I would like to see art as a return to the senses.
Richard Long, sculptor, artist and walker
(Long and Cork 1988 in Rodaway 1994, p. 3)
I find the men sitting in the main room. They are drinking coffee and eating waffles with cloudberries. I’m invited to join them. They ask me where I have been the whole afternoon and what I have been up to. I tell them about my afternoon and the sounds of the rivers. The men start to discuss where the river falls are and if it is possible to hear them from different places. “You know, we have been here for so many years that we too know the surroundings. We carry the maps and GPS around just in case”, one of the guys says. “It is hard to tell what we are navigating after”, one of the men says. “Sometimes we just walk for hours. There are ridges, rivers, mountains and other visuals we know.
I ask them why they come there. “This is more like a tradition heading back to a time when hunting at the Finnmark tundra was popular”, one of the guys say. “We thrived here with the company and got stuck”, one of the others add. “Did you ever become attracted by the silence here?”, I ask. “What silence?”, the youngest of the men replies quickly, “These guys are never silent. When they’re awake they talk all the time and when they sleep, they snore”. The other ones laugh. They agree that silence is not present at all but there is a certain calming atmosphere that they like and need to adjust to during the week.
They adjust at different speeds. “Like that man”, one of them points at his friend. “He has so much pressure in his work that he has trouble calming down. He has always been like that. He relaxes the last day and stays like that for a few weeks. He should come here once a month.” They laugh together. “It’s true”, he admits, “I need the whole week to calm down. The hunting is just a reason for coming here, I could have been sitting on a bench outside for a week, but then I would have had time to think about things at work. The hunting gives me something else to think about to disconnect me from my everyday life.
6.1 Introduction
In this chapter, I present my argument that it is time to let senses other than the eye and vision take part in tourism research, just as many others have previously advocated (Bernat, 2014; Franklin & Crang, 2001; Jensen, 2016; Qiu et al., 2018; Waitt & Duffy, 2010). Sounds are indisputable out there in nature and we can hear them. The different characteristics of sounds can give us a lot of information and contribute a great deal to knowledge production (Bijsterveld, 2019b). There is much to learn about the environment through sound and hearing (Bijsterveld, 2019b; Fiumara, 1990; Waitt & Duffy, 2010). In tourism research, we can learn more about the complexity of our surroundings through bits of phonic information, if we develop some sonic skills (Bijsterveld, 2013).
I move forward to the “softer” science of sound by asking what is listening and how do we listen (Nancy, 2014; Truax, 1996, 2012; Truax & Barrett, 2011)? What are the modes of listening and how can these modes be used? Further, I get into the theories pertaining to soundscapes (Drever, 2002; Dumyahn & Pijanowski, 2011; Smith & Pijanowski, 2014), and soundscape ecology (Pijanowski, Farina, et al., 2011; Pijanowski, Villanueva-Rivera, et al., 2011). Further, I discuss how sound affects our bodies and how this is individual and situational and tied to specific traditional practises (Carolan, 2009; Ingold, 2011; Salmón, 2000; Whitinui, 2013) and aesthetics (Jóhannesdóttir, 2016; Böhme, 2013). By bringing in conversations between long-time re-visitors to the lodge and myself, I discuss how we can achieve this information if we learn to listen. I undertake this theoretical approach to answer the following question:
- How do we listen, and what connections are being made between humans and soundscape in nature-based tourism?
6.2 The “soft” science of sound and how we listen
6.2.1 Hearing and listening
Hearing and listening are often understood as quite distinctive but related practices (Nancy, 2014; Truax, 1996, 2012; Truax & Barrett, 2011). Nancy (2014) argued that hearing is a cognitive process of comprehending and understanding sounds perceived by the ears. Truax (1996) emphasised that listening is also multi-levelled and involves various degrees of attention. Truax (1996) argued that we process acoustic information more at a background level with no attention focused on it. The information we gather provides the environmental context of our awareness, a more sophisticated ongoing and highly redundant cognitive process to our consciousness. This involves feature detection, recognition of patterns and their comparison to known patterns and environmental “signatures”. Conscious attention can be triggered towards specific key sounds when sufficient need or motivation is present (Truax, 1996). Listening and hearing are not fully distinct processes as both operate through our bodies simultaneously, shifting between processes of interaction with sonic affordances of sound characters and how they are registered in bodily and/or cognitive modes (Nancy, 2014).
