Finland 🇫🇮 - goats, borders and bear droppings

Sven Walther

July 20, 2026

Kalix

We follow the European route E4 north and make one last stop shortly before the border, at a farm near Kalix. Sadly it is a rather sad sight. You can still tell how much heart and good intention must once have gone into this place - but not much of that is left today.

Several goats pushing their heads through a white wooden fence — The welcoming committee

Close-up of a curious goat at the fence, Mammothon in the background — Very close indeed

We even end up as involuntary animal rescuers there: one goat has caught its horns in the netting on the fence and cannot get free on its own. So we help it out. And it was a good thing we did - during our entire stay we do not see a single person.

Goat with large curved horns putting its head through the fence — Those horns were exactly the problem

Across the border

At the border Sven wants to fill up quickly on the Swedish side to take advantage of the cheaper prices. Apparently a great many Finns had exactly the same idea, though, and had driven across the border especially for it. The queue at the petrol station is correspondingly long - luckily our tank is still full enough.

We spend our first night in Finland in Posio, already in Lapland. We are parked in an open birch wood by the lake - and discover the glass igloos typical of the region, in which you can watch the polar night and, with a bit of luck, the northern lights from your mattress in winter. In July it is far too bright for that.

Mammothon parked among birches on a meadow in Posio — First night in Finland

Glass igloo with a domed roof on the shore of a lake in Posio — Glass igloo by the lake

Korouoma

The next day we go hiking in the Korouoma, a canyon around thirty kilometres long and up to 130 metres deep, the whole of which is a nature reserve. At the entrance stands a wooden gate in the forest, and after that the trail is essentially: forest.

Narrow sandy path winding through low pine forest and heather — A path, a forest, nothing else

For a long stretch we do not meet a single other person. No hikers, no voices, no cars - only the stream running over the stones down in the valley, and a bridge made of logs laid side by side.

Sven crossing a narrow log bridge over a stream with Lou — A bridge made of logs

Stream running between large mossy stones through the forest — The stream down in the valley

Instead we get visitors of another kind: a reindeer stands in the middle of the track and looks at us for quite a while before deciding that we are not that interesting after all.

Reindeer standing on a sandy forest track and looking into the camera — An encounter on the trail

And then we find something else all the more often: droppings from a brown bear. Not once, not twice, but at regular intervals along the trail. Let us put it this way: it definitely made the hike a little more exciting than planned.

Lou standing on a long fallen tree trunk in the pine forest — Lou takes the shortcut

Lou on a fallen trunk with a mirror-smooth lake reflecting the clouds behind — And again, this time with a lake

Lou takes all of this considerably more calmly than we do. In the end we do not see a single bear - and we are not entirely sure whether we should be relieved or just a little bit disappointed about that.