The Journey of the Bear

shamanic pilgrimage and sacred journey in North Karelia

 Tuesday-Sunday 10.-15. June 2025

Guided by Helena Karhu

With special guest Miika Vanhapiha

This is a shamanic pilgrimage towards the sacred nature sites of North Karelia - the old land of the shamans, sages, and wisdom keepers of the traditions of the poetry singing, incantations, rituals of nature, and connection to the nature spirits. This shamanic pilgrimage and sacred journey is offered as our veneration to the Spirits of this Land, and all those Ancient Ones around it. We will celebrate together in the old Bear Stones and other sacred nature sites, where this journey invites us, as we quiet down and listen.

On our shamanic pilgrimage, we devote our time for full-time nature spiritual or animistic-shamanic service, to connect, remember, and give sustenance to the ritual work of sacred reciprocity.

This is a possibility for you to deepen your nature spiritual or shamanic work by learning about ritual and ceremonial work, as well as about shamanic journey work. Most of all, we all will learn directly from nature, as we visit for honoring together these incredible natural sites. We visit sites, where our ancestor shamans and seers have done their contemplations and healing work for hundreds and even thousands of years.

During this journey, we walk, we silence, and we sing songs.

We have simple steps towards natural awareness.

We allow our whole nerve system to sooth in the calmness and stability of these ancient stones.

The connection to the destinations of the pilgrimage will connect us to our Ancestors, no matter where you come from: Your ancestors will follow you here and will connect with the ancestors of this land. What can we learn by experience from this journey together? What can we remember of our ancient souls and our being of nature? 

There are no special requirements for this journey, but everyone interested can join as they are.

We will be spending time and sit in earth-honoring ceremony. Our journey takes us to important ancestral sacred nature sites of North Karelia, “the forest temples”, and Old Stones.

Why this is Journey of the Bear?

During this shamanic pilgrimage, our special intention is to visit and venerate the old Bear Stones of this land. We will make ceremony on each of these stones, to honor our ancestors, to honor Nature, and to recall those power animals and spirits that protect us, as we protect our connection to them.

We will connect to the old medicine songs and poems of the Bear of this land.

We will also spend an overnight journey with the intent of watching bears through a bear-watching-cabin in the middle of wilderness. This optional part of the journey is organized with cooperation of the local man who has long experience with bear watching journeys. 

Your guide in this journey is Helena Karhu (karhu means in English bear), whose family totem of the Bear has followed her since her ancestral roots in Karelia. Bear is connected to her soul, and she will teach what she knows about the bear as a venerated totem, and what the bear has teached her.

We will give back to the bears also by donating part of the pilgrimage fee to the Nature Conservation Association of Finland, to their protection program of large mammals.

What is a pilgrimage?

Pilgrimage means a journey which has its purpose to expand our understanding on the meaning of life, to find out what is there in the unknown, to embrace the vastness of our own being, find new aspects of ourselves, and to experience transformation through the sacred connection with all of life. It can offer a life-changing journey to deepen your understanding about your own purpose, and about everything in existence. We can walk into our personal peace and compassion.

Or it can be your walk into the landscape: To experience yourself as part of this earth, this land, these waters, and this nature. You might long for deeper nature experiences and become one with it all. To be in your own nature, within this nature, trusting nature.

In a nature-spiritual pilgrimage such as this, we will celebrate by giving gratitude to the beauty of nature, to return to our ritual and ceremonial inner nature, to nurture the mystic within us, and to walk together with all the beings in the animal-, plant-, and star kingdoms and alike. How can we all serve better here for common good?

Scientific research has shown that pilgrimage can have also psychological, spiritual, social, and biological healing and therapeutic effects. The metaphysical qualities of the natural power places and the healing ceremonies can affect us in multiple ways of strength and vitality. We all can benefit of the beauty of ceremony and sacred journey in these times, when there is so much collective imbalance, duality, and grief in the world. We take this journey to bring balance and harmony to the whole extent of our being and relationships.

