As the world has moved indoors, our chances of hugging our fellow human beings have become limited. Lucky for us all, there are still trees to hug. We decided to start a movement of sharing tree hugs around the world. But we’ll get to that later, let me first tell you about who we are.
Our family has been adopting trees to people for five years already. The idea came from Pappa (Grandfather) who did not want to take down his beloved forest. So we set up a website, put our trees up for adoption, and HaliPuu (Finnish for a ”hugging tree”) was born. Since then we have started taking people to our forest, both virtually on our live broadcasts as well as on real life cocooning tours (hammocking, that is). We have also created an app with little bite-sized forest experiences and stories.
For many, this year has been weird at best, and physical/mental torture at worst. Being locked inside, fearing for the safety of loved ones and ourselves, nature has been one of the important things keeping us sane. Here in the Arctic Lapland we have been in the lucky position of being surrounded by accessible forests and clean air, which is why we started thinking about how to best share it with others.
Which takes us to the subject of World Championships.
Finland has long been the country of strange competitions (think about wife carrying or air-guitar, for instance), so setting up a world wide tree hugging competition felt like a perfectly normal thing to do. Because of Covid-19, we decided to only invite local ”foreigners” to represent their home countries, and to include an open-to-all virtual contest to really make it international.
For the live event we got 10 competitors from 10 countries on 4 continents: Australia, Estonia, Finland, Italy, Malesia, Poland, Russia, UK, Ukraine and USA.
Our three judges were all experienced tree huggers: HaliPuu-Pappa Kaarle Raekallio - the owner of HaliPuu forest, Ritva Saarensalmi - a senior adviser at Pallas-Yllästunturi National Park, and Minttu Heimovirta - a biologist, wilderness guide and journalist. Ritva expressed the judges guide-lines as follows: “There is no right or wrong way to hug a tree. What is important is respect, realizing that the tree is a living being one should treat well – just like our loved ones “
Participants competed in three events:
• Speedhugging: Most trees hugged in 90 seconds, each hug lasting minimum five seconds.
• Dedication: Most dedicated hug of a specific tree lasting maximum one minute
• Freestyle: Most creative hug. Style open to contestant’s own interpretation, one tree only, lasting maximum 30 seconds.
Several styles and takes on tree hugging were showcased during the event, including impressive hugrobatic acts and a beautiful mother-daughter fairy-tale-hug by the Russian contestant. Still, the winning performance was about gratitude and celebration of forests.
Winner of the World Championships, Stefania D, has spent all her life near or surrounded by trees – foraging berries and chestnuts, doing sports or just enjoying the energy. “I was very nervous before the start”, says Stefania. “But when the competition was over, I was full of positive energy from the trees, the forest and the love pouring from the other participants”. According to the judges, Stefania’s way of encountering the trees was “convincingly caring and insightfully profound”.
Our Championship was streamed live on our Periscope channel, and on Visit Levi’s Insta live. It reached 12000 live viewers – and more through TV-clips after the event.
For the virtual contest we received well over 100 tree hugging pictures from all around the globe, from Mexico to Kazakhstan to Japan. The entries, and the stories attached were moving, funny and creative, and showed how the love of nature unites us all, no matter where we live.
Irina from Moscow won the virtual competition, with her joyful tree-squeeze. “This tree stands a little far from the forest, so I think it is lonely, it needs support”, she said about the hug. We have added Irina’s picture on the map of our HaliPuu – Forest in Your Pocket phone application, along with all the other pictures that had the tree’s coordinates included. Leafing through the hugs is really interesting, you get a glimpse into the lives of the huggers but you also get to enjoy the connection they have with the tree of their choice. We are looking to build a real World Map of Trees, one where people can actually find nice looking trees to hug from around the planet.
We feel that our event has been a success. The main idea was to bring a smile on people’s faces, share a moment of nature and to give people something nicer to think about for a while. Judging by the feedback we got, we did exactly that. Now it is your turn, would you like to help us? Show the world your love for nature and send us your best tree hugging picture. Let’s unite the world by sharing trees!
More info: halipuu.com
Agnieszka from Poland showing her skills in tree hugging
Photo by Eat Shoot Drive
Winner of the Championships, Stefania, got a flying start
Photo by Eat Shoot Drive
Hugrobatics by Mait from Estonia
Photo by Eat Shoot Drive
Virpi from Finland and her down-to-earth tree hug
Photo by Eat Shoot Drive
A fairy-tale hug by Russian Irina and her daughter
Photo by Eat Shoot Drive
The judges were very impressed by Ukranian Dima's climbing skills
Photo by Eat Shoot Drive
Malaysian triple-hug by Edmund
Photo by Eat Shoot Drive.
Paul was hoping to score better than the UK does in Eurovision...
Photo by Eat Shoot Drive.
Juha from Australia getting ready to hug
Photo by Eat Shoot Drive.
Mia from US and her yogi-hug
Photo by Eat Shoot Drive.
The judges had a hard time deciding on the winner
Photo by Eat Shoot Drive.
Everyone was cheering for everyone in these championships
Photo by Eat Shoot Drive.
Gooseberry still needs some tree hugging practice...
Photo by Eat Shoot Drive.
Tree Hugging World Champion 2040
Photo by Eat Shoot Drive.
The winning picture of our virtual championships - Irina from Moscow
HaliPuu's Steffan and Riitta - the organizers and yours truly