6.2.2 Modes of listening
Bijsterveld (2019a) describes two dimensions of listening in science. First, the three purposes, the why, and then the three ways, the how, of listening. The three purposes of listening are monitory, diagnostic and exploratory listening. Monitory listening is done to check for possible malfunctions, like changes in rhythm and silent periods of an engine. This type of listening is often performed simultaneously with other tasks. Sudden and unexpected changes in a background sound can draw the attention of an experienced listener. The ability to simultaneously monitor multiple tasks are also part of this competence. Diagnostic listening is undertaken to point out what exactly is the problem or to identify a sound with a particular concept. What sounds are abnormal amongst normal sounds. To ornithologists, diagnostic listening is used to identify species or monitor recording quality of sound takes. Exploratory listening is the science of listening out for new phenomena (Bijsterveld, 2019a). Like young zoologists and ornithologists looking out to learn about new birds.
The three ways of listening presented by Bijsterveld (2019a) are synthetic, analytic and interactive listening. Synthetic listening describes the ability to perceive complex auditory events as a whole. In contrast, analytic listening describes the ability to break the whole down into its component pieces and single out particular streams of sound for attention. In addition, the capacity to switch between these different modes is considered important at different stages of the knowledge production process. Even if they are considered as contradictions, both modes assume that the source of the sound is stable and unfolds to its own dynamic rules. In many practical cases of listening, the practitioner intervenes interactively into the sound while listening. For example, ornithologists could add other birdsongs or geophonic sounds into the environment to listen to how different birds react (Bijsterveld, 2019a).
These “whys” and “hows” can be combined into six modes of listening as well as combinations of mode-switching skills (Bijsterveld, 2019a). The different modes also interact with a third dimension the “what”, described in the previous Chapter 5. Bijsterveld (2019a) wanted to demonstrate how practitioners shift between different modes of listening as an important part of knowledge-making and competence building. She argues that our understanding of knowledge making is deepened substantially by giving attention to the ways listening modes inform the use of sonic skills in the process. The modes of listening are regarded as linked to particular bodily practices and embedded in a broader set of sonic skills, like listening, making, recording, storing and retrieving sound. This might give us a multi-layered and nuanced appreciation of the listening skills of practitioners (Bijsterveld, 2019a).
| Why | How | Synthetic listening | Analytic listening | Interactive listening |
| Monitory listening | Attending to overall features of sound for the purpose of monitoring. | Attending to the specific characteristics of sound for the purpose of monitoring. | Interacting with the sound source for the purposes of monitoring. | |
| Diagnostic listening | Using a (quick) overall impression of a sound for the purposes of diagnosis. | Attending to specific characteristics of a sound for the purposes of diagnosis. | Attending with a sound source for the purposes of diagnosis. | |
| Exploratory listening | Listening out for general impressions for the purposes of exploration. | Attending to specific features of sound for the purposes of exploration. | Interacting with the sources of sound for the purposes of exploration. | |
Table 1. Overview of listening modes (Bijsterveld, 2019a).
The different modes shift constantly back- and-forth with the listener zooming in and out using connections to embodied skills and also in addition to the availability and knowledge of the use of specific tools by practitioners. Sonic skills involved in knowledge making practices are built upon the ability to reproduce sounds, store, retrieve, circulate recordings in addition to listening (Bijsterveld, 2019a). In this chapter, I would like to analyse the importance of different sounds and how they are retrieved through different modes of listening by humans, such as me in the position of researcher, by the tourist that visits Mollešjohka and by Piera and his family, who host the lodge. Even though moving through the same landscape, we attend to different sounds. The significant “what” must be linked to a specific practice, the why and the how. Pijanowski, Farina, et al. (2011) have argued, as presented in the previous chapter, that the composition of key sounds, whether biophonic, geophonic or anthrophonic, make up the soundscape of nature. Regarding the perceived difference in hearing and listening, the definition of soundscape presented by Truax (1999) suits the context of this thesis better:
An environment of sound (or sonic environment) with emphasis on the way it is perceived and understood by an individual, or by a society. It thus depends on the relationship between the individual and any such environment. The term may refer to actual environments or to abstract constructions such as musical compositions and tape montages, particularly when considered as an artificial environment. (Truax, 1999, pp. 21-22, in Drever 2002)
Drever (2002) identified that this definition set some criteria. The listener needs to recognise the source material even if it undergoes transformation. To complete the impression ascribed to the sound, the listener’s knowledge of the environmental and psychological context of the soundscape material is invoked and encouraged. This is also important to influence the shape of the composition at every level. Ultimately, the composition is inseparable from some or all those aspects of reality. Its influence is carried over into our everyday perceptual habits and the work enhances our understanding of the world (Drever, 2002; Truax, 1996). The variations in space and time reflect ecosystem processes and human activity, and all these unique acoustic patterns can be described as soundscape ecology (Pijanowski, Farina, et al., 2011; Pijanowski, Villanueva-Rivera, et al., 2011).
