Hunting in Finland: A Canadian Hunters Perspective

In the fall of 2023, I spent quite a bit of time in the field, making the best out of a crappy situation.

It was the start of September, and I was still unsigned for the upcoming hockey season. I traveled up to Wainwright to go see my grandma, go bow hunting with my buddies, and still be able to skate and work out and be ready for the call. You can watch that archery hunt on my YouTube channel.

By the end of September, I had folded my whitetail tag and spent a lot of time in the woods, but still didn't have a deal. Until I got the phone call. Vaasan Sport in Liiga wants you. Liiga is the top league in Finland. After a day or two of negotiating, I signed. Within 48 hours, I packed up my life and was moving across the world for the next six months.

Once I landed in Vaasa, I quickly got thrown into the fire: meetings, medicals, and being overwhelmed with appointments. I finished everything up and popped into the GM's office to make sure I got everything done that I needed to. We sat there and got to know each other a little bit. Herkko then finished the conversation with music to my ears. He was going to put me in contact with his friends who worked at the hunting and fishing store and see if they would be willing to take me out. I decided to swing by the store to introduce myself in person. I met who would become some of my close friends, who we still chat with to this day: Ulf, Anttu, and the rest of the group. After talking hunting and fishing and telling them my story about hockey, they agreed to help me get my license and take me out hunting.

My First Look at Hunting in Finland

Once my license showed up, I learned the first difference between hunting in Finland versus Canada. To hunt some animals, like roe deer and whitetail, the system is very different from what I was used to in Canada. Instead of buying an individual tag for yourself for one animal, hunting in the area was organized through the hunting team. The team was made up of people who paid into the team and lived in the area. There is a lot more to the system that, to this day, I still don't fully understand. The team gets to decide, within the regulations and permits that apply to them, how many animals they are going to harvest. This was very different to me, as I was used to buying one tag for me, for one animal. But this system gave the team a lot of control over how they managed the population of roe deer and other animals. From what I understood, at least with the team I spent time with, it was also an honour system and a matter of respecting the other team members when it came to how many animals you shot. With bigger animals like moose, the system was different again. The government gives the hunting group a number of permits based on its assessment and the applicable regulations. For this year, the team had eight moose permits: four for bulls and four for calves. But because the team thought the moose population was starting to go down, they decided they would only use half of their allotment. For animals like roe deer and whitetail, you could go out by yourself under the rules that applied to the hunt. For moose, this was much more of a team activity.

A spot Anttu and I went for a walk looking for Roe deer

My First Finnish Hunt

Anttu and I headed out in the middle of October, going after roe deer. Roe deer are very small, up to about 2.5 feet at the shoulder, and can weigh up to around 77 pounds. It was about one hour before sunset, and we were driving to the field we were going to sit at. This is where I realized how much different hunting in Finland was from hunting in Canada. I asked Anttu what our plan was, and he said we were going to hunt until about nine or ten o'clock. In the back of my mind, I thought I had misunderstood him because of the accent, but no, I heard correctly. We were going to be hunting several hours after sunset. The rules around hunting after dark and the use of thermal equipment are different in Finland than what I was used to in Canada, and the exact rules depend on the species and method of hunting. On this hunt, Anttu was using a handheld thermal device to help locate animals, while the rifle itself was not equipped with a thermal scope. As we continued to talk about how weird that felt for me, we pulled up to the spot. It was a field with an old barn in the middle of it, with three different types of crops/fields surrounding it. I got out of the truck, opened the back seat, and looked at the rifle. A giant suppressor was attached to the end of it.

Roe deer doe's we saw right outside a persons house while driving to our spot for the night sit.

Another thing that felt completely foreign to me as a Canadian hunter. Suppressors are legal and commonly used by hunters in Finland, which was very different from what I was used to back home. We sat right on the edge of the field and watched the edges. It was two hours after dark, and I just had this feeling in my stomach that I was doing something I wasn't supposed to because I was so used to being back home in my bed after a day of hunting. Movement happened on the edge of the field, and we picked up five heat signatures. Roe deer. We let them get closer. We had good light from the moon, but I wanted to make it as close of a shot as possible. I pulled the rifle to my shoulder, put the animal in my sights, and pulled the trigger. Boom. They all ran away. We walked up to the spot where I thought I had hit it and didn't see any blood. Just to be certain, Anttu called for backup. His buddy drove over, hopped out of the truck, opened the back door, and a small dog on a leash popped out. He walked over, and we used the dog to track for blood. Fortunately, it was a clean miss, but I got to experience something I never had before: using a dog to help track a potentially wounded animal. This is a new rule change here in Alberta that I will dive deeper into in a new post. I wasn't successful that night, but I got my first taste of what hunting was like in Finland.

