Lemmenjoki National Park

Lemmenjoki National Park tickets and tours: which one to book

Lemmenjoki, in the far north of Finnish Lapland, three hundred kilometres beyond the Arctic Circle, is the largest national park in Finland and one of the largest roadless wildernesses in Europe, and it is known for two things found together nowhere else, the old-growth pine forests of a great river valley and a goldfield that is still worked by hand. It lies west of the village of Inari, the centre of Sami culture in Finland, which is itself forty-five minutes by road from the airport of Ivalo, with daily flights from Helsinki. From Inari a road of forty-five kilometres leads to the hamlet of Njurkulahti, at the edge of the park, where there are a nature information hut, a couple of family-run holiday villages with cabins and saunas, a campsite, and the river boats. The Lemmenjoki river is the key to a visit.

From mid-June to mid-September long, narrow wooden boats with outboard motors, operated by local Sami families, make a scheduled run twice a day some twenty kilometres up the river, through a chain of narrow lakes between forested slopes, stopping at Ravadas, for a waterfall a short walk from the landing, and ending at Kultahamina, the gold harbour; one can go up and back in a day, with a walk between sailings, or, which is much the most popular plan, take the boat up and spend two or three days walking back, or the reverse. A marked trail follows the river on both banks, with free open wilderness huts, reservable huts, lean-to shelters and fireplaces supplied with wood, and from Kultahamina a marked circuit of a day climbs out of the forest on to the bare fells of the gold country, by Morgamoja and Pellinen, with a wide view over the wilderness. Beyond the marked routes, which cover only a small part of the park, the rest is for experienced walkers with map and compass. The park is free, and guided trips, gold panning and visits to reindeer farms are offered by the local families.

Visiting Lemmenjoki National Park: what you will see

The national park was established in 1956 and enlarged in 1971 and 1982 to about 2,860 square kilometres; it adjoins the Ovre Anarjohka park across the Norwegian border, so that together they form an unbroken wilderness of more than four thousand square kilometres. It lies in the zone where the northern forest comes to an end. The valley of the Lemmenjoki, whose name is usually explained as the river of love but more probably means the warm river in Sami, is a deep trough, cut along a fault and scoured by ice, sheltered enough to carry magnificent open forests of Scots pine, many of the trees four and five hundred years old, their trunks silver and twisted, which have never been felled; up the side valleys the pines give way to mountain birch, and above about four hundred metres to open fell, rounded, stony heights covered with lichen, crowberry and dwarf birch, the highest of which, Morgam-Viibus, reaches 599 metres, while the northern and western parts of the park are an immense expanse of bog and low fell. It is the home of brown bears, wolverines, a few wolves, elk, otters, golden eagles, which nest here in some numbers, the Siberian jay, the Siberian tit, the capercaillie, the willow grouse, and the whooper swan, Finland's national bird, on the remote lakes; the rivers hold grayling, trout and whitefish. Above all it is reindeer country.

The park lies within the homeland of the Sami, the only indigenous people of the European Union, and is the grazing ground of two reindeer herding cooperatives, whose several thousand semi-domesticated animals wander freely through it, are gathered in round-up fences, the remains of which one passes on the trail, for the earmarking of calves in midsummer and the separation in autumn, and provide the main livelihood of the families of Njurkulahti; visitors are asked to keep dogs on a lead and not to disturb the herds. Ancient pitfall systems for trapping wild reindeer, rows of hundreds of pits, can still be traced. The gold was found in 1945, when three brothers panning the tributary streams struck rich gravel on the Morgamoja, and within three years more than a hundred men, many of them veterans looking for a new start after the war, were digging in the wilderness, flying in their supplies and even building airstrips on the fells, which survive. The rush soon faded, but it never quite ended: a few dozen prospectors continue to work claims each summer, living in cabins and turf huts on the fells, and although mechanical digging inside the park was brought to an end in 2020, panning and shovelling by hand are still permitted, and the diggers, a taciturn and independent breed, are part of the landscape and generally willing to talk.

Lemmenjoki National Park: best time to go, seasons and hours

The park is open all year, but the practical season for walkers is from late June to mid-September, when the boats run. From mid-May to the end of July the sun does not set. June and July are the height of the mosquito season, which in Lapland is a serious matter, and a head net, repellent and tightly woven clothing are needed; the insects diminish in August, which with early September is the best time for walking, the first frosts bringing on the ruska, the autumn colouring, when for about two weeks round the second week of September the birches turn gold and the ground cover on the fells a deep red.

Summer temperatures are 10 to 20 degrees, with cold nights and the possibility of rain and even sleet. From October to April the park is under snow and darkness, with the northern lights overhead, temperatures of minus twenty to minus thirty-five, and is visited only by experienced ski tourers and on guided snowmobile and reindeer trips from Inari. Carry a map and compass, since the telephone signal is unreliable. Allow three to four days. The Sami museum Siida and the parliament building at Inari should not be missed.