- After spending the last few days in Lapland, Finland, making new friends and exploring the stunning countryside, lakes and rivers around Ivalo and Saariselka, I developed an immediate appreciation for why Finland has been recognized as the happiest place on earth for the past six years.

While I'm sad that I have to leave the region so soon, I'm excited to see more of Lapland.

And next up is the Ruka-Kuumusamo region.

The Ruka-Kuumusamo region is well known for many things.

The small villages of the area are as welcoming and relaxing as it gets.

On the other hand, the Ruka Ski Resort gets the most snow in Finland and offers skiing more than 200 days per year.

The region also boasts the most popular hiking trail in Finland, the Karhunkierros Trail, which runs through the Oulanka National Park, one of the most visited parks in Finland.

This park is also home to the Oulanka River, which winds its way through more than 100 kilometers of spectacular and remote wilderness.

With so much to explore in the area, it's nice knowing that we've got a golden midnight sun to provide us with all the time we need.

The big question I'm struggling with is where to start.

(upbeat music) My name is Ken Whiting, and for over 30 years, my life has been guided by the paddle in my hand.

This is my search for the world's most spectacular paddling destinations.

This is "Facing Waves."

(upbeat music continues) Facing Waves is made possible by the following Vivid-Pix memory station and software allows users to scan personal history items like photos and documents, record voice narrative, and share what has been conserved.

More online at Vivid-pix.com.

Collette offers small group exploration tours, destinations and local experiences.

Explorations by Collette.

Guided travel since 1918.

♪ upbeat music In4adventure.com Inspiring, educating and encouraging outdoor adventure Host- And by these additional sponsors ♪ upbeat music (bright music) Well, one of the things that Northern Finland is really well known for is all the hiking it has, and so we've got a little bit of time, the weather's holding up.

We're just outside Ruka, and we're going to go to a place that's supposed to have a beautiful view of the area.

(bright music) I love going for hikes.

It provides a different perspective of the landscape.

You get a real close up look at all the vegetation and everything that's going on, which you don't when you're paddling.

(bright music) All the activities we've done in Finland have had layers to them, and the hiking wasn't any different.

We weren't just hiking up a hill to a beautiful viewpoint.

We were foraging for berries along the way.

(adventurous music) I love blueberries.

(adventurous music) I am never gonna make it to the top with all these berries here.

(adventurous music) Well, you don't really need to bring trail food in Finland.

Just water.

(bright music) Wow!

(bright music) You never really know if a hike is gonna be worth it or not.

You get told, "Hey, there's a great place for a view at the end of the hike," and sometimes, well, they're duds.

(chuckles) This is not a dud view.

This is spectacular.

What a great way to see the Ruka-Kuumusamo area.

Unfortunately, I can't hang out here too long, because we got some weather swirling around, and I don't wanna get caught in that.

(bright music) (bright music) Well, we're at our next home for the night, and this looks like another beautiful place.

But before I get to see where I'm staying, we got to go pick some cloudberries with a chef for our dinner.

Oh, yeah.

Finnish food is all about using what's available.

It's about local produce.

It's about foraging.

It's about what you have on hand and making something beautiful from it.

(bright music) - I don't know, it's that for that we are the happiest people here on the, is it world or in the European countries, but I think so.

Many people like to go to forest.

- [Ken] Yeah.

- Even only walking, or only sitting here or pick up the berries, mushrooms, and, of course, wintertime, skiing and doing many kind of things, so.

- I think the outdoors is probably one of the biggest reasons.

- Yeah, and of course the nature is pure, and air is very good one to breathe, so.

- [Ken] Yeah.

- That is good points coming to Finland.

- Yeah.

(laughing) - And to Kuumusamo, (laughing) and of course to our place, yes.

(bright music) - There is absolutely nothing like fresh food, but fresh berries, whole different thing, whole different level.

(bright music) (bright music) While our Nordic adventures are continuing, we are in the Kuumusamo region of Northern Finland, and we're about to put on the Oulanka River in Oulanka National Park, a two-day river trip.

We're staying at a cabin halfway down.

I just got to get this kayak built, and then we'll hit the water.

(bright guitar music) - So, you start here in morning, driving on here.

And now we are on here.

- [Ken] Okay.

- [Jussi] On that spot there.

And we start paddling here.