A Finnish Moose Hunt

We continued to hunt for roe deer close to Vaasa but never had any luck. But one day, with a weekend off coming up, Anttu invited me to join the team on their moose hunt. Now, on this hunt, I was only watching. I didn't have to pay into the team to hunt for roe deer, but they didn't give me permission to shoot a moose, which was totally fine with me. The morning started early, before the sun was up. Everyone met up in this garage kitted out for hunting. Multiple hangers in a giant walk-in cooler, tables everywhere, knives, and so much more to be prepared for after a successful hunt. Coffee in hand, I stood at the back listening to the team leader speak in Finnish. Once he was done speaking, I asked Anttu for a translation of what was going on. We were all about to pick a number. I pulled a number out of a bag that corresponded to a number on a map of the area we were hunting. Everyone selected a number, which was a strategic spot for people to sit: choke points, water, good trails. There was a reason for each spot.

Where Anttu and I sat for our moose drive hunt.

As we got out to our spot, with a giant rock for cover on the edge of an open field, Anttu pulled out his phone and went onto an app. On this app, he could see where everyone else's location was, as well as the dog and its handler. A good old fashioned Finnish moose drive. A dog on a moose hunt was a first for me. This dog was probably the size of a big retriever. The dog sniffed for scent, tracked, and did anything that would lead it to the moose. Once it was on a moose, it would start to bark, and you could see it on the app. The dog would chase the moose until, hopefully, it ran out in front of one of the team members and they were able to take a shot. Anyone could shoot, so technically, with four moose permits, one person could be lucky enough to shoot all four. The handler also had a chance at the moose because sometimes the moose would get annoyed and just stand there looking at the dog, allowing the handler to sneak in and get a shot off. As the morning went on, one team member got lucky and was able to shoot a nice bull. Everyone showed up to help with the process. Since everyone pays in, everyone hunts, and everyone helps, it's everyone's meat. So the meat from the moose hunt gets divided equally among everyone on the team unless they don't want it.

A Roe Deer Dog Hunt

With two new hunting experiences under my belt, I was just waiting for the next surprise. It didn't take long, that's for certain. Another couple of days off in our schedule, Anttu invited me to drive out to an island that was roaming with roe deer, where his friend lived. We took the ice highway to the island and pulled up to the house. Expecting the same type of roe deer hunt, my expectations were nowhere near what happened. This time, it was a shotgun, roe deer dog hunt. Using the same technology as the moose hunt, the only difference was that this time it was a shotgun instead of a rifle and a different type of dog. The dog was used to track and flush the roe deer. We released the dog, and it didn't take long to get onto a roe deer. After doing circles for a while, we made the move in to try and cut it off. Five minutes later, we heard barking getting closer and closer. A small brown movement caught my eye. A doe roe deer came flying through the trees. Boom. I shot as soon as she stopped to look at us. A front shot that was able to get the job done instantly.

My Roe deer doe, with the tracking dog.

My first ever European animal. We were very successful that day, with three of us getting a deer. Roe deer is some of the most tender meat I have had for wild game and not very gamey at all. I was fortunate to get all the meat and fill my freezer with wild game all the way across the world.

A successful Roe deer hunt. Two doe's one buck.

Hunting Whitetail Over Bait

My last hunt in Finland, we had another couple of days off and decided to go to Rauma and go to Anttu's friend Taro's house for whitetail. These whitetail were imported to Finland from Minnesota in 1934. We were set up in an elevated box blind about 50 yards away from a pile of bait. We never ended up seeing anything, but it was a different experience hunting over bait. Hunting over bait was another major difference from what I was used to in Alberta, and it made me curious about why different countries and provinces take such different approaches to the same hunting practices.

Anttu, his friend and myself having lunch before heading out for a hunt.

What Finland Taught Me About Hunting

Hockey has given me a chance to experience a lot of cool things I never thought I would do in my life, and this was one of my stories. It opened my eyes up to different ways other cultures hunt and their laws and regulations. We may never see some of the practices they have in Finland become legal in Canada or Alberta, like certain uses of thermal equipment, suppressors, or baiting for deer. But they also have their own rules and regulations that are different from ours. Being able to experience both sides of it allows me to create my own opinion on different hunting laws. Over the next while, I will be releasing blog posts on different hunting practices and my opinion on whether they should be implemented in Alberta or not.

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