How We Ended Up Here: The Road to Bearhill, Rovaniemi
People often ask us how we got started in all of this and how Bearhill Husky came to be. Honestly, it’s a bit of a winding road. It wasn’t just one decision or a single moment that set us on this path. It was a series of adventures, experiments, missteps, and small wins that brought us to where we are now.
It all started back in 1998, when I came to Finland to study wilderness guiding. I enrolled in the International Wilderness Guide course in Kuru. That’s where I met Veronika. She stood out immediately. Smart, focused, and way more organized than I was. After the course, she went off to study tourism marketing in Savonlinna, while I dove headfirst into the sled dog world.
Over the next few years, I bounced between summer and winter jobs. I spent my summers working in kennels and winters way up north in a kennel called Kamisak. I got hired not just because I could handle dogs, but because I spoke Dutch, which came in handy with the guests. The kennel I worked for was old-school. The owners were pioneers of husky tourism in Lapland, proper legends, and they really believed in the purebred Siberian way of doing things.
But as much as I respected them, I also saw the limits of doing things the old-fashioned way. I had ideas. New approaches. A different take on how things could be done, especially with guests. I started to get this itch. What if we did this ourselves? What if we built something from the ground up?
I shared the idea with Veronika, and thankfully she didn’t think I was totally nuts. With her tourism know-how and my dog experience, we figured we had a decent shot at building something unique, something original, warm, and guest-focused. We wanted to do things with heart, to really connect with people and show them what life with dogs is about.
Veronika & Valentijn in 2005 (L) and again in 2025 (R)
(slide to view full images)
We knew we needed land and trails, and that’s where things got complicated. I had seen how hard it was for even long-established people in Lapland to get good trail permissions and cooperation with reindeer herders. I thought, “if it’s hard for them, it’ll be near impossible for me, a foreigner.” So we decided: we’re not setting up shop in Lapland.
Instead, we looked east. Ilomantsi and Lieksa had great snowfall, and every now and then, old Finnish border guard stations would come up for sale. These were solid buildings with land, heating, generators — everything you’d need to host a group of patrolling guards. We thought maybe that’s the ticket, but after visiting one and learning it would cost €10,000 a year just to keep the pipes from freezing, we quickly realized this wasn’t viable. We had seen people from Central Europe burn out trying to live the backwoods dream, and we didn’t want to join that list.
Then one autumn, while hiking in Ruunaa with our two dogs, we did what we always did and peeked at the real estate ads in a shop window. There it was: a place in Lieksa. Quiet, with 15 hectares of land, heated with wood. The price was right, and we thought, “maybe this is it.”
We scraped together financing and bought the house. It was basic, to say the least. No electric stove and no shower meant that when we needed to get cleaned up, we just heated water on the fire and headed to the sauna. That first year was all about renovations, building a simple dog yard, and getting some dogs.
Thankfully, we had some connections, and one of them was willing to expand their tour offering into North Karelia, and so Bearhill Husky was born. It was just the two of us, a few dogs, and a big dream. We lived simply, collecting mushrooms, heating with wood, sharing one big room with guests. It was immersive, authentic, and unforgettable.
Then reality kicked in. Our daughter Saaga was born, and doing five-day expeditions while leaving Veronika and a baby alone in the forest just didn’t work anymore. And our finances? Let’s just say there were a lot of side hustles. I worked as a rafting guide and lumberjack. Veronika worked at cafés. Anything to keep things going through the summer.
Then came the north again. We started spending our Decembers in Lapland, first doing contract work for Metsähallitus — the state park service. We worked with charter flights and big companies like Canterbury Travel and TUI. Later we helped out a fellow dog musher who introduced us to Lapland Safaris. That was a turning point. They had a base in Pohtimolampi and asked us to work in December. We made a good impression, and before long we were invited to stay for the full season.
So we began the great migration. Summers in Lieksa, winters in Rovaniemi. Moving dogs, kids, gear, and our whole lives back and forth. Our son Rune was born during this time, and moving with two kids, a sled full of dogs, and everything else got, well…let’s just say it wasn’t easy.
Eventually, it became clear: we needed to make a choice. So we made the move. We relocated fully to Rovaniemi and started the next chapter, but we didn’t remain as sub-contractors for long. In 2013, we took the leap. We stepped out from under the wing of the big kennel and went independent. We launched our own tours, starting with the Call of the Wild, which still runs to this day.
That was the moment. That’s when Bearhill Husky, as an independent kennel in Rovaniemi, truly began.
It wasn’t easy, but it was right. We’ve never really been the type to work well with bosses, as both of us are happiest doing our own things. Now, every tour, every guest, every dog — it’s ours. Built from the ground up with passion, stubbornness, and a whole lot of love.
So that’s how it started. Not with a perfect plan, but with curiosity, conviction, and the simple belief that this life — with dogs, in nature, shared with others — was something worth building.
