So I decided to break routine at the start of this year and challenge myself. I suppose you can say I wanted to be like a newborn baby again. I wanted the feeling of experiencing new things for the first time- just like a newborn baby would. Traveling does that to me, I am constantly looking at new surroundings, putting myself in different situations and learning more and loving every minute of it.
So for the last 10 months I have been backpacking around Europe and am continuously discovering breathtaking places, views, people, culture and everything else that comes along with the amazing experiences of travel.
If you have backpacked around Europe before I’m sure you would have heard of the many volunteer programs that you can register in. I went through one of those programs called Workaway as I had heard so many positive things about it!
For the months of October and November I volunteered in the Finnish Lapland, which was to say the least an unforgettable experience. For the first two weeks I worked in a little town called Inari, in a very homely villa. Each morning I would get up and make the guest’s breakfast, which included, fresh warm homemade bread. Whilst at breakfast it was a great opportunity to meet many other travellers. After 5 hours of work, in which I maintained the villa I would usually go explore and take a hike on the many walking tracks that were around the area. There was this one-day where I thought it would be a smart idea to do a 50km hike. My aim was to get back before it got dark and due to the time of year darkness hit by 3pm, so it was going to be a challenge from the beginning. However, with the bad weather, all the rain, my clueless understanding of how to interpret a map and the darkness I finally managed to make it back much later that night but alive. It was defiantly an experience.
I was later moved out onto the farm (10km from the town of Inari) in which was owned by the same owner as the Villa. From here I helped out with general maintenance and took guests on husky sledding tours. The farm was beautiful and was home to 49 huskies and three horses. It didn’t take me long to fall in love with every single one of these animals and after a couple of weeks I knew them all by name. The days were long but so rewarding. In the mornings myself, and two of the other volunteers would get up and start with general maintenance. This consisted of cleaning the dog’s cages and horse stables and making sure that they all had water. For the first week I was there we would train the dogs on the quad bikes getting them stronger and ready for the peak winter season. After this week the snow came around constantly and heavily. With the snow the lakes started to freeze up and the place really did look like a winter wonderland. We then started to run the dogs on the winter sledding track, which was absolutely amazing. I sat in the sled the first couple of times and then had to brave up and ride it for the first time with two guests in the sled. Take off went well and it was so exhilarating.. well until I got to the first corner where the dogs took it really sharply and I went into the bushes tipping the sled. The guest fell out and I held on for my life. The dogs pulled me the next 60m in the snow as I acted as an anchor (well an anchor that didn’t work because they certainly didn’t stop or slow down) while my guest were running after me and yelling at the dogs to stop. When they finally decided to stop I managed to tip the sled back up and continue. I had never been so happy to return back to camp. This day did teach me a lot and I am happy to say that I didn’t tip the sled again. I was just so lucky that the two guests had the kindest souls and were overjoyed that they had something funny to tell their friends.
After the full day of sledding the animals would then have to be fed. This was the craziest time of the day for sure. The dogs would go ballistic and the noises and sounds that they would make were incredible! For their dinner we would light a fire each night and heat up their food before taking it around to each of them. At the end of this I would always look forward to enjoying a nice cooked meal all together. This was a good time to rewind and share time talking about the day, playing cards, or enjoying a board game.
Although the farm did not have electricity or running water this only made me appreciate everything so much more. Drilling a hole in the lake to get fresh drinking water, using the sauna every second night as a way of showering, back to using candlelight, reading, having no distractions from electronics, numerous nights spent down at the lake staring up at the magical northern lights dancing around the night sky truly made this something special.
Leaving Finland I decided to hitchhike from the farm to the airport. Having never done this before I didn’t know what to expect. I kept going off the motto that I had heard before, and had never been able to forget, ‘trust everyone until they give you a reason not to- however don’t be naïve’. No, I didn’t get in everyone’s car that pulled over. As a young girl I was very weary however, the people that did give me a lift were absolutely amazing. I learnt one thing from this; Finnish people are so incredible and genuine. One lady even went out of her way when I told her I didn’t have a phone. She began calling every possible place in the town that I was headed to in order to make sure that I had the somewhere nice and safe to stay.
I had the best time and will never forget my experience in the Finnish Lapland.
Sheydin Stapleton, the author of this article, is a gorgeous Australian girl who volunteered with World Wide Travellers in the Tallinn Backpackers hostel for some weeks after her adventures in the Finnish Lapland herein described. After that she spent New Year’s in Iceland before returning to her motherland to prepare new adventures.
It was very nice to read about your experience 🙂 thanks!
Väga ilusad pildid:)) winks!
Wow what an adventure you had there sounds amazing!