At 63° north in the forests of Finnish Karelia (for comparison, Anchorage, Alaska, is 61.2° N), Lasse Nordlund has spent decades refining an experiment in extreme self-sufficiency.

Nordlund built his log home from trees growing just yards away in the surrounding forest. With his partner Maria Dorf, they grow all their food during the short Nordic summer and store it in an underground cellar to last through the long winter.

Having never owned a car, never used a phone, and only worked for a salary for three weeks in his life, Nordlund has dedicated decades to exploring how little a person truly needs—and what life looks like when most needs are met directly from the land.

Nordlund makes nearly everything he uses. He built his own spinning wheel to turn fibers he grows into thread for clothing. The tools he works with are simple hand tools—many of which he has made himself.

Today, Nordlund and Dorf share what they’ve learned through their school Omavaraopisto—the Finnish word for self-sufficiency. On their forest property, students come to live and learn for six months to several years, studying practical skills like growing food, making tools, fiber crafts, and how to live directly from the land.

We visit their remote homestead near the Russian border to see how this radical commitment to self-reliance works in daily life.

Our friends Klaus and Johanna of Islestead learned their survival skills at Omavaraopisto.