We continue to paddling that river.

It's make a lot of curves on here.

And our destination today is Aitanitty.

There is four-person rental hut, where is a very good sauna and possibility to swimming, of course.

You spend night on here, and tomorrow morning you continue paddling on here, and there is Jakalamutka, which is your destination.

- Okay, well, should we hit the water?

- Yeah.

- Let's do it.

(bright music) - We are in Oulanka National Park, and we are just paddling in Oulanka River on here.

I think that it's most beautiful river in Finland, what we can paddling on here.

It's very good starting with the paddling, because it's not so wild.

You can seeing reindeers, you can seeing eagles on here.

Of course, sometimes you can see couple of mosquitoes here, but don't worry about that.

If you have good snack with you, everything going well.

- If there are a couple things that really stand out in Northern Finland, it's all the saunas and the reindeer.

I mean, there's almost one sauna per person in Northern Finland, and there's way more than one reindeer per person.

(bright music) So, I'm guessing it's not that irregular to find reindeer on the side of the river.

- Yeah, it's not.

But there is a couple of reason.

First reason is that they work very hard in December, in Christmas time, and they spent the holidays in summertime.

- (laughing) Of course.

- But the main reason is that there is so many flies on here: mosquitoes, black flies.

So when they come near onto the pit, there is a windy, there is a sand so they can sleep quite well on here.

- Yeah, that makes a whole lot of sense.

- [Jussi] We have at least 150,000 reindeers here, but the springtime we have almost 300,000.

- Wow.

Crazy.

(bright music) (thunder rumbling) When you're in the north... any part of the world You definitely have to expect the weather to change and thats what its done.

These rain clouds just blew in quick.

And I think it's gonna dump hard, but then I think it's gonna be a perfect evening.

I'm sticking with that, it's gonna be a perfect bluebird evening once the skies let loose.

(adventurous music) (water splashing) (bright music) Well, we've made it to home for the night.

Question is, I'm wet already, do I go for a swim first and sauna?

Or do I get dried off, have dinner and then go for a sauna?

All the options.

(bright music) - [Ken] What we got here?

- Okay, so we have today, finally, the reindeer, what we have seen many times today.

And then we have a local bread and butter as well.

- [Ken] Perfect.

- Yeah, hope you enjoy it.

- Thank you.

- [Tommi] Welcome.

(bright music) - Oh wow, that's really good.

(bright music) So it looks like the sauna's going pretty good.

- Yeah.

- Are we in business yet?

- It's warming up, and I think it's soon quite ready, yeah.

- [Mikko] How many people fit in?

- How many you can get in?

(everyone laughing) We don't have any missed- - We're gonna find out.

- [Mikko] Yeah.

- [Ken] (whimpering) Oh my gosh.

(bright music) (Ken whimpering) (bright music) Oh yeah.

(water splashing) What a perfect end to an epic day on the Oulanka River.

(sighs) Well, it's not the end because I still have a few more sauna and swim sessions to do.

(bright music) (bright music) (sighs) Well, it's always a little sad leaving a cool campsite, but it's made a whole lot easier knowing you have a spectacular section of river to paddle.

And today we've got about five miles, eight kilometers to go.

Not that long.

Tommi and Mikko are already on the water, and so time to hit it.

(bright music) So where you are on the Oulanka River in Oulanka National Park, and Oulanka National Park is actually one of four national parks in the Ruka-Kuusamo area of Northern Finland.

And the fact that there's four national parks in this relatively small region is pretty indicative of how big a role that the outdoors plays in Northern Finland with the people and with traveling.

- Okay, my name is Tommi, and I'm owner of the Oulangan Takia company.

And we are focusing, like the name say, mostly in the Oulanka National Park.

On the summertime, we do canoeing, we do the guided canoeing trips and canoe rentals.

We do also the guided hikes on the hiking trails here in Oulanka.

And then of course we do the hiking gear rentals and things like that.

It's really a summer destinies.

And most of our activities focus on the summertime because, you know, the nature allows us to do plenty of things.

- Tommi's a bit of an anomaly in Northern Finland in that, as guide, his primary business is summer activities.

The summer potential here is incredible, and that's what he's focused on.

And so he's one of the most knowledgeable people about the paddling trips and the hiking trips that you have in Northern Finland.

