A slightly crazy weekend in June 25 saw us fly to the Eastern side of Finland to watch brown bears in their native environment.
You can read more about the bears we saw in this post, but I thought it would be useful to share the logistics of the weekend and what worked/ could have been better. We booked the weekend through Wildlife Worldlife, but potentially you could look at booking directly with the Martinselkonen wilds centre and purchasing your own flights.
Day 1 – Thursday – Arrival
We flew out of Heathrow on Finn Air at 10:20am landing in Helsinki 2.5 hours later. Our bags were checked through to the final destination (Kajanni), but we had to go through immigration in Helsinki – which took all of 5 minutes! Passports scanned by the automatic gates were then manually stamped. If only all airports were so efficient!
Onward to the Schwagen part of the airport to catch the next flight. Helsinki airport is very clean and spacious – just be aware it is around a 30 minute walk from the landing gate to the departure gate.
Once boarded, we landed around 1.5 hours later in a very small, regional aiport, wher Riina, the Martinselkonen Wilds Centre owner was waiting for us. Having checked whether we wanted a meal when we arrived, she phoned ahead to get it order and started the 2 hour drive.
Finland is 2 hours ahead of the UK, so we arrived at the centre around 9pm and were shown to our room – one of the twin rooms in the annexe. Spotlessly clean, though basic, with a private bathroom, the only recommendation would be to take an eye mask as there aren’t blackout curtains and it doesn’t get dark!
Dinner – bread, pasta and chicken sauce followed by jelly was tasty and filling, accompanied by water, juice or homemade beer, and then to bed.
Day 2 – Friday – Bears
Up for a buffet breakfast at 8am. A good (help your self) selection of yogurt, cereal, bread, cheese and ham with tea / coffee.
After breakfast we explored the area on foot Turning right on the small, quiet road ended at a small monument to a skirmish with the Russians in August 1944 (we were right by the Finnish/Russian border).
Following the road the other way, and entering the forest, we came to a pretty stream and old mill.
Back to the centre for a snack of tea and a delicious homemade cinamon roll at 12.
Then we just chilled until dinner at 3 – with the anticipation growing – what, if anything, would we see that night?
At 4pm our group of 8 gathered. 2 of the group were regular annual visitors and went in a separate vehicle (and stayed in a separate cabin without a guide), the other 6 of us had a short ride in a minibus into a private area of the forest. We then walked for 10 minutes or so through the forest. There were swampy areas but planks had been put down so we could keep our feet dry. It felt out of place to see yellow flags marking the border with Russia along the way. The adventure had truly started.
Tips about the walk
We had mosquito repellant with us but for unknown reasons didn’t bother applying it before leaving for the evening hide. We didn’t need it at the hide, but we were bitten on the walk there and back – the next night we applied the spray and didn’t get bitten! Will we never learn!
We were lucky to have dry weather during the walk, but it rained pretty hard at times during the weekend and I can imagine it wouldn’t be quite so comfortable in the hide if you were soaked. Worth taking rain gear / changes of clothes in case.
The excitement in the group was palatable, particularly as our guide asked us to walk in single file and not stop if we saw bears. I thought he was just trying to create an atmosphere of antication. How wrong was I – just over to the left I saw movement – it couldn’t be…. Yes! A couple of bears could be seen through the trees as we approached the hide!
Once inside, we started to understand the full brown bear watching experience!
The hide had bunk beds on one side and on the other chairs overlooking an area on a gentle slope. It was fully enclosed with a perspex viewing window and each person had a slot for a camera. The heater was turned on and it quickly got quite toasty. A compost toilet was basic but clean and was all we needed.
And the bears! Over the course of the night, we saw over 20 different bears. Some briefly, some stayed for a while and some left and came back.
Some were at a distance, others came up really close to the hide. Some (particularly the cubs) climbed trees.
It is important to acknowledge that the centre leaves out food to lure the bears to the hides. Our guide assured us that the food left was a supplement to their regular diet and they would still need to forage but some of the bears certainly ate more of the provided food than others.
The bears were mesmerising and continuous – I don’t think there was ever a time that we didn’t have at least one bear to look at.
Our guide shared stories about some of the bears – the ones who had more distinctive personalities which added even more interest to the viewing. I’ve talked about some of them in this post.
During the evening, tea/coffee was available in the hide as well as sandwiches and biscuits.
The bunk beds were towards the back of the cabin – so you couldn’t see the bears but were a welcome option when my eyes refused to stay open! Each bed had a pillow and thin sleeping bag – we just slept in our clothes.
I guess I gave up watching the bears around 12:30 – though the bears were still visible and others stayed up later. The thing to remember is that in June it doesn’t really get dark! It was a bit of a mindmeld for me still being so light at midnight.
Day 3 – Saturday – more bears
I managed to catch a few hours sleep before being worken up around 5am to get ready to leave the hide. Most of the bears had gone by this time and it was safe to walk back to the minibus – still awestruck by all the bears we saw.
Straight into breakfast and then a nap before our lunch time snack and a restful, reflective afternoon.
We had originally been booked in for a 2nd night time hide experience, but after discussing logistics with Riina, we agreed it made more sense to switch to an evening hide experience.
Notes about return flight
To explain further, the flight options back to London were either a flight leaving on Sunday evening and getting back to London very late Sunday night or leaving around 11am on Sunday, getting back around 5pm Sunday.
We decided it would be work best for us to get the 11am flight but that meant our transfer to the airport needed to leave before 7am which wasn’t guaranteed if we were at the night hide so we switched to the evening hide activity.
For us, this was actually perfect as it was a different experence. but it wasn’t made clear when we booked the trip – so something to be aware of when you are looking at flight times.
The evening hide experience started slightly later at 5pm and we had a slightly shorter walk to get to the hide which was looking over a different, slightly smaller clearing.
The hide itself was not heated and the viewing pane was open to the elements so we needed the extra layers we had bought. However it was a more immersive experience – we could actually hear the bears eating.
One other major difference between our experience of the night and evening hides were that it took an hour or so for the bears to arrive at the evening hides. Much more like a typical widelife viewing activity where you are searching the horizon for the bears to arrive and hoping that you see something.
We needed have worried. Once the bears did arrive, they were very close and active – climbing trees to retrieve tit bits of food as well as generally chilling. I guess we saw 5 or 6 different bears over the 5 hours that we were there – and some of them stayed for most of the evening.
We stayed in the evening bear hide until around 11am when we left back to the centre and bed to dream about the bears we were lucky enough to have seen!
Night hide or evening hide?
We appreciated experiencing both the night hide and evening hide and would recommend doing both. In the night hide we saw more bears, for longer and saw the bear cubs – which we didn’t see at the evening hide. However it was tiring. The evening hide allowed us to be closer to the bears – and to hear them which was amazing.
Day 4 – Sunday – Homeward bound
We were up early for our transfer to the airport. We got our return flight from Kuusamo (rather than Kajaani) as the times worked better. The airports are both about 2 hours away from the centre so it makes sense to look at both for appropriate flight times.
So back to Helskini and from there to London. What a trip!