Jóhannesdóttir (2016) presented two different approaches to thinking about subjective and objective qualities of landscape, which in this context can be related to soundscape. The objective way is where the qualities are inherently parts of the physical features of sound, and the subjective way involves the qualities of people’s perceptions of sound. She argued that both approaches fell short as explanations in a human-nature or nature-culture context (Jóhannesdóttir, 2016). Using an objective approach, the aesthetics and emotional relationship with nature vanish, and with the subjective approach. Jóhannesdóttir (2016) argue that the meaning that we find in our surroundings lies in the spaces between subject and object. Böhme (1993, 2013) built his theories of aesthetic nature, as atmosphere, arguing that we are projecting qualities of ourselves into the landscape. Hence, we modify the sphere of the surroundings based on the moods or feelings we have towards the environment (Böhme 2000, in Jóhannesdóttir, 2016). Jóhannesdóttir (2016, p. 119) argued that atmospheres are most clearly experienced as contrasts. We are not only subjects of our minds, separated from the body as well as other objects outside us. The notion of flesh is a materialisation of the border between the human and nature. We are nature and nature are us.
Perception is inherently an ongoing interchange between the body and the entities that surround it, and thus the barrier between the inside and outside is blurred. (Merleau-Ponty 1968, in Jóhannesdóttir, 2016, p. 116).
6.2.3 Bodies in Soundscapes and Soundscapes of Bodies
The philosopher Deleuze argued that the body could be a body envisaged as an assemblage of sounds, hence challenging the Western knowledge of the body as raw material, pre-social or fixed containers of biology (Deleuze, 1988). Sounds are central to the fleshy, emotional, material and tactile experience of self and place and are an important communicative medium (Connell & Gibson, 2004; Doughty et al., 2016; Duffy, Waitt, Gorman-Murray, & Gibson, 2011; Waitt & Duffy, 2010). Ingold (2011) argued for the haptic senses being just as important as hearing and seeing. Pressure and vibrations can be felt all over and in our bodies. He particularly writes about perceiving the world through our feet. He suggests that holding, feeling and gesturing has been taken over by the hands as humans have risen on our two feet to walk. Development of our brain needed to free our hands to design and shape what the mind conceptualises upon the world. These concepts couple the hands and the brains and creates potential for transformation. Having our whole body resting on our feet is biomechanically necessary as they undergird and drive the body within the natural world, the feet are the medium by which the body moves. Ingold (2011) commented that boots and shoes inhibit us to maintain a primary sensation through the sole of the foot, and he pointed towards barefoot civilisations. During the last decades, attention to haptic sensation of the foot, barefoot walking, has increased due to health benefits in adults (Franklin, Grey, Heneghan, Bowen, & Li, 2015) and more sensuous embodied and playful connections between children and nature (McVittie, 2018). Research on vibrotactile perception on foot soles are used to develop navigation devices (Meier, Matthies, Urban, & Wettach, 2015) and foot-based interaction techniques for mobile solutions (Kim et al., 2019).
All sounds affect bodies somehow, and bodies equally affects sound (Gallagher, 2016). Their material characteristics modulate its amplitude, frequency spectrum, timing and so on, which in turn alters its capacities to affect other bodies. Gallagher (2016) recognises how sound affects many different kinds of bodies, hence undermining anthropocentrism. Bodies may be human, but also intra-human, such as a cochlear affecting the auditory nerve, or extra-human, such as a body of air vibrating leaves or bodies of waters in lakes and rivers. Humans are just one possible element in vibrational assemblages, and in many cases may be marginal or absent. Sound is perceived through the bodily senses (Abram, 1996; Ingold, 2002; Merleau-Ponty, 2013; Rodaway, 1994). This is true for all living creatures. Perceptions are processed in the body and mind of humans and phenomenologically embedded in specific contexts (Carolan, 2009; Ingold, 2002; Merleau-Ponty, 2013). We cannot be separated from this symphonic world as the body acts within the space of the world (Carolan, 2009). Sound is an essential, everlasting and dynamic part of the nature-based experience (Pijanowski, Villanueva-Rivera, et al., 2011). We do not simply exist within a material reality, but reality is constituted by our bodies through our doings within it and our sensation of the world is shaped by our doings (Carolan, 2009). Perception is hence culturally shaped, and knowledge is embodied through situated sensual experiences (Carolan, 2009; Veijola & Jokinen, 1994).
