely not bitter - but I'd say it's typical of you as a Swede to characterize my hatred of Sweden in that negative way.
I just shared my own experience, which I would call bitterness. Basically, I couldn't appreciate the good parts because I was blinded by the bad parts. Maybe there's a better word than bitter, I don't know. I won't assume our situations were identical, so feel free to disregard what I said if it doesn't apply to you...
Then I'm curious, what country would be ideal for you to live in? And have you lived there as an adult? In my experience, you only get a true sense of a country if you live there as a working adult, even better if you have kids. As a student, or short term visitor, there's no way of knowing what it's like. That's why my image of Sweden was so rosy (and also because I didn't know anything else), I hadn't actually lived there as a working adult by the time I moved back. Likewise, my view of the US took a sharp turn for the worse once I entered work life there.
As a difference, I didn't come here "with idealistic notions of what Sweden was supposedly like" because I visited the country for about 12 months in total, scattered over 7 years, before I decided to move. And I did long-term visits (up to 3 months at a time) in a few other places too, before deciding on moving here. Nor was my move because I fell in love with a Swede. (Though my spouse moved here after we got married.
The worst time for me was the lack of housing in Gothenburg, which made it impossible for us to find a place after we got married. (I had been renting a small room in someone else's apartment.) We moved to a small city without the nightlife or activities of the big city. I found it quite isolating. But for us, having kids connected us to a different part of the city.
Your situation sounds tough. I have no words of wisdom or insight. Kämpa på?
https://satwcomic.com/wiki/norway agrees with your views of Norway and nature.
I wish I hadn't said I 'hated' living here - that was an unconsidered comment that really doesn't properly reflect how I feel. Let's say 'dislike'.
There are other places I've lived that I'd prefer to move to, but I'm happy in my job and content with my home, and have a lot of good (mostly Swedish) friends, and to stay relevant to the thread, I love outdoor life (though to balance that, as others have mentioned, allemansrätt isn't as easy or all-encompassing as one is led to believe).
I think the disillusion is a large part of my problem. And the fact I haven't seen sunshine for over 2,5 weeks...
There are small differences, of course, but the main differences between living in Sweden, Denmark, or Finland is basically down to language differences (especially here in Finland) and different ways of managing various administrative tasks. Norway is a bit of an outlier, but it's not really _that_ different either.
I've never actually lived in Germany so I can't tell how different it would be for you, but it's not like there's any radical change in peoples' manners and culture if you walk from Flensburg to Padborg and the way I see it, it's more of a cultural continuum stretching northwards, rather than a bunch of separate cultures.
If you want to live in the Nordics then go for it. We like to bitch and whine about it, but there are few other places that are so delightfully average.
The thing is though, you are basically Swedish now. You stay for exactly the same reason most of us natives stay. It's bad enough to loathe but good enough to never leave. (Until retiring in Spain or Thailand.)
There are definitely differences between cultures when it comes to this, in particular when it includes raising children. Being German I actually got a lot of confused looks when we had American friends over and they noticed that young kids over here just go grab their bike, drive off and play in the nearby forest all day. They seemed totally shocked that ten year olds just run off and play in nature.
Things took a turn for the weird by the time I was in college; one summer I wanted to take the bus up to NYC to visit a friend, and my mom (who, remember, had no problem with me just taking off on my bike when I was 8) was absolutely terrified that I'd be killed. She gave me her cell phone for the trip and insisted that I call her any time I were to leave or arrive somewhere. (This was all before 9/11.)
I don't remember any sharp change in her attitude toward this at any point, so I can only assume it was a gradual thing.
I hope saner and calmer voices prevail in the future.
I don't know how accurate it is, but there's this idea that child abductions and various other dangers (falling in an old well) in the late '80s, early '90s made parents more wary of letting their kids roam.
I strongly recommend the episode of the same name on the You're Wrong About podcast.
Then I got into computers and didn't see the light for a few years.
One very noticeable recent-ish norm shift seems to be parents dropping off and picking up elementary and middle-school age kids at school. I don't know exactly when the trend started, but it seemed to hit critical mass after 9/11, and over the course of the following decade seemed to become the norm to the extent that suburban schools started remodeling their grounds and parking lots to accommodate a waiting line of parents in cars - something I've seen now in multiple states.
Sometimes freak events have an oversized effect on people. In the US people used to park their baby strollers outside stores while they went shopping. One day, I think in the mid 50s, on Long Island, I believe, a family’s sleeping toddler in a stroller/pram was abducted and scared everyone from leaving their kids unattended in a stroller.
