From Dashing Through the Snow… On a Saddled Finnish Horse (blogged 26.4.2013)

Kristin, a traveller from Australia, visited Kamisak Farm in Finnish Lapland in March 2013 and went for a ride on a finnhorse. You can read more about her adventures around the world in her blog “A Pair of Boots and a Backpack”, linked above.

What comes to mind when you think of animals in Lapland? Reindeer? Huskies? Polar bears (and no, they don’t actually live there)?

One animal I certainly wouldn’t have thought of before I went to Finnish Lapland was the horse. Like the cows that didn’t last very long in Honningsvåg, I thought horses wouldn’t survive in such a tough land, one that wouldn’t provide them with much food in the winter or temperatures that they would be comfortable in.

It turns out that I was very wrong. Finland is actually home to its own breed of horse, the Finnhorse, that is confusingly called a “cold-blooded horse.” No, they haven’t found a way to make a horse that’s not a warm-blooded mammal; in this case “cold-blooded” means that the horses are “muscular, heavy-set horses that are bred to be calm, steady, and patient.” Read more