Ingold and Kurttila (2000) described how perception of the weather is multisensory for Sámi people. This perception combines the auditory, tactile, olfactory and visual in so closely related experiences that they cannot be properly separated. The total impression is perceived as a bodily experience of weather. Hearing is possibly the most important of the senses, as it is possible to listen for bird songs or silence, how the sound of snow changes underneath your feet (also tactile), thunder, wind, and so on. These are not background sounds anymore, as they punctuate the space of lived experience. The multisensory awareness of the environment is a key to spatial orientation and coordinating activity. Sensitivity towards movements in the surroundings and animal behaviour, like when everything falls still and silent, can be felt as very disorientating even in familiar surroundings. Learning to contend with a degree of uncertainty and being able to recognise this uncertainty is an embodied knowledge of the truly experienced (Ingold & Kurttila, 2000).
The hunters start to talk about my research and about sounds they like and miss. One says he misses the pulsating noise of planes and people. These used to belong to the surroundings of Fornebu in Oslo where he grew up. Now, there are just the sounds of shuffle busses going back and forth between the office buildings and convention centres. “It will never be the same”, he says.
Another man recalls: “I live close to E18 and think of it as the sea hitting the shore. It’s like the sea at my cabin in Sørlandet”, he says. “It’s a pulsating noise, and I can’t think of it as cars otherwise I would become frustrated. I adjust to it in a positive way instead”.
I ask the men what sounds they think of when they are here. “The sound of the ptarmigan as it flies away, especially the adult male.”, one of them says. “The sound of the split shot gun as you click it together, the sound of the shot and sometimes the hail raining down into the bushes. The dogs sniffing and breathing while running around looking for ptarmigans and suddenly they stand still and are silent.”
Another says he also use to fish in the rivers and lakes. “The sound of the line on a fly-fishing rod through the air before and after hitting the water”, he says. “Or, when you throw out a lure and it hits the water. Fish breaking the water and mosquitoes closing up on your ears, eyes and nose. The sound of the riverboat quietly sliding up the river.” They all nod to agree.
6.3 “Soft” analysis of listening and soundscapes
To attend to different modes of listening the significant “what” must be linked to a specific practise, the “why” and the “how”. I will argue that the “who”, the body, is just as important when choosing listening modes. As foetuses in our mother’s womb we learn to manage how to sort out what sounds are important and what are not. Like the heartbeat of our mother and voices on the outside. We hear this through rumbling stomachs and intestines and the whistling of blood streaming in our mother’s veins. Early on we learn how to listen attentively to specific things. Listening gives us information that along with other sensuous impressions can develop our knowledge of specific places, individuals and their practises. As a result of my methodological choices of performing auto-ethnography, I had two different roles during my fieldwork – one as a researcher and one as a tourist. Being a researcher made me more consciously aware of the soundscape and I actively searched for key sounds that contributed to its constitution. I was constantly zooming in and out, stopping, listening and recording. I have given a thorough description of the results regarding thoughts of hearing in the previous chapter. Noteworthy here is that adding a body to what has been said changes a lot. First, it explains the choices of what I considered to be key sounds and what made up the soundscape for me at a given place at a given time. It brought back a lot of memories, affections and intuitive practices. It also affected me regarding when to make sound takes and when not, how I listened and the pace of listening. It affected the choice of methods and how to listen, the chemistry with my co-researcher and with the visitors, all who most kindly let me into their lives on vacation.