Mentioning that as the article was in fact primarily using Norway as an example.
But then, also in Sweden I think we might have a somewhat higher inclination to be outside than in many other places. Like, even in the freezing winter, the number of bicyclists commuting to work in Stockholm is quite large.
The finns probably share the extreme relaxation part of nature with swedes. Going to your cabin in the woods with family or friends and leaving your phone on the table to socialize or relax with those around you. A norwegian might like to "relax" by facing the elements and summiting a local mountain :)
It is not about being able to afford it, it is about preferences.
I am a foreigner living in Finland and this drive to be in the nature has impressed me, specially taken together with a society that is not very consumerist. In my original country, as well as here, you can use public transportation to go an be in the nature. Here is done much more often than there. Also, the cities are built in a way that respect and keep the nature, it's not about overriding it.
> An appreciation of and desire to be in nature is part of almost every society on the planet
I would rephrase that as "An appreciation of and desire to be outside in great weather with friends is part of almost every society on the planet." I'm sure there are plenty of exceptions, but I've met few people who are willing to, for no purpose other than to be outside, go outside in hard wind or light rain. The idea of "go get some fresh air, you'll feel better" doesn't seem to resonate well.
> fika
What makes the fika culture unique (we have it in Finland too) is not that you decide to go grab a coffee during the work day. For me, it's that _everyone_ takes a break at the same time to have coffee. I only did an internship in tech back home, but even there we would all take a break at 9:30 to sit down, have a coffee, and talk about whatever we came up with.
When I hear non-Nordics talk about Nordic culture I get the feeling that they're very focused on what individuals do, whereas the whole point is what people collectively do.
I've spent four years in Italy and around 12:00-12:30 the whole country essentially stops and goes for a lunch break - small businesses close etc.
The vast majority of restaurants are open during certain hours when there's a chance that people will visit.
I read somewhere that before WW2 it was like that in other countries, but died out over the years because of competition.
Perhaps what you're describing is a remnant of these times?
What I'm thinking of in the Nordics, or Finland especially since I haven't worked in the other ones, are the two coffee breaks that are part of the work day. I've worked in construction and the aforementioned tech internship, and this is roughly how the day looks (offices tend to start one hour later):
- 06:50: arrive early, banter, coffee - 07:00: day beings - 09:15: first 15min coffee break - 11:30: lunch break - 14:15: second 15min coffee break - 15:30: day is over
I may be off by 15 minutes for the coffee breaks, it's been over a decade since I worked outside of the tech startup bubble.
Not sure how things are in Finnish startups, probably slightly different? I miss these "natural" breaks though. On the other hand, I do enjoy having my coffee while working as well. :')
I see on TV people in Nordic countries camping by a lake and fishing for their dinner in complete solitude. I don't know where I could do that in the UK, except as some kind of paid bushcraft experience...or tresspassing!
E.g. opening hours and fences around parks - what the hell is that about? I was just totally confused the first time I got to a park in the evening and it was closed.
Part of it of course has to do with density, but to me that just makes it all the more important to protect and ensure as much access as possible. Instead people are herded into as little land as possible, and opening hours imposed on a good chunk of it.
Scotland does have similar rights to Scandinavia.
Hampstead Heath for example isn't.
Here's something to give you a taste of what is possible:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opAWJnD0Jro&t=40s
https://www.visitscotland.com/accommodation/caravan-camping/...
Also if you don't fancy staying in a tent there is a network of bothies where you can stay for free (at least during normal times):
In the US, I'd be trespassing and could expect police to say something. For a long time, it felt like I was doing something wrong or illegal.
regardless of posting status, written permission is required for certain activities such as driving and camping on private land.
Because ultimately, that's what I have here. I can just park off of the side of the road so long as it isn't blocking anyone and go off into the woods. I can do that and camp. Or sleep in the car, even. Without being worried about any trouble whatsoever. I can do this hours away from home without needing to know who owns the land.
Indiana doesn't need signs: If a local cop sees your out-of-town plates parked by the road or sees you in someone else's woods, they are going to ask about it. Lots of folks don't care all that much, however, especially if you aren't camping or hunting, so if they see you, they might say hi but that's about it. (Parents had some acres of woods, and didn't care with the exception of hunters - they wanted to know when hunters were about so they didn't let kids or dogs in the woods without proper safety colors).
