Being a traveler, Atlas could also have wandered through the area and talked about it.
We can assume that others have scouted the area. Agnarr would be the most likely to be looking for a magical aura. My story was just a hook as I would not know that I could count on others to scout the area.
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Here's a proposal for the background of the site and how we came to discover it.
About 30 years ago, a group of magi including some members of Tremere and Flambeau went out on an expedition to stamp out a stronghold of Muspelli in Finland. Following the expedition, the Tremere magi filed a detailed report describing the location of that stronghold, noting that the place could serve as a foothold in the area should the need arise. Plans for this were never put into motion because of the remoteness of the location, but the report was found by Thyra when she began looking for a place to go when the disease started affecting more and more magi.
She contacted Agnarr and/or Atlas, whom she'd previously met (to be detailed by the players involved if they feel like it) and he/they scouted the place and its surrounding area looking for vis sources and other resources. The location was then shared with the other magi. Plans for the development of a covenant there, outside of the borders of the Order, were drawn by the magi involved.
This still leaves the exact nature of the location to be determined. And, though it links the discovery of the site to the background of some of the magi, it is loose enough that it doesn't link us too strongly to any of them. If any of the players drop out (regardless of the reason) it still leaves the plans intact and the information available to the others.
What do you all think?
(OK, I still haven't finalised a character but I want to offer my thoughts)
I like the Tremere magi filing a report. Given the Tremere love of planning, any useful information could make its way into planning document left behind for Tremere in the event of an emergency, allowing us to use any Tremere as a way in.
The "expedition to stamp out a stronghold of Muspelli" depends on whether Jonathan Link wants us to know about Muspelli, or whether they should remain unknown until after play starts, so an expedition "to investigate hedge magi" or "deal with troublesome giants" (who were secretly Muspelli in etin-mod) might leave our SG more room for manoeuvre.
Sure, it can be any other creature or bogeyman. Could have been a dragon. Or a group of renegade magi that were Marched.
Even if it was Muspelli, it doesn't mean that there are still any that will be relevant to the saga. Whatever the creature(s) or enemies that were stamped out doesn't mean this constitutes a Hook for future stories. It might, if Jonathan wants it to, but it doesn't have to.
If it was Muspelli and he wants to use them in the saga, there is nothing to say how much detail the report contained about them. It may have been a redacted version of the initial report. Or it may drive one of us to get a book on Magic Lore specializing in what the Order knows of the Muspelli. 
I purposefully left the background story full of holes. It's up to all of us to fill them as we want to. It's a starting point, if we can agree on it.
Or perhaps, another group of magi decided to found a covenant up there. There would be no competition for vis sources, no overbearing Tribunal ruling against them in favor of a politically powerful Autumn covenant. They settled, wrote of their discoveries, seemed to prosper, and one day a Redcap came up to deliver letters, and found the buildings in ruins, evidence of a battle, and no survivors. She didn't stay long...
We're going there because the Order is facing an existential threat, and we have to rethink our risk tolerance. We know that there's vis, and we know that it was considered a good site by the prior inhabitants, but they didn't make it.
Or the other magi were diabolist and got marched and then stomped
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Not a bad scenario, but I have to say that I've seen (and played) it once too many times before. After a while, it gets kind of old... 
Fair enough. Nothing that the other players have proposed is out-of-bounds.
If we are more or less agreed to the background of finding the location, we should move forward with the actual nature of the site.
Coastal? Island? Inland? Rocky? Forest? Prexisting structure(s) like a ruined castle? Caves?
I know that Thyra plans on raising a Mystic Tower, so how visible is the site from a distance? How noticeble will we be to travellers (such as they are)?
Someone was looking at coastal near either present day Turku or Kotka. Not sure if our Ice Magus would not want to look further north around Vaasa or Oulu. We could also consider Kajaani as an inland isolated spot. We starting getting close to almost dark months during the winter. If we want more isolation I would suggest an island
Agnarr would look and be comfortable as far north as possible. Heck, Just go to the northern coast. The northern areas seem to have large forests and plenty of waterways which is needed. As a player though I respect that others characters and grogs might not like it much - so thought and compromise.
There are inland lakes we could consider too that back right up to thick forests. Could be great cover and also good resources.