Some of the things I noticed with respect to the visitors’ perceptions of sounds and soundscapes were that they differed a lot. Even though I would not have brought forward the same examples of comforting sounds I can relate to most of them because of shared similar experiences (Rudie, 1994). Even though there are similarities between the men’s stories and my perception of the stories, they differed by being embodied by different individuals. We remembered and looked for both similar and different things at the lodge because we are made up from different stories, experiences, bodies and minds. I had presumed that silence was something everyone visiting remote areas considered a primary value. Hence, also at Vuolit Mollešjohka, when I asked the question, I found that I might have projected my own feelings into that question. It was not at all a neutral question. Even though the silence might not be the primary reason to go, I felt that it was valuable as a background sound to comradely conversations, shared laughter and experiences on the tundra. As for the specific story concerning a need for tranquillity, I can very much relate to the man, who described his stressful job and how this place relaxed him. I felt his story in my body. When I travel, I often look for silence and tranquillity in nature. This is a quality that comes from embodied experiences of a tranquil childhood, and stressful job situations in noisy areas or townscapes. Even living in the small cities in Norway, I experienced the surroundings as filled with too much and too loud anthrophonic noise. If you start to get annoyed by it, it will haunt you. Hence, I try to avoid those kinds of sounds. This has become deeply embodied in me and if I must stay in noise for some time, I become tense. My muscles start to hurt, and I get all these weird food allergies, I get very tired, unable to concentrate distant, and irritated, and I disconnect my mind from my body to cope and stay with the noise. The best “medication” is to find a soundscape that suits me. When I think of the harmonic sounds of nature, they are rhythmic, never enduring, very medium to low pitched, quiet and low pressured and filled with timbre. I have an affection for “the little things” and often do recordings close to the earth like one does macro-photography.
Beside the waterfall, the noise was not anthrophonic but geophonic. Still, it annoyed me because of all the frequencies colliding into white noise. Using monitory listening, I tried to find a soundscape that suited my preferences and relaxed my body. When I found the sounds disturbing my harmony, I used diagnostic listening to figure out what caused the noise in the soundscape. Changing between analytic and synthetic listening, I zoomed in and out to figure out where in the landscape the preferred soundscape would be found. The annoying sound of the waterfall was south of me. I realised it was not going to disappear by itself, so I had to be the one to move my body away from the source. The tunes of the smaller streams and the slower parts of the river made more harmonic sounds. I felt more comfortable to listen to them gurgling. This part of the river was to the north. Using interactive listening by moving my body away from the source of the noise and exploratory listening to find out in what direction I needed to go to get away from the noise, I moved along the path north of the houses of Vuolit Mollešjohka. At one point, a meander in the river slowed down its speed and I was able to sit on a steeper side of the ridge upon the heather covered ground with my face turned towards the sun in the south west. I could close my eyes and listen to the clucking of the water and the rustling of leaves – very low frequent sounds that felt relaxing and very calming to my body. This is what I appreciated the most from my visit to the surroundings of the lodge. The memories and practices of my body made the place afford me with different experiences and different sounds to contribute to a soundscape that was mine.
In the tables that follow, I have tried to use the modes of listening as an analytic tool to see if they could bring something useful into thinking about listening both in tourism research and when performing as a tourist in specific contexts. I have outlined the questions I asked myself while performing listening practices first as a researcher (Table 2), then thinking as a tourist searching a railway station (Table 3). I found the modes of listening informative and valuable when considering my practices both as a researcher and as being and imagining to be a tourist in different contexts. But, putting questions in the boxes was not an easy task. Especially when trying to attend to the “why”-side of the table. Listening is a verb not a substantive and the how covers the different activities. The thing that became clear to me during this exercise was that modes of listening are contextual, situational and dependent upon the sonic skills embodied in the listener – the ‘whos’. The how (the way) and the why (the purpose) are not separate but merged in the who (the listener) that does the how (the practise of listening) in a dynamic shift between the listening modes. Why is thus not an issue according to the methodology I have based this thesis on. How you listen is also connected with agency, and the will to listen to and for specific sounds of those modes – the ‘whats’. I tried to make a similar table for some of the guests but realised that this was too complicated for me to do that, and it would be based upon guessing what they might have thought and considered important. Considering this, I reflect that making empty tables to bring along during research would have been a valuable way to collect more personal data. I also consider working in more details with these modes of listening, but there is no place for it within the limits of the thesis work. I’ll have to come back to this later. Instead, I settle for now by taking out the “why” and leaving just the “how” in the upper corner of the tables (table 2 and 3).
| How | Synthetic listening | Analytic listening | Interactive listening |
| Monitory listening | How can I describe the soundscape around the lodge? | What key sounds are there? | How can I evoke the crackling sound of walking on dry heather? |
| Diagnostic listening | Identifying the sound of a small bird | Identifying the yellow wagtail | Can I move in on the bird to listen more closely |
| Exploratory listening | What kinds of other small birds are up here at this time of year? | Are the sounds just from yellow wagtails? | If I encounter the birds will they sing other songs? |
Table 2. Overview of results from my own listening modes in the role of being a researcher on sound.