You can't camp without permission although as children we certainly did this on our neighbors land.
Provided that the landowner does not charge a fee, a landowner is not liable for property damage or personal injury for the recreational use of their property.
I personally love it and would probably never post my land, but I feel like it is one of those nice things that can be described as "just the way we did things back then" that won't last much longer.
A quote from my states website
The landowner may maintain signs that:
Prohibit hunting, fishing or trapping;
Prohibit any combination of the three; or
State all or any combination of the three are allowed
by Permission Only.
Once registered, Permission Only signs and standard Posted signs are essentially
identical in meaning and enforcement. However, if you've decided to post, consider
Permission Only signs when:
Your primary goal is to know who is using your property;
You welcome hunters, but have had issues with other users;
You've made the decision to post, but want to show you support hunting and use
hunting as a tool on your property; and
You want to continue to allow other public access without written permission, such
as hiking and cross country skiing.It still happens though that as rural towns become more like exurbs though that new landowners post their properties to prohibit "traditional" uses that long-time residents had been doing all their lives.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/30/germans-embrac...
> The custom is something of a national obsession, with many Germans habitually opening windows twice a day, even in winter.
> Impact ventilation, or Stosslüften, which needs explanation for most people unfamiliar with Germany except for experts in air hygiene, involves widely opening a window in the morning and evening for at least five minutes to allow the air to circulate. Even more efficient is Querlüften, or cross ventilation, whereby all the windows in a house or apartment are opened letting stale air flow out and fresh air come in.
> In Germany, windows are designed with sophisticated hinge technology that allows them to be opened in various directions to enable varying degrees of Lüften.
Even if it looks like a parody to a German, it is valuable to get an outside look at your own culture to bring a new perspective - I like that too. The article I read included the fact that many renting contracts have conditions about how often it should be ventilated.
The national parks are epic. State parks and national forests have great access opportunities given the NPs are often busy. In the west especially, there is a lot of BLM land to use and get away from everyone. There are RVers, families and college kids camping.
In Australia we have grey nomads, 4WD convoys, families camping and travel couples touring around, but no real equivalent to the college kids camping in Yosemite or similar.
The US has enough national forests and BLM land (at least in the west) that I don't think the right of way is especially missed?
Yes. Much more in the western US than elsewhere given vast swaths of land are owned by the federal government and (especially outside of national parks) offer largely unregulated ability to hike and camp.
It's different and considerably more remote from, say, taking a long distance walk in England in ways that are both better (for some) and worse (for some).
Roadtripped and camped across the US twice last year, and the jump in camping opportunities once you get to Colorado heading west is awesome.
Another could be the emphasis to learn many types of flower and tree species in biology in school. When I went to school I found that boring and useless but have later realized it being part of building a closer familiarity with the outdoors. Like ancestry in some ways. Perhaps the HN crowd could enlighten on this. I have heard that there is not as much emphasis on this abroad.
A third example, the focus on Orienteering as a sport in school. When I went to school, it was certainly the most emphasised of all the types of sports we learned and practised in gym class. The only one that got it's own day regularily. I think it was once a semester, reliable as clockwork.
Michael Crichton put a label on something related this:
> Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.
* https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Murray_Gell-Mann#Quotes_about_...
The talk in which Crichton mentions this was discussed:
Since 1994 "allemansrätten" is part of the constitutional law, securing the right for everyone to go anywhere under certain circumstances (cant stay longer than a couple of nights in the same place, cant stay within eyesight of a permanent resident etc etc)
The fact that this is practical is a consequence of low population density. In places like the Netherlands there practically are no localities where one is outside eyesight of a permanent resident, besides national parks.
Compared to here (high population density, Germany) or say the Alps, where you can use any road used for forestry or farming. The only thing you can't access is small gardens in relatively high density villages.
One explanation I've seen is that if the nobility got to aggressive, Swedish peasants could always go hide in the forest for a while.
...which is something you can do in a low population density land, and we're full circle :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stavnsb%C3%A5nd https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vornedskab
Thing is much of the peninsula due to the climate can support only marginal agriculture and hence only a very limited peasant population. Not enough pop density to establish any sustainable lifestyle for nobility.
Markagrensen, "the forest border", was originally just a line denoting the areas that were so elevated that drinking water could not be transported there, but was quickly "hijacked" by organisations for friluftsliv as a sacred limit on the city's expansion. Markagrensen is upheld by a actual law today.
