How a tattoo changed my life
As I write this post I’ve found myself married and living in Northern Finland and it all stems from a tattoo I got a few years back. This is a story so weird that I thought I would take the time to write about how little things like this can change someones life forever.
Back in 2014 I was just coming off a sprained ankle from obsessive jogging the summer before and it had caused me to have a lot of doubt over if I could or couldn’t do multiday ski traverses. The ankle still felt somewhat weak, causing a mental battle with every tour I would take. That April the plans came up to attempt the American Alps Traverse, a two week trip never completed but attempted a few times. To say I was scared was an understatement as I didn’t think I had it in me but I decided to tattoo the phrase Sisu on my wrist.
The term Sisu is a Finnish phrase which became famous during the Winter Wars when Finland was battling the Russians and winning what seemed to be an impossible task. It’s a phrase loosely meaning stubbornness and a willingness to fight until there is nothing left. As I live in Finland know I can still hear people talking about there Sisu and as my Grandparents were Finnish it felt like the perfect term to put on my wrist.
Basically I could see the tattoo daily and it was my choice to have it represent not trying at all or attempting something that seemed so overwhelming to me. Fortunately I went for the second option and in the end completed the traverse with a tattoo still fresh on my skin.
Now fast forward a few years and I was chatting with Eddie Bauer about designing a backpack that was perfect for the backcountry and when they asked me for a name I said “It’s up to you”. When they saw the tattoo it was official, the pack was called the Sisu. Now I had a Backpack with a Finnish term but I still had never even been to Finland so that would have to change.
After a year of riding with my Sisu pack I took a trip to Austria to hang out with my friends Lea and Lorenzo when I met there friend Juho. Juho had similar plans to me wanting to head to the Lyngen Alps but he needed to drive up to Helsinki before heading North and asked if I would be game to join. Sitting there with my Sisu backpack I knew it would be fitting to see the country that the term came from and possibly do some skiing on our way to Norway.
And the Real Adventure Begins
After leaving Helsinki we decided to rest overnight at one of his friends houses in the small town of Rovaniemi 9 hours North yet still 7 hours south of Lyngen. When we arrived his friend mentioned that it was the celebration night for the midnight sun and that www would be going out on the town. Not being the party scene type of person I wasn’t too excited but I was a guest so I was game for what would be a life changing event. When I went to the party I was introduced to a girl and we started chatting. After I went to Norway we kept on texting each other and for my final week in Scandinavia I extended my plane ticket so I could get to know her a bit more, fast forward two years and we became married and all of this started because of the term Sisu.
We never expect that little things like a tattoo can change our lives so dramatically but here I am in the far Arctic North of Finland being an American with a Finnish term tattooed on my wrist. Sometimes I find myself looking at it and am amazed by how it completely changed my life to what it is today. Basically the smallest things in life can make the biggest difference.
