Little did I know that spending a summer in Finland thirty years ago would change my life forever. That summer I arrived at a place I knew nothing about but when summer ended, I longed to stay.
For the following nine years I lived my life as subtle reference to that time continued. Little things that popped up in the background – hints to a riddle it seemed. Enough so that I made a trip back. Enough so that I began returning to Finland multiple times a year.
Each visit led to yet another as the riddle unfolded. By spring of 1997, and for the eighteen months that followed, I found myself in Finland weekly thanks to an exchange program sponsored by my employer. I thought then that that was the answer but soon discovered that my weekly visits were only the vehicle and the riddle continued.
Hakaniemi is the story of the riddle which continues to this day. Its the story of connecting the dots and then creating the dots that would be connected later.
