Four of us had a group of customers for an overnight stay at Kortesalo house in Seitseminen national park the whole time we were watched by two examiners.
The customers had a day of activities planned out by us including all meals.
In the morning the customers were picked up from Tampere and dropped off at Kortesalo House, we greeted them with Glögi (a warm berry like drink served with sliced almonds and raisins), gave an introduction to Seitseminen national park and got straight into a few team building activities. Fire lighting, tree identification, orienteering and hunting.
We miscalculated how long the games would take and ended up finishing about an hour and a half earlier than scheduled so had to come up with some extra activities to fill the time trying not to look like idiots in front of the examiners. After lunch was the big snowshoeing guiding and nature knowledge. Each of us took a section of the nine kilometre route to lead and give short talks on various subjects along the way. I chose to go first even though I had never been on that part of the route so didn't know exactly where I was going or what there might be to talk about on the way.
I lead the group from Kortesalo paying special attention to my speed because I usually get my stride on and leave most people behind struggling to keep up. One of the customers looked like she was going to pass out so I took it nice and slow. Later on in the day she did collapse three times before getting picked up by the minibus, not my fault and nothing to do with me mind! she had her own problems. As we snowshoed I was hoping to spot some animal tracks or something clever to talk about so of course there were no animal tracks or anything I thought was suitable to tell the group. I stopped a few times along the way to explain a little about snowshoeing through the forest, told some interesting information about pine tree's and eventually found some squirrel tracks in the snow.
At the end of my route was Kovero farm. I gave a talk about the history of the farm and its current state before handing the guiding over to Irina.
When we got back to Kortesalo the sauna was ready so the customers got to relax while dinner was getting prepared.The examiners didn't hang around for too long, but left happy enough. We were all hoping that after sauna and eating that the customers would just go to sleep, but we weren't so lucky. Instead they wanted to go for a night hike. No-one else seemed keen on taking them so I said I would, I took them for a 3km walk around multiharju, a protected area inside the national park. The big old trees look a little different under torch light and and we heard a few strange noises coming from the depths of the forest. The customers were loving it.
At the end of the week I met with the examiners to hear their report on how the day went as a whole and also about my personal guiding and nature knowledge.
No joke, I don't think I have ever heard so many nice things said about me. I don't need to go into it, but I passed with flying colours. Bring on the next test!
Right now I'm working at Upitrek. This week I have been working with a school group from the UK taking them skiing, snowshoeing and doing multiple activities. Next week I'm taking a group of dutch customers for a week long ski trip along the Russian border before I get to go home to see my beautiful fiance.
Laters
