All summer, a brown bear eats as much as it can. Berries, roots, ants, fish from rivers, occasional fresh greenery - whatever it can find. By autumn, the bear has put on about a third of its body weight in fat. Imagine adding 50 kilos of padding to your jacket. The bear uses this fat to survive the long winter ahead.
When the snow comes, the bear digs a den - sometimes under tree roots, sometimes in a hollow, sometimes in a small cave. It curls up and falls into a deep sleep called hibernation. Its heartbeat slows from about 50 beats a minute to just 8. Its body temperature drops. It barely moves.
Mother bears do something even more amazing: they give birth in the middle of hibernation. The cubs are born in midwinter, the size of a tennis ball each, and snuggle up to mum to feed and sleep until spring. When the family finally comes out of the den in April or May, the cubs are big enough to play in the snow.
The bear has a special place in old Finnish stories. Some old hunters wouldn't say its name out loud, in case it heard them - so they used nicknames like 'Otso' or 'Mesikammen' (Honey-Paw). Today, scientists use hidden cameras and special collars to track bears in the forest. Most Finns who go for a long forest walk never see one, even though they are nearby.