An Expedition To Finland – Photographing Bears – 2/3

Part #1 — Part #3

After visiting Martinselkosen Eräkeskus Wildlife Centre, we headed towards the Boreal Wildlife Centre.

There was a two hour drive between the two, with this place being further South. This also meant that there was a lot less snow in the area and more green forest to see.

It’s crazy how isolated Finland felt as we were driving down the country. This two hour drive took us down one big road with only trees surrounding each side. Occasionally there would be a building, but 90% of the drive was just trees. Which makes sense given the fact Finland is 75% tree cover.

We did see the occasional rabbit running down the side of the road, but no people were to be seen. Very strange.

On the first day and night, we just explored the area a little and relaxed mostly. It had been a long couple of days and we were so tired that we went to bed quite early. We did however set an alarm for 11pm to get some night shots though. I really wanted to do a timelapse but it just wasn’t to be. Instead I focused more on getting the dark sky and trying to capture some form of colour in the sky.

This night was brilliant though. There’s something quite eerie about being outside in the middle of the night, in a new country and with the knowledge of there being bears about. (Not anywhere in the immediate surroundings, of course!)

Thankfully we ended up getting a glimpse of the Northern Lights, albeit a very tiny glimpse. It was only a bit of green in the sky (which was hardly visible to the eye but could be seen in camera) but I’ll take it. We had green, purples and pinks. The sky was super pretty at night.

I definitely need to see them properly to really tick seeing the Northern Lights off a bucket list though. I’m not counting this!

The next morning we did some more exploring, of course. Walking in the woods and just taking in the beautiful scenery around us. We had a lot of land to roam around in and the weather was lovely so it was worth just taking a slow day walking around.

Also managed to see and photograph a red squirrel and brambling. The red squirrel had funny colouring though; the body was mostly grey, it had a white chest, red tail, red paws and red face/ears! It was cute though.

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After lunch at 3pm we headed out for our first night in the hide. This one gave us a very wide and open view – much different to the enclosed trees and the swamp in the first place. We were waiting for 4-5 hours for the first bear to appear but, once one had arrived, two more quickly followed. There was one bear that had a white patch on it’s back and I think it looked awesome! Whilst we were waiting for the bears, we just had lots of birds in sight.

Now here’s something really exciting. More exciting than all the bears we’d seen.

On the morning of our second stay in the hide, I awoke to excited but muffled whispers of ‘wolves!’ coming from the others with us. Yes, wolves! We felt so lucky because the guide had told us previously that the wolves would constantly patrol their territory and as a result they would only pass through the hide area once every 7/8 days. They didn’t stay for very long in comparison to the bears, but I’m happy that I managed to get some photographs of them.

It was an incredible sight and one I’ll definitely remember.

Next up on our trip was a journey back into civilisation. We headed into Rovaniemi for a bit of a look around in an actual town. Part 3 here.