The Great Sea is a love letter to northern Ontario’s awe-inspiring landscape and its unique culture. Meriläinen offered a taste of it with his 2022 single “Land Of Skoden” (also included on The Great Sea), which set the stage for a full-on recording trip last summer. Utilizing his usual band—guitarist Jean-Paul De Roover, bassist Adam Gomori and drummer Alex Mine—along with a mobile recording studio, they set up at the Chippewa Park Pavilion near Fort William First Nation, with a local company, Apple Wagon Films, also on hand to document the entire recording process. Other parts were later overdubbed in Toronto, with notable contributions from members of Sultans Of String.