How much of the Covenant finances do we want to do? I started another tab on the sheet, but I didn't have enough information on the number of grogs we had, or other people at the Covenant.
Contributions from the incomplete players would be greatly appreciated, as this will help us understand exactly what we have at our covenant, and what need to acquire.
Have a look at Kajaani and that region. I am using the city as a point on the map. The city itself was not founded until the 1600's.
A thought on the location and the Tremere hook. What if the Tremere, at some point in the last several centuries found remnant of fleeing House Diedne in the location and stomped on them. Now we have a group that was in the Order who had reason to leave the Order and live in isolation. The Tremere ( or possibly the Tremere and Flamebeau) find them and wipe them out. Now the Tremere have the location of this former Covenant on file to hand off when another group want to flee. This allows for some hooks about the Diedne to come in. Were they aligned with the Infernal or just druids? Is there anything left of the former Covenant but the ruin of walls?
Personally, I'd go with a more southern location, somewhere along the coast. It gives us some access to mundane markets for resupplying the covenant (without complete reliance on Calpurnia's flying ship) and provides a more varied environment for stories. The region near Kotka seems like a good place. Some place like Ruotsinpyhtää would offer varied geological features and resources. The only possible downside would be that there are Swedish settlements popping all along the southern coast in the 12th and 13th centuries.
If we want to be more isolated, a possible location would be the network of lakes up the Kymi River. About 50 miles from the coast, with the river wide enough that a mundane ship could perhaps navigate it (though there are many rapids so maybe not). This is pretty close to the location of nowadays Kouvola. To the north you have a huge network of lakes, to the south a farmable plain, and forest all around. The winters are not as long nor as cold, so it wouldn't be as hard on our mundanes. And probably far enough from the coast that we wouldn't be bothered by the Swedish settlements along the coast.
Familiars - do we take ordinary animals and bind them, or are we taking magic creatures with might and binding them? Tacitus' best arts are In and Vi, making a magical Owl a perfect choice (Intellego - a wise or prophetic creature, Vi - a magical creature) and appropriate for a Tremere.
For using BPs - I'm thinking of statting up a magical vehicle made by a Rego specialist and buying with BP, spending the maximum 30BP of Hermetic Summae on a Mentem summa, and with any leftovers getting some lab texts for high level scrying spells which Tacitus could easily learn and cast but would take forever to research by himself. Other possibilities - I could buy specialist Tremere soldiers (high weapon skill but also some Second Sight or Wilderness Sense) for a few BP a pop.
I based mine on the Tremere wolves from HoH:TL. It is not a wolf of virtue
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There's an example owl on page 65 of RoP:M.
Soldiers or a turb captain are good ideas. Your library choices are excellent.
Consider your vehicle. I've got a flying cog that can be invisible, with a large cargo capacity. You may want to build something somewhat different in focus.
I want to reset things a bit here, it's perhaps a bit late to do it, but I want to remind everyone that I was more interested on having the players pick the setting that they want, then me making one up and players bringing the magi. I know I'd been sick for a lot of time people spent developing characters, but I should've reminded everyone then to work together on a consensus for exactly what this covenant is going to look like before putting a lot of effort into character design.
I have seen a lot of things mentioned, but I haven't seen active discussion on what the covenant should look like, even where it will be. I kind of need that in order to develop some of the kick off stories that are important. I'd rather not be the one to decide what is and what isn't with respect to the covenant, I'd rather have you, the initial players design it. So, let's be about it and make some decisions so we can progress things. I'd like to have this done by the end of the month at the latest. Soonest, if practicable. I'd rather not decide stuff, unless there's a consensus of player who think I should decide something. Nor do I wish to be presented with choices that will disadvantage one player over another.
Thanks,
Jonathan
So, to go along with what Jonathan has stated, what do you folks think of the Kouvola area that I mentioned?
Jebrick has stated that his maga know Conjuring the Mystic Tower and plans on using it to set up the covenant. Do we want to have some pre-existing structures on the site? It could be just some earthen ramparts from a previous settlement (like the 'bad guys' place' from the background story) or even a network of caves. We could also use an island that's on the Kymi river just upstream of modern-day Kouvola. It"s about a kilometer long, so this would give us plenty of space to set up.