Inside The Circle:
Skills, Spirit, and Scandinavian Wilds
Photo by Milan Goldbach.
Set within the taiga and tundra of Sapmi and the UNESCO Laponia World Heritage site, this experience integrates traditional survival skills, cultural encounters, and deep awareness practice. Together, we move through ancient lands with reverence—tracking reindeer, learning Sámi crafts, swimming Arctic rivers, and practicing solo stillness. The nomadic journey is designed for those ready to reawaken instinct, reclaim capability, and walk with presence in wild places
Photo by Milan Goldbach.
Inside the Circle is a 7-day (July 13 to July 19, 2025) Arctic immersion guided by two of the world’s most experienced wilderness mentors—Michael Douglas, globally respected tracker and founder of Maine Primitive, and Toby Cowern, one of the foremost experts in extreme cold weather expeditions and wilderness survival. This is not simply a course. It is a journey through Sweden’s storied north—through rivers, forests, indigenous lands, and midnight sun.
Photo by Milan Goldbach.
For leaders, seekers, and changemakers—this is nature as mentor, mirror, and medicine.
View More Journey Details Below.
Inside the Circle:
Skills, Spirits, and Scandinavian Wilds
Sweden 13-19 July 2025
This nomadic journey offers a rare chance to reconnect with wild landscapes, ancestral lifeways, and the skills that make us whole. Guided by two survival experts, we travel deep into Sápmi—the northern reaches of Sweden shaped by midnight sun, taiga forest, and glacial gorge. Along the way, we’ll practice traditional skills, learn directly from Sámi cultural traditions, and deepen our self-reliance through immersive, field-based experience. This isn’t just a course—it’s a journey into presence, resilience, and reverence.
Toby Cowern
Based in Scandinavia, and frequently working deep inside the Arctic Circle, Toby holds expertise in Extreme Cold Weather Wilderness Survival Skills, but also travels extensively to deliver applied Survival Training internationally. Subsequently Toby runs various highly applied nature immersion camps and seminars in Sweden, aimed at managing and reducing stress through nature-based therapy and healing.
Michael Douglas
Mike is a former Marine, Military Survival Instructor. Currently he is a Herbalist, Tracker, Maine Guide, Reality Television Advisor, Public Lecturer, and founder/head instructor of Maine Primitive. He has been a Skills practitioner since 1979 and professional skills instructor since 1983. Mike has mentored many individuals into finding their own voice as program facilitators and founders of schools over 35 years of mentoring.
The Journey Calls
To those drawn to the silence of the taiga and the stillness beneath the midnight sun.
To those ready to slow down, step outside, and let the land recalibrate what’s within.
To those searching for a more meaningful path—where connection to nature guides the next chapter.
To those who want to learn from the land itself—the land’s wildlife, ecosystems, and quiet truths.
To those who feel the spark of leadership rising and want to lead with clarity, not ego.
To those who see nature not as escape, but as inspiration—for how we live, create, and belong.
This is a journey to nourish the soul—guided by two of the world’s best, across one of Earth’s most breathtaking landscapes..
“Silence in nature is not the absence of sound—it’s the presence of everything else.”
— Erling Kagge (1963– )
Norwegian explorer and author
Discover The Spirit
There’s a spirit woven into the land up here—quiet, enduring, and deeply rooted. It’s in the shape of the rivers that still carve their way through glacial valleys. It’s in the twisted pine and lichen-covered stone, in the howls of distant wolves and the heavy breath of reindeer moving across the tundra. But it’s also in the stories—those carried for generations by the Sámi, Europe’s last Indigenous people, whose relationship with this northern land runs deeper than memory. Their lifeways are not museum pieces, but living, breathing examples of how to walk with the land, not over it. On this journey, we don’t just pass through the landscape—we meet it. We listen. We learn from the people who have called it home since time before time, and we allow that old wisdom to shape how we move, how we build, how we belong.
Discover The Scandinavian Wilds
Step into a land shaped by ice, wind, and story. Along our route, we’ll visit sacred Sámi sites and share time with reindeer herders who carry forward an ancient way of life. We’ll explore the Ajtte Museum—where the deep knowledge of the North lives on through artifacts and voices. We’ll walk among ancient burial grounds and stand in dry riverbeds carved by retreating glaciers. If the trail permits, we may visit a homestead where huskies and humans live in rhythm with the Arctic seasons. Each place holds a piece of a deeper story—one we’ll witness, not just learn.
“The wild has its own soul. It reveals itself only to those who stay long enough to listen.”
— Sven Hedin (1865–1952),
Swedish geographer, explorer, and travel writer. Known for expeditions across Asia but deeply connected to the Nordic mindset of endurance and exploration.
The Journey
Day 1
Step Into the Wild
Land in Luleå, meet your team, and set camp beside thunderous rapids.
Day 2
Move Like the Land
Movement, swimming, tracking, and Sámi skills, in the waters of Storforsen.
Day 3
Cross the Circle
Work with nets, cross into the Arctic, discover the Sámi story at Ájtte, and camp in deep forest.
Day 4
Fire, Water & Memory
Ancient grave, waterfalls, firecraft, and the stillness of Laponia.
Day 5
Reindeer & Resonance
Connect with a Sámi herder and follow the tracks of spirit and migration.
Day 6
Survival in Practice
Reflection time
Day 7
Bring It Home
Return to Luleå with stories in your pack and the land in your bones.
The Route
The journey continues into Muddus National Park, part of the Laponia World Heritage Site, where we explore old-growth forests, deep ravines, and glacial wetlands. Along the way, we visit ancient burial sites, the Ájtte Indigenous Museum, and Hårsprångsfallet Gorge, a powerful intersection of nature and industry.
We begin on Sweden’s northeastern coast in Luleå, then head inland to Storforsen, where glacial rivers carve through dense taiga forest. From there, we drive north, crossing into Sápmi—ancestral Sámi territory—and over the Arctic Circle at Jokkmokk.
We close the loop with a visit to a reindeer corral before returning to Luleå, having traced a full circle through some of Scandinavia’s wildest and most storied terrain.
Master of the Craft
This journey is led by two of the world’s most respected voices in survival and nature-based living.
Michael Douglas, founder of Maine Primitive, is a globally recognized tracker, forager, and wilderness skills expert with over four decades of field experience. He’s trained military units, mentored survival show contestants, and lived what he teaches.
Toby Cowern brings rare expertise in Arctic survival and cold-weather resilience, developed over decades of operating in extreme northern environments. His work blends modern preparedness with ancestral knowledge, taught in the very landscapes that shaped it.
Together, they offer more than instruction—they offer access to a lifetime of hard-won wisdom, delivered with clarity, humility, and deep respect for the land.
The Tracks Lead
We’ll set out on foot to explore shifting terrain—forest, river, and stone. Along the way, we’ll practice stalking, move through water, and tune our senses to tracks and signs. Hands will meet Sámi tools and traditions, offering a glimpse into another way of knowing. If the land allows, we may end the day high above it all, with a view that speaks for itself..