River trips are awesome because every corner is this moment of discovery, and it's usually, oh, is there gonna be a cool view around this corner?

Maybe a little swift or a rapid, or who knows what you'll find.

But here we're finding reindeer.

Summertime, it's holiday time for the reindeers, are chilling out at the beach on vacation.

(laughs) I love that.

They got a big busy winter ahead.

- So the reindeers, like you see around here, they are out there in the forest.

They are of course eating a lot for the wintertime.

But also, they spend a lot of time on the beaches because it's always winding here.

No bugs are annoying them, and they just lay down, relax and wait for the tourist season to start as well.

- I could see coming back as a reindeer.

Ooh, no, that's not true.

I've eaten a bunch of reindeer on this trip.

They got the life, except for the fact that there are delicacy here.

Seeing reindeer on a river trip like this is a really, really cool experience, especially because they're pretty comfortable with people.

I mean, make no mistake, they're wild animals, but at the same time, they are somewhat domesticated because they're owned.

Every reindeer in this area, well, in Northern Finland, is owned and so they're accustomed to people.

And so you don't spook them as much.

You can get surprisingly close to them, but you still have to respect the fact that, A, they're wild animals, and B, they're owned by someone.

They're someone's livelihood.

(bright music) Sometimes when you're on an outdoor adventure, you're doing it to push yourself.

Sometimes you're doing it just to explore, and other times you just wanna actually relax, chill out, enjoy the whole outdoors environment.

And that's the kind of trip the Oulanka has been.

It is so relaxing here.

I mean, there's no other noise, nothing.

Just the wind through the trees, the babbling of the water as it rushes over the rocks.

I haven't felt so completely relaxed in a long time.

- The Oulanka and the National Park and the nature of what we have in here is the reason why I'm living in here.

I've been hiking here, canoeing here, spending a lot of time, many, many summertime before we bought a house in here.

And that has been my dream for a long time.

I really enjoy the nature, what we have in here.

It's clean, it's peaceful.

We have a rivers, we have a big hills, we have old forest.

So it's kind of a type of nature also in the scale of Finland as well.

- Well, unfortunately, my trip down the Oulanka is about to come to an end.

The takeout is right around the corner, which is sad because this has been really a trip of a lifetime.

What a beautiful place!

But this is also a place that I am gonna be coming back to because I've just scratched the surface.

There's so much more to do here.

(bright music) - Well, if you're hoping to see reindeer in Northern Finland, that's not gonna be a problem.

They are everywhere.

I mean, there's way more reindeer than there are people.

The brown bear are another draw, but they're really hard to find, hard to see.

And so the best way to see them is in a hide like this.

And we're hoping to see a few brown bear roll in this evening.

We'll soon find out.

So the name of the game, while bear watching, is really sit in one of the huts that they have scattered around this gorgeous swamp land in the middle of the wilderness, they really in the middle of nowhere, and stay as quiet as possible until the bear come in.

And when they're there, fight all urge to scream because they have an incredible sense of hearing and an incredible sense of smell.

And so you just have to sit there and be quiet and enjoy the show.

- [Man] One grizzly bear.

Oh, there's another bear.

- That little one.

- Little bear.

(gentle music) - Wow.

Cool, cool.

(gentle music) Oh, he's just walking in the water.

It's like he's playing in it.

Wow, you can hear breathing, you can hear it so clearly.

That's a big, big creature.

(bear huffing) The first group of bears ended up moving on and it was pretty quiet.

In fact, it was dead quiet for about an hour, an hour and a half.

There really wasn't any activity except for some of the white-tailed eagles, And then all of a sudden, one of the big guys came back.

(suspenseful music) He's back.

He's back.

It's the one with the scar.

He's coming this way too.

Ooh.

Wow!

(gentle music) Well, there he goes, off of the woods, which means it's probably my window to get outta here as well.

How cool is that?

(gentle music) Facing Waves is made possible by the following Vivid-Pix memory station and software allows users to scan personal history items like photos and documents, record voice narrative, and share what has been conserved.

More online at Vivid-pix.com.

Collette offers small group exploration tours, destinations and local experiences.

Explorations by Collette.

Guided travel since 1918.

♪ upbeat music In4adventure.com Inspiring, educating and encouraging outdoor adventure Host- And by these additional sponsors ♪ upbeat music (gentle music)