If you look up a map of Oslo, look at (1) the large green areas around the city and (2) the apartment buildings and houses built only meters from the border. That's the effect of putting a seemingly generous limit on growth 100 years ago.
Some people in the green movement uphold Markagrensen as a victory for the environment. I disagree: It pushes people to live in houses in the suburbs instead of in a densely populated city. It is a victory for friluftsliv.
The indigenous Sami-population used to live mostly in tents and move around following Reindeer herds. Very annoying to majority population for variety of reasons.
And this is why the Allemansrätt-law was made as thus: "You can camp on King's land, but not more than 3 days". Which totally destroyed the nomadic lifestyle.
Tromsø for example was one big tent town. There is still a large empty field by the river for the tents. When Nelson Mandela was visiting Tromsø there was big festival on this field. And I think the field was then named "Field of Human Rights" or something like that. Very ironic, nicht wahr?
According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_to_roam there are 11 contries in the world with this law (Scotland, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Austria, Czech Republic and Switzerland).
Here's a good treatment of the relevant laws, published by the ministry of environment (in Finnish): https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/38797/SY30_...
It usually involves more serious outdoors activities, though, such as skiing, camping or longer hikes in the forest or in the mountains including, but not limited to, such activities as fishing or hunting. But it may also involve just a short stroll around the neighbourhood, or to the park, so we're not discussing something truly revolutionary here.
Closely related to this activity, which can be cooked down to "being outide," is the Norwegian rhyming phrase, Det finnes ikke dårlig vær, bare dårlige klær, which in English means "There is no bad bad weather, only bad clothes." (Perhaps if you rhymed with leather it would kinda work, but idk.)
My own relation to this word, as a Northerner from Norway, is that there is never any bad weather in Oslo, where I live, even if it's raining cats and dogs. The reasoning behind that claim is that, while it can rain in Oslo, at last the rain falls straight down... And if you as a foreigner comes to Oslo, and then go on to think that you've been to Norway, then you're sadly mistaken. ;)
While I think other commenters are right that it's nothing unique about the Nordics to be outside, I think Norway is a notch above Sweden (and many others) in going outside no matter the weather. I commute by bike all year, and during winter I would like to cross country ski X times a week, no matter the temperature or conditions.
The fact that many of these shiny nordic ideals are still limited to people with limited resources. Good rainproof gear costs a lot even though it is a good investment. Cabins are usually inherited which means that if your (grand)parents were not wealthy enough to build a cabin you will likely not want to get into extra debt for a recreational building that you won't be able to visit that often. A lakeside cabin can cost about as much as a normal apartment in a city.
You could compare it to someone having a place in a popular skiing town in the US. It's not a viable thing for millenials.
Similarly a backpack doesn't have to be fancy, I know people who go camping with old laptop backpacks (preferable the beefy ones that can fit a 15.6" mobile workstation) or similar not very outdoorsy gear. Of course something along the lines of a $450 Savotta Patrol Pack would be superior in every way, but that's nice to have, not need to have.
Perfectly adequate tents, sleeping bags and mats are widely available for not a lot of money. Will they eventually break, sooner than high-quality gear? That's almost for certain, but the point is to get out there and do something, not to have the fanciest possible gear.
The one area where I would prioritize getting something a little nicer would be boots. A good pair of boots will greatly increase your comfort levels and protect your feet and ankles from damage. Again, I know people who go camping in sneakers, but actual hiking boots will be infinitely superior in rain and mud.
I would highly recommend subscribing to Steve Wallis on Youtube. He's a very down-to-earth guy who goes camping just about everywhere, with just basic gear and a positive attitude.
Start doing outdoor stuff in mild weather (probably summer). Buy a used tent, decent shoes and any jacket on craigslist or shady sports outlet or whatever. Get into it. See if you want to go mushroom foraging, hiking, camping, boating, shooting wildlife, skiing, climbing or whatever. Then you can start spending disposable income on the stuff you fancy (or not).
It does not surprise me to find the notion that you best start with an electric Ford truck, a second house with all amenities and thousand dollar Patagonia gear, but that's really not required to incorporate some friluftsliv in your life.
Cabins tend to be owned by the older & richer generations, but that's not really the point of friluftsliv as that concept is much bigger. It means people are outside more, even if it's just in the city, the park, or for a walk in the local woods.
If your aim is to have shelter and a place to get food then public/trekking association cabins are quite a good choice. The vacationing at your cabin is separate.
What deep connection does Seattle have with Scandinavian countries?