FINLAND’S FANTASTIC BEASTS

A memorable safari in the Finnish hinterland brings fairy tales to life.

- By Geetika Jain

At the base camp of Wildlife Safaris Finland (WSF), the common room was abuzz with excitement at lunchtime. Wildlife lovers shared stories and images of their sightings from the hides they'd stayed in the night before. It was late August, and at 65°North, the days were still long. From the anecdotes, I could tell the bears were active and wolves, with seven grown pups, were cavorting in plain view.

It was hard to fathom this full-blown safari experience was taking place in Europe. The ability to see these creatures in Finland had just appeared on my radar, and here we were, stepping into the unknown. At 4pm, Juha Kamtakoski, who runs the show on the ground, drove my friend Cristina and me 20 minutes through the forest to our overnight hide at the edge of a plain called. Paradise. Leaving us with our coffee thermoses, sandwiches, cameras, and sleeping bags, he asked us to "secure the latch from the inside and to keep completely silent".

While there were around seven other hides next to ours with people in them, we couldn't see or hear them. We were in an off-the-bounds outpost and had to register with the Finnish authorities before we arrived. Having flown to Helsinki, then to Kajaani, and then driven east past Kuhmo to WSF's base camp at Kuikka, we were decanted into the borderland, with Russia a kilometre away.