WILDERNESS GUIDES
Here are Polku’s wilderness guides. We want to help others to find the same joy, peace and adventure from the nature that we ourselves find from there.
Our core value in our everyday operations is the respect for the nature. We always strive to avoid extra consumption, unnecessary travel and minimize environmental damage. As our most important factor, however, we see our ability to influence the people who participate in our trips. Perhaps the experiences in the nature offers understanding that opens up new ways of influencing in their everyday life.
Sampo
Wilderness guide, Turku/Pyhä
Sampo is the founder of Polku. He is interested in survival skills and working with natural materials using traditional methods. Sampo has worked as a wilderness guide in Lapland, guiding snow mobile safaris and northern lights photography as well as ice climbing, fatbike tours and teaching wilderness and survival skills. Sampo is an active member and an instructor in Finnish Survival guild.
Arto
Wilderness guide, Turku
At the heart of Arto’s wilderness guidance is enjoying nature in all its forms. In addition to nature guiding and various hikes, Arto enjoys traditional wilderness skills, outdoor safety and survival skills, as well as maintains trails, ducboards and other hiking and camping structures.
Sampsa
Eräopas, Seikkailukasvattaja (Yhteisöpedagogi), Helsinki
Saša
Eräopas, Pyhä/Oulu
Saša has worked in nature-based tourism for more than ten years. As a wilderness guide, Saša specializes in hiking, but she has also guided rock and ice climbing, snowshoeing and fatbike tours. Saša is interested in responsible tourism and has been involved in development of accessible nature-based tourism services and nature-based integration services for immigrants.
At the moment, Saša works at Pyhä-Luosto National Park´s Visitor Centre Naava. Besides spending as much time outdoors as possible and learning new wilderness skills, Saša writes a blog in Finnish called Navakkaa Pohjoistuulta.
Saša has accomplished a training for a wilderness and nature guide, and has university degree in tourism geography (M.Sc., University of Oulu).
Sonja
Wilderness guide, Inari
Sonja on Inarissa asuva eräopas, jonka erityisosaamista on erä- ja vaellusruoka, luonnon antimien keräily ja hyödyntäminen sekä luonnontuntemus. Sonja retkeilee paljon Lapissa ja viettää yönsä luonnon helmassa mieluiten riippumattoillen.
Sonjan eräkokkailuja voi seurata Sonjan Instagram-tililtä.
Kai
Guide (rope activities), Turku
Kai works as an instructor on zipline, abseiling and rock climbing. He spends his freetime riding mountainbike in the forests and slopes.
Salla
Guide (rope activities), Turku
Salla tworks as an instructor on zipline, abseiling and rock climbing.
PARTNERS
Kavalton tila in Piikkiö offers everything for successful parties and meetings: Beautiful and varied facilities, mouth-watering meals prepared with love and care, quality accommodation as well as a memorable program. Check out Kavalton tila services.
Huttra Survival Training is a network of experienced Swedish wilderness guides and instructors that offers both basic and advanced courses on survival skills. Huttra strives to develop its activities curiously, based on its own experiences and with new methods, so sometimes the ways of working may differ from the old formulas in the survival literature. Most of Huttra instructors are also instructors at the Svenska Överlevnadssällskapet. Read more on Huttra webpage (in Swedish).
Event Extreme offers services related to rope operations in the Turku region: for example, construction of ziplines, “beer crate climbing” and abseiling. Event Extreme also builds other high-performance venues and provides instructors for activities such as camps as well as organizing shows. Read more on Event Extreme.
OUR VALUES
We at Polku Nature Tours believe that one can find a deeper connection with nature by learning more about the surrounding ecosystem. Our path to this deeper understanding is through the sustainable use of natural materials and food. By getting to know the traditional ways of utilizing nature, we understand how much resources each of our activities requires.
No one owns the nature. We are part of it and that’s why we want to leave no trace when being in nature.
Polku Nature Tours and the environmental responsibility
We do our best to pay attention and reduce the environmental damage caused by our operations in all our activities. We are working for a cleaner environment by these following actions:
Most of our emissions come from our customers and employees trips to the activity locations. We encourage our customers to use public transport and carpools. The aim is to plan the places and schedule the activities so that they can easily be reached without own car. Emissions from our business-related driving at Polku Nature Tours have averaged 320 kilos of carbon dioxide per year. We are compensating this emission by donating on the Hiilipörssi NGO. We own now piece of peat field restored to natural bog. That prevents at least 333 kg of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere each year.
We make every effort to avoid flying related to our own business. If flying cannot be avoided, we pay 10% of the flight price through the Friends of the Earth Airfare campaign for the organisation’s climate work.
Fortunately nature can be enjoyed with very little equipment. We aim for experiences that can be comfortably arranged with just a small amount of equipment. Still, having some equipment, increases the quality of the experience and it makes more sense for our company to have the equipment to borrow for customers compared to requiring the customer to acquire their own equipment to participate. When purchasing hiking equipment, we primarily aim to choose long-lasting, multi-purpose and durable products, and we choose a more environmentally friendly options. We encourage customers to share and rent equipment instead of owning it.
Polku Nature Tours encourages its customers to minimize the environmental load on their own trips by taking into account the emissions of the travel style, taking a critical approach to purchasing new equipment, taking into account the wear and tear of the terrain and respect for surrounding life, fellow hikers and scenic values.