Hi,
Thank you for your thoughts. Hunting is not for everyone. What we offer is a chance to find out more about the traditional local ways of hunting. We do not offer or promise to kill any animal for fun, neither on the website nor orally. We mainly organize reindeer rides with ice fishing and snowshoeing. All these are environment friendly activities that have been exercised in the arctic for decades. If fish is caught we grill it for the customers to be eaten. Obviously, we need to kill it first. Sometimes people want to see how it is done, often also children. According to many this kind of death is part of the natural cycle. If someone wishes to release their catch, it is possible if the fish is not injured by the hook.

As far as fox snare hunting is concerned it is a legal way of hunting in Finland. Fox is a cunning creature and has good chances of avoiding the snare. However, skillful hunters were in past able to earn a monthly salary by selling two hides. Nowadays the situation is totally different. However, foxes are pests, they spread diseases (rabies just to mention one) that can infect also your dog. Further, they feed on blue hair, capercaillies, willow grouse and other birds that nest on ground. They also eat young reindeer calves, i.e. your livestock. Hunting for people that live in the middle of wilderness is typically for purpose, either to protect livelihood, gain meat or to control population explosion of particular species. Back in the days it must have been pretty much about the survival of the fittest. It might sound unbelievable, but in the last generation people hunted squirrels to get their hides, as they were used as means of payment and exchanged for goods that were not obtainable from the forest.

The abundance of game, fish and land must have been the reason why people came here to the arctic in the first place. Did you know that every year tens of thousands of elk, called moose elsewhere, are shot in Finland to protect damages of young trees, to lower death rates in car accidents and for meat? Such meat is certainly sustainable and of high quality.

These are just some aspects of the lives of the people here. Many visitors have shown sincere interest in the way people used to live and survived up here in the extreme conditions and we transmit the information to them. The highlight for both our clients and us is true nature experience. What else would one call the moment when it is just you and your reindeer trotting through snowy forest and seeing a capercaillie leaving from a thick pine branch over your head, a willow grouse escaping from a hideaway or a fox crossing the reindeer track just before your reindeer? I hope your soul will be soothed now, once the misinterpretation has been clarified.

Best regards from the Acrtic, Petra
Wolverine Fell Wilderness and Nature