The oldest bedrock in whole Europe  

As you step your feet to the ground in North Karelia, you will step to the oldest land in the whole of Europe.

The sacred nature site of Koli is geologically the oldest bedrock of the European continent. It is over 2,6 milliard years old. The rock base is mostly white quartzite (geologically 85-95% of the whole rock base), and you can walk on many bare white rock surfaces on the top of Koli mountain.

From the nature-spiritual point of view, the fact that this incredibly beautiful natural power place is also the oldest rock of the whole Europe, it adds to our knowledge on its significance. It is like the Oldest of the Wise Ones, the natural place that has the oldest knowledge and experience, that has seen it All. The shamanic history and the natural beauty of the place calls for one of the most significant shamanic destinations in the world. The archeological evidence shows that people have lived around here even 10.000 years ago.

We will activate our barefoot-memory, and have a possibility to walk barefooted in these powerful rocks and lakeside beaches.

What kind of places do we visit?

We will start the journey from the sacred mountain of Koli, which is the heart of the region. You will hear the stories and experience the important places in this area. Even if you would have visited Koli before, you might learn something new about these places. We will visit three or four sacred nature sites and Bear Stones of Koli.

Our journey will continue to the North of the region towards Nurmes. Here, we will visit a big “nature church”, the old sacrifical site of the old bear hunters. Today, we visit this site to honor the Bear.

May we walk in friendship.

How we do this pilgrimage?

We will walk a lot in nature during this pilgrimage, but because of the long distance (we will travel all together about 300 km) for this time frame, we need to be also using car transportation. Some of the distances will be covered by using cars (by using shared rides all the participants together). We will spend a lot of time in nature.

Concerning the accommodation during the journey: You can do this either with almost no costs by using a tent, or you have an alternative to stay in guest houses or hotels. We will give different options for each participant.

How to get there?

We start this journey from Joensuu, which offers the meeting point to get together and drive towards Koli National Park. 

Is the pilgrimage right for me?

The pilgrimage is suitable for everyone who can participate for the entire duration of the journey. You should be able to walk some kilometres in the nature paths without problems. Our pilgrimage time together is alcohol-free and drug-free.

THE PILGRIMAGE GUIDE:

Helena Karhu

I am a North-Karelian shamanic teacher, culture producer, and researcher. My ancestors both from my parental lineages are completely from North Karelia. I have a deep connection to the nature and life in this land, as my soul resonates with the lake waters and ever-green forests. 

The soul task of my life is to collectively remember our deep connection with nature, as the source of awakening and awareness, wellbeing, and connectedness for everyone in community. I wish to understand, remember, and live folk cultures and wisdom traditions together with all of you. I am a chairwoman of a local culture association called Pielisen Tietäjäkeskus ry., which aims to promote, strengthen, and live the ancestral wisdom traditions of North Karelia. My own company Karhun Talo (House of the Bear) is one creative outlet for retreats, courses, ceremonies, and art work for Northern animistic-shamanic and nature spiritual cultures.

My world journeys have taken me across the Northern and Arctic regions in quest for meaning of life. My passion is to bring forth the light-increasing, co-operative, and empowering aspects of the ancestral practice, where everyone can rest as they are, yet have freedom to become who they are. As a pilgrimage guide, my ambition is to be of inspiring and positive guidance, where simplicity and naturalness of life are the key focus. The work is done with great respect and listening of the spirits and sensitivities of nature.

Special quest: Miika Vanhapiha

I am a connoisseur of traditional handicrafts and pre-metal age batching. As a tribal healer, I combine our old-fashioned witch tradition with later developed knowledge. When I raise nature and engage in the actions of a skilled person, I rely on my spurs and my rattles, possessed passion, and a simple eight-syllable witch song. The spirit of Bear is always present in my witchcraft and knowledge keeper's works. Bear worship is an integral part of my life.

PRELIMINARY PROGRAM:

This is the preliminary program, but we will allow the spirits guide our journey as we move forward each day. Please join with sense of flexibility and adventure.