| How | Synthetic listening | Analytic listening | Interactive listening |
| Monitory listening | Am I closing up on the railway station? | Do I hear any trains close by? | If I go towards the sounds of trains the railway station might be closer? |
| Diagnostic listening | Is that the sound of a train? | Is that sound of a train within walking distance? | Does the sound of the train become louder or quieter as I move up this street? |
| Exploratory listening | Is there a railway station nearby? | Does the sound of all those people and a train come from a railway station? | If I move in direction of people crowds, do I find a railway station? |
Table 3. Listening while being a railway tourist in search of a railway station.
What I have come to realise is that preferences are connected to memories and that there is tacit knowledge built as memories in our bodies (Carolan, 2009). How one experiences sound and what kind of key sounds one pays attention to is situational (Haraway, 1988) and contributes to one’s own personal soundscape built by our bodies. Others do not even have to like it, because it might not be what they like, prefer or appreciate. It is like discussing music tastes – every individual has their own taste, like my fellow visitors. They had not reflected upon the sounds in the surroundings of the lodge. However, a more silent environment might be a key factor in experiencing a slower pace of everyday life. If we think about nature with our bodies, like Carolan (2009) noted, boundaries become indistinct and picking sides regarding the valuing of sound qualities becomes useless. By picking multiple sides, we can move dynamically between different understandings of sound values and taste. The landscape architect at Fornebu had done their best to build a soundscape that could make up for years of noise generated by the airport, and then there was this man saying he misses the sound of it. Is he completely out of his mind? No, he just has different childhood memories embodied in him. I would guess it was a happy childhood as he longs for sounds that someone would consider unbearable noise. What does this have to say about the way we promote places in tourism? Well, we just need to discuss what we have and how we consider it and maybe try to show it a bit better. Then, potential customers need to decide for themselves if it suits them or not, just like when promoting music in a record company.
Talking to Piera’s friend, who had visited him for several years, there were grades of knowing the land- and soundscape. It was like making memories from bits and pieces that you put together by the impressions received and perceived. I was new to the place, so I made up my basis getting to know the place by first paying attention to all the different types of sounds that made up the soundscape. For those who had been there for a while, key sounds did not appear unless they were unfamiliar, or they decided to pay attention to them because they needed the sounds to afford them with information for security reasons, peace finding, and so on. So, in addition to hearing with the ears, they had embodied experiences also to which to listen. Memories had been added to different sounds through their experiences of the soundscape. It simultaneously connected them to a place in a different way and moved them closer to their destination. This is pushing the ideas of being a tourist to its limits. I guess the friends of Piera would be insulted if they were called tourists, as was the case that Kramvig and Førde (2019) experienced when talking to people at Hurtigruten. Being a tourist has difficult connotations regarding indigenous tourism, and you do not want to enter that sphere. Still, you do not have the same skills and enlivened experiences of the place as Piera and his family. So, you are in a position in between. With respect to Piera’s knowledge this is a better position to have than being called a tourist.
In this chapter I have discussed how we listen and what that contribute with in tourism encounters. I have shown that the theories on “why” we listen became difficult to answer in a generic way. The ones I have talked to about sounds and soundscapes say that they believe that sounds matter mostly in creating memories. Hence, it plays an important role in connecting to places you have visited. In nature-based tourism the most important purpose to listening is to keep yourself and your companions safe and happy, but it doesn’t appear as an answer to a “why”-question because it is not part of a reflexive process but more like an instinctive practise. You do that by using all modes of listening in an indescribable dynamic combination over time. The knowledge needs to be embodied through experience, otherwise your attention span would be occupied with just listening. Sometimes that can happen, but only when you know that the possibility of meeting danger is extremely high. The laughter of people is an important anthrophony to pay attention to and it easily mirrors the mood and feelings of a person. So does the sound of how people move. If their walking stiffens and slows down the sounds stretch out in time, telling you that they are probably less comfortable. Basically, the “how” you listen is primarily connected to caretaking. The most important caretaker in a tourism context is the host. To be a good host you need to develop skills that you can offer to your guests. In Sámi tourism the traditional way of developing sonic skills has not been given much attention. I will attend to this in the next chapter.