The course leader taught adults and children to hug a tree if you feel insecure or lost.
I’m wandering through the forest with Estee Weng, getting advice and tips on how to enjoy and respect the wilderness.
Estee is telling me about an occasion when she was lost and alone in the forest, with a rapidly dying cellphone and no GPS.
She remembered a piece of advice from a short course she’d been on about how to feel safe in the forest - the course leader taught adults and children to hug a tree if you feel insecure or lost.
She tried it and after three minutes was able to calm herself down and start thinking logically.
– I was able to focus once I’d calmed down and remember that the sun was behind me when I parked my car. I headed towards the sun and found my way back to my car, Estee tells me.
Estee moved here 26 years ago from urban life in Singapore.
In 1998 while still living in Singapore, Estee and her Skellefteå-born partner became pregnant. As the pregnancy progressed Estee’s health deteriorated, she thinks due to smoke pollution caused by forest burning in Indonesia.
Estee was initially hesitant about her doctor's suggestion of giving birth and living in Sweden. She had planned to return to Singapore, where all her family and friends lived, after the birth to resume her life and career as a real estate agent.
Estee stresses that it is crucial to find hobbies of your own in order for you to find happiness and make friends.
Once she’d got over the initial shock of the temperature and the volume of snow, Estee felt better than she had done in years, although life for a city girl, starting a new life as both a newcomer and new mother in Skellefteå was tough.
– I missed Starbucks. I was used to that kind of lifestyle. It was then that I realised, maybe I have to embrace my wilder side.
Like so many others who have found their way to Skellefteå, the journey has been full of highs and lows.
Estee stresses that it is crucial to find hobbies of your own in order for you to find happiness and make friends.
She recommends joining an association or club to meet like-minded people who share similar interests. Moving to a new country can make you feel isolated, especially if you have young kids and are not getting out much. A social network is really important.
Like so many others who have found their way to Skellefteå, the journey has been full of highs and lows.
It’s evident that her happy place is in nature, and it's the reason why we are in the forest for our interview and photo shoot.
Estee has been picking mushrooms for more than 10 years but felt she needed to learn more so that she could start offering courses to others.
She is now proudly certified with a diploma in mushroom picking from ‘Svamp i norr’.
– The mushroom is something that is very tricky. You need to be 100% certain before you eat it, because if you eat the wrong one, you can die.
Beautiful mushrooms.
It might be unlikely that you’ll actually die from eating a poisonous mushroom, but the after-effects can be catastrophic. Milder symptoms include diarrhoea and vomiting whereas if you're very unlucky, a poisonous mushroom can cause serious damage to the liver and kidneys, which could lead to long-term dialysis treatment and in some cases even a kidney transplant.
"The mushroom is something that is very tricky. You need to be 100% certain before you eat it, because if you eat the wrong one, you can die."
Taking a course from an expert like Estee makes total sense.
If she’s not foraging for food in the forest, fishing, or running her Airbnb, you’ll find Estee on Youtube (Estee in Sweden) cooking delicious Asian food.
– I started making videos to leave a legacy for my daughter, whom my life has revolved around. I wanted her to understand my experiences of living abroad without family or friends nearby. I shared my recipes, hoping that she and her future children would learn to cook my dishes. It's also a way for me to leave my mark here in Sweden.
Mission accomplished, I'd say.