Day 1 – Tuesday 10.6.:

15.00- Arrivals to Joensuu, Finland – car pools and group transfers for reducing ecological imprint

Drive to Kolin Keidas guest house at Koli

17.00 First gathering and getting to know each others – first offerings to nature by a big offering stone

18.00 Accommodation and welcoming dinner at Kolin Keidas

19.00 Preparing for the sauna

Sauna – purifying rituals for the pilgrimage with traditional wooden vastas  

Day 2 – Wednesday 11.6.:

07.00 Morning meditation

08.00 Breakfast at Kolin Keidas

09:00 Journey to the sacred sites at Koli National Park.

Pilgrimage journey to the three different sacred Bear Stones

18.00 Accommodation and dinner at Kolin Keidas

19.00 Sauna

Day 3 – Thursday 12.6.: Sauna Ceremony and The Bear Medicine

07.00 Morning meditation

08.00 Breakfast at Kolin Keidas

09:00 Visit to one of the sacred sites at Koli.

Journey to Juuka, to Kotakylä. We will have a special sauna ceremony with the Bear Medicine. We use rowan trees and juniper, as we connect to the healing powers of the bear mother.

Kotakylä has a special Sauna World by a beautiful wilderness lake, with many different kinds of hand-crafted wooden saunas. This is a unique experience to the heart of North Karelia. During the day and evening, also the canoes and kayaks are on your free use.

Accommodation in Kotakylä in teepees or in tents.

Day 4 – Friday 13.6.:

08.00 Breakfast time

09:00 Morning Circle and meditation

Free time in the morning to walk in nature, to canoe or kayak at the lake.

Driving to Nurmes (lunch before departure or at Nurmes.)

Overnight program with the bear watching (This is an optional program. Another option is free time in the area.)

14.00 Arrival to the bear watching site and welcoming. Information about the bears and this place.

15.00 Transfer to the site of the Bear watching

Quieting to watch the bears and other animals and birds.

Day 5 – Saturday 14.6.:

08.00 Return from the cabin

09.00 Transfer to Nurmes

Resting the morning / Freetime to visit Nurmes

Lunch

Afternoon visit to the Sacred nature sites in Nurmes area: The Bear Stone

Ceremony with Miika Vanhapiha

Transfer to Hyvärilä, Nurmes.

Dinner

Relaxing evening by the fire by Riihikota fire place.

Accommodation in Hyvärilä, Nurmes

Day 7 – Sunday 15.6..

07.00 Morning meditation by the lake (optional)

08.00 Breakfast.

09.00  Driving to Paalasmaa (the highest islands of Lake Pielinen)- Concluding ceremony at the Bear Island

Return transfer to Joensuu

Back in Joensuu about at 14.00/15.00

REGISTRATION:

You can sign up by using this registration form:

If necessary or any questions, please send e-mail to info@karhuntalo.com

The offering for the pilgrimage guides is either 290 EUR, 350 EUR or 490 EUR according to your possibilities, including 25,5% VAT including the guidance at the pilgrimage program.  

The overnight stay in the Bear cabin for bear-watching is additional 160 EUR incl. This is an optional program for those interested.

In addition to this, accommodation and meals, and travel costs will be covered by each participants. You can decide yourself, if you want to accommodate during the journey in a tent, cabin, or in the hotel. You will be offered different alternatives in each destination.

If necessary, we will rent a car and share the costs in between the participants. If you come by your own car, we hope that you can share the rides with other participants. The gas costs will be divided. We have always managed with the transportations, and we will for sure get everyone on board!

The offering does not include travel or travel insurance. Please read Karhun Talo's reservation and cancellation conditions: https://www.karhuntalo.com/booking-and-cancellation-conditions

May you walk in beauty

May you walk in peace

Sources:

Warfield, Heather A.; Baker, Stanley B.; Foxx, Sejal B. Parikh (14 September 2014). "The therapeutic value of pilgrimage: a grounded theory study". Mental Health, Religion & Culture. 17 (8): 860–875. doi:10.1080/13674676.2014.936845. ISSN 1367-4676. S2CID 143623445.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13674676.2014.936845