Nordic Word of the Week: Allemansrätten

Allemansrätten

Swedish · noun · the right of public access to nature.

Berry picking

Every man's right. The right to walk into any forest, regardless of who owns the land beneath it.

In Sweden, Norway, and Finland, where it is known as jokaisenoikeudet, the forest does not belong only to the person who owns the land. You can walk into it, pick the blueberries and lingonberries and chanterelles, pitch a tent for a night, light a fire on bare rock, swim in any lake. What the land grows belongs, in this moment, to whoever is standing in it.

There are limits, as all freedoms have. You cannot disturb the landowner or damage what grows, and you cannot camp in one place for too many nights. You take only what you need and leave no trace that you were there. The right depends on care.

For a child, allemansrätten is something simpler. It means the forest is theirs: the berry to pick and eat standing up, juice on their chin and nobody to ask, the mossy stone to sit on, the stream to follow until it disappears into the trees.

In other countries the law is different. The land belongs to its owner, and the berry on the branch belongs to no one but them. Allemansrätten is the older Nordic understanding: that some things do not have to be owned to be shared.

How to say it

Al-leh-mans-RET-ten. The stress falls on the last syllable. Say it slowly the first time. It sounds like the thing it describes.

In Finnish: jokaisenoikeudet. Jo-kai-sen-oi-keu-det. Six syllables for the same idea. The Finns take their time with it.

This week

Find a forest, a public park, or a wild edge near you, and walk into it. Sit down on the ground, and pick what is yours to pick.

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