The Friends of the North Carolina Maritime Museum Beaufort is set to offer a two-week travel opportunity next year to see the birds, wildlife and natural history of Finland.
The nonprofit friends group is partnering with EcoQuest Travel for the trip, “The Birds & Mammals of Finland — Brown Bears, Wolverines and Boreal Birds,” May 16-29, 2027, with an optional six-day, post-trip extension to the Varanger Peninsula in the Norwegian Arctic.
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“Finland is an extraordinary country, a throwback to an older wilder Europe,” the friends group said in a press release. “It is a land of great evergreen forests, rugged coastlines, shimmering lakes and stunning wildlife.”
The group said Finland is arguably the best country in Europe to observe brown bears and probably the best place in the world to see the enigmatic wolverine.
“We will concentrate our efforts on these two species, but we are traveling to Finland in the spring which will find us there at the best time to see owls, lekking grouse species and migrating shorebirds,” according to the release.
The tour will arrive in Finland’s capital of Helsinki and travel north to Savonlinna to search for the rare Saimaa ringed seal before heading farther north to the Koli, “our jumping off point for two very remote areas where we will use specially designed hides to look for Brown Bears and Wolverines,” according to the release. “Wolves occasionally show up at both hides and even the mysterious Eurasian Lynx sometimes makes a brief appearance. Being able to observe and photograph these iconic mammals of the north will be a rare and special privilege.”
From there, the group will travel west to Oulu and the Baltic Sea in search of owls, grouse, woodpeckers, songbirds, shorebirds and waterfowl.
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Then for the final leg, it’s northeast to Kuusamo in the boreal forest to search for “specialty birds” such as the willow ptarmigan, black grouse, capercaillie and boreal songbirds.
Those who do not depart for home head on to Arctic Norway to explore two new habitats with chances to see such iconic Arctic species as willow ptarmigan, bluethroat, Eurasian dotterel and long-tailed jaeger on the tundra; and king and Steller’s eiders, yellow-billed loon, Lapland longspur, snow bunting, gyrfalcon and huge colonies of alcids, or auks, on the Arctic Ocean.
For more information, contact JoAnne Powell at joannepowell1208@gmail.com.
