Towards the back end of last year, a couple of us were tasked with organising a stag weekend for one of our good friends. After months of indecisiveness and the realisation that most places were going to be expensive, whatever we did, I took the executive decision to treat the stag to a weekend Finland – Helsinki to be precise.
The weekend was pretty standard fare – arrive, eat, drink, sleep, eat, do something active, eat, drink, sleep, go home. For the activity, I wanted to do something different that didn’t also break the bank. After much surfing around, I got in touch with what looked like a small company, called kaikuva.fi and enquired about the activities available to us. We settled on a day of what amounted to trying different activities out – more about that later.
Fast forward to February – with the activity booked, the group firmly on the ground in Helsinki, mildly hungover but well fed, we set off for the activity location, which was about 50km out of Helsinki.
It was a really sunny day, so the temperature was a balmy -13°C – still, we wrapped up warm, as we didn’t really know what was in store.
Kai, our host for the day met us on a kick sled (above) and, after taking us down to what would be our base for the day, explained how the day would be broken down. First off, we were to have a couple of hours trying out various activities. We had the options of:
*Snow shoeing;
*Mini-skis;
*Nordic skis;
*Ice fishing;
*Kick sledding
We all started off with snow shoeing. We were based in the grounds of a hotel complex in woodlands by a frozen lake, so there was plenty of different terrain for us to get to grips with. I don’t know why, but I was slightly disappointed that snow shoes don’t actually look anything like tennis rackets. We’re wearing them in the photo below, but you can’t really see them. This shot was taken just after we all decided it would be a good idea to have a snow shoe race – it wasn’t entirely successful…
At this point, the group split up: a few of us people took on the mini-skis – potential death traps, but fun if you can stay on your feet!; a couple more took on the Nordic skis – slightly less life-threatening; the rest of the group tried ice fishing (below – they returned with a haul of 3 whoppers – all at least 4 inches long!) or getting back inside by the wood burning stove. Kaitsu was preparing the next stage of our day in the wilderness.
Next up – the smoke sauna and…ice swimming (that’s our ‘pool’ in the photo below)! We had hired a traditional smoke sauna by the lake – the idea being that after some time in the sauna, a dip in a hole cut in the frozen lake is taken. Rinse and repeat as necessary. The thing about the water is that for the first few seconds, up to about waist height, the body doesn’t register the cold. Only when you take the plunge and you’re in up to your shoulders does the shock get you – you can’t speak, you can’t breathe and you certainly can’t get out of that water quick enough! It’s an amazing experience and something that leaves you feeling totally invigorated.
“Yes, we are jumping into this wearing only shorts”
Finally, it was food time. While we had been subjecting our bodies to extreme changes in temperature, Kaitsu had been the Lapp hut that we had hired, preparing our late lunch over a wood fire. On the menu, we had fresh Finnish salmon, salted and cooked over the fire – by far the best salmon I’d ever tasted. This was followed by elk stew with creamy mashed potatoes and lingonberry jam and, for dessert, an interesting mix of ice cream, cheese and jam! All of this was washed down with some home made alcohol-free beer. Fed and watered, we headed back to Helsinki and got on with the proper drinking.
If you’re ever in Helsinki and want to try something different, give this a go – Kai was an excellent host – he knows his stuff and really pushed the boat out with the food. He runs activities all year round, so I’d be tempted to have another trip over one summer