Sitting quietly in our hide, it’s hard to muffle our squeals as a big brown bear looms on to the horizon. With a swagger, he sniffs the air, looks around as if to let us know this is very much his patch.
Then come the wolves – some shy, or playful and utterly beguiling. We count seven. Our guide Janne Autere tells us they are four months old.
We are in Arctic Lakeland in eastern Finland, a 90-minute flight from Helsinki with Finnair to Kajaani. It’s one of the few places in Europe where you can spot brown bears, wolves and wolverines. There are said to be just 300 wolves in Finland, so to see seven is astounding.
Soon, the big bear has eaten his fill and retires to the forest (food scraps are scattered to entice them) and a smaller brown bear emerges. (Adult male bears weigh up to 300kg, females up to 200kg) The bear population in Finland is just over 2,000.
Seeing the young wolves shying away from the bears, playing like pups and gaining confidence is enthralling.
Great outdoors: Basing herself at Hotel Kalevala (pictured), Margaret Hussey explores Arctic Lakeland in eastern Finland
Margaret reveals that Arctic Lakeland is one of the few places in Europe where you can spot bears, wolves and wolverines (file image)
Margaret sees a brown bear from the safety of an observation hide (file image)
We have hired cameras from our basecamp at Kuikka and it’s worth the £25. The more hardcore can stay in the rudimentary hide for a night from £250 but we choose two nights at Hotel Kalevala.
Next day we visit a different forest spot – in the hope of seeing wolverines.
An official from wildlife umbrella group Wild Taiga tells us they look more like otters than wolves and are loners. After two hours we only spot some, albeit very pretty, Siberian Jays.
Back at basecamp, a tally of daily sightings is kept in a football results-type table.
We are thrilled our Bears 2, Wolves 7 win is going to make it. Leaving the animals behind, we drive past no-man’s land – an area that is less than a mile from the Russian border – and on to the holiday village of Lentiira, where we have a traditional smoked sauna and jump into the cold lake.
Everyone in Finland can access a sauna, says Elise Heikkinen-Johnstone, who runs Lentiira.
Margaret visits the holiday village of Lentiira. Above, one of the resort’s cottages
Margaret uses a kuksa, a traditional birch-carved cup, to go foraging for berries (file image)
Elise hands us a kuksa – a traditional birch-carved cup – to go foraging. ‘The forest is the church to Finns,’ she says. ‘Anyone can forage and there is no tax on berries.’
I manage to gather lingonberries, cloudberries and blueberries. Their colours are so vibrant against the forest and the only sound you hear is the sponginess of the moss underfoot as you walk.
This stillness strikes us as we leave Arctic Lakeland and return to Helsinki. Once in the capital, we stay at the NH Collection Helsinki Grand Hansa, which opened in May and comprises two historic buildings with beautiful Art Nouveau details. It’s minutes from Helsinki’s Stockmann iconic store as well as the city’s parliament, art galleries and library.
Helsinki has some 300 islands in its archipelago so we take a boat trip with the Redrib Experience – just minutes from the city we spot cormorants and herons. I’m chuffed, but it’s the sight of that big bear and those seven wolves which will stay with me.
