Going wild in Finland: The happiest place on Earth

My Miserable Week in the "Happiest Country on Earth"

A few years ago, Molly Young detailed her pandemic-inspired effort to “find little harebrained ways to warp reality“—an effort whose absurd outcomes were keenly observed, and surface in my mind perhaps once a week. No longer confined to her home, and incited by Finland’s eight-year streak atop the World Happiness Report, Young travels to Helsinki. There, her mood quickly darkens—something salmon soup vendors and an astonishing number of saunas p…

Going wild in Finland: The happiest place on Earth

I'm gently gliding over an empty shimmering lake in one of Finland's wildest corners, feeling absurdly happy, despite having been pressed into hard labour hauling a canoe through marshy reeds while my new trainers squelch in the sandy morass. Finland has recently been named the happiest place in the world for the eighth year running, so here's a golden opportunity to investigate the secret of why Finns are so highly contented. Today's top videos…