An expedition to Finland - Photographing Bears

During my second year of university I had to plan an expedition. It could be anywhere in the world, we just had to do all the trip planning and get media to document something. Myself and two others chose Finland, to photograph bears.

We had an amazing week out there, sitting in hides and talking with the other people at each place. Besides the bears, the spring is a relatively quiet season though, with not much happening for visitors!

The Journey

Our journey from London to Helsinki was pretty uneventful. Once in Helsinki, we had a long 5 hours waiting time ahead of us as our next flight to Kajaani was in the evening. A lot of this time was spent wandering around the airport, trying to figure out the floor system and finding the supermarket and cheap food. We managed to find a pizza place (yep, first meal in Finland was a cheese pizza) and then settled back down in front of our gate.

The flight to Kajaani was on a tiny plane, and I actually had a seat that was facing backwards! Kajaani airport was also very small – I think it had just one gate!

Our first port of call was Martinselkosen Eräkeskus Wildlife Centre, located in Suomussalmi. We were picked up by the guide and another visitor, and then driven two hours up North from Kajaani. It was nearing midnight at this point, but we were looking out of the car windows, trying to stay awake, and managing to see a few Arctic hare on the journey as well as getting a tiny glimpse of green in the sky! It just felt so surreal to actually be there.

The place itself was really pretty, of course. On the first day we managed to explore a little before heading out to the big hide for the evening. The area in which we were staying was very deserted – no houses around and lots of forest. On site, we saw plenty of bullfinch, chaffinch and tits, as well as a few woodpeckers and a red squirrel. We also spotted some big paw prints on our walks, but obviously no sights of the bears during the day…

The Hides

To get to the hide we went in a 4×4, and then on a snow mobile ‘sleigh’ for the final few hundred metres. I’m not going to lie, that bit scared me! First impressions of the hide were that it was huge. I had known that it had bunk beds in, but it really was massive. So comfortable, so much space to walk around.

We had been inside the hide for less than 5 minutes, and the guides were still putting food outside, when the first bear turned up. It was ridiculously easy, and all felt a little too easy. Overall we saw four different bears that night and even managed to see them all in the clearing at once. It was incredible.

The second day was also spent exploring the area surrounding us. Apparently around 75% of Finland is covered by trees. That’s easy to believe – they were everywhere. We managed to find a really pretty river, which looked very strange but peaceful against all the white snow.

In the evening, we went into another hide for a night. This hide was a lot smaller, and was meant for two people. We had three of us squeezed into it! Fine for the evening, but sleeping was something else. We were very squished and had extremely sore hips the next morning. Nevertheless, this one felt like a real hide experience for sure.

This time we were waiting for at least 4 hours before we got our first bear sighting. Very different to the first day’s experience. It meant that when we did get that first sight, it felt extra special. We also saw four bears on this night, and as we were so close I’m guessing that they were the same ones from the first night.

It was the perfect entry into our week, and I really loved our time spent at Martinselkosen Eräkeskus! Next on the list was a journey to the Boreal Wildlife Centre. Part 2 here.