Scandinavian brown bear
Freezing cold in no mans land
At 4 o'clock in the afternoon, I was driven to a photo hide in the Finnish taiga in no man's land between the Finnish and Russian border. The sun was warm, and it felt nice and comfortably, even though I was at the same latitude as Nuuk and winter had not quite let go of its grip. But that was to change. During the night, the temperature dropped, and it became freezing cold, so cold that the stream and the water in the swamp froze. I had a thermos bottle of lukewarm tea and a sandwich with me - and a thin sleeping bag. And there I was, all alone in the middle of nowhere in a plywood-thin hide and freezing cold.
For the first many hours, not much happened, but during the morning, a few hours before daylight, I could hear animals – bears – outside. And with the first light I could glimpse the dark, huge outlines of the bears. One of them walked around the hide, quite close – and when the sun rose I got the photo I had come for.
At 8 o'clock I was picked up and driven back to the camp. And this procedure was repeated for 5 days and nights, except that a snowstorm came in, so it got colder and colder.
See the other photos from the tour here: Scandinavian-brown-bear.
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