Utsjoki (; sme, Ohcejohka ; smn, Uccjuuhâ; sms, Uccjokk; no, Utsjok) is a

municipality A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate. The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

, the northernmost in the country. It is in Lapland and borders

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the ...

as well as the municipality of

Inari Inari may refer to: Shinto * Inari Ōkami, a Shinto spirit ** Mount Inari in Japan, site of Fushimi Inari-taisha, the main Shinto shrine to Inari ** Inari Shrine, shrines to the Shinto god Inari * Inari-zushi, a type of sushi Places * Inari, ...

. The municipality was founded in 1876. It has a population of () and covers an area of of which is water. The

population density Population density (in agriculture: Stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical ...

is . Utsjoki has two official languages:

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

and

Northern Sami Northern may refer to the following: Geography * North, a point in direction * Northern Europe, the northern part or region of Europe * Northern Highland, a region of Wisconsin, United States * Northern Province, Sri Lanka * Northern Range, a ...

. It is the municipality in Finland with the largest portion of official

Sami Acronyms * SAMI, ''Synchronized Accessible Media Interchange'', a closed-captioning format developed by Microsoft * Saudi Arabian Military Industries, a government-owned defence company * South African Malaria Initiative, a virtual expertise ...

speakers; of the

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

. The border with Norway follows the river

Teno ''Technische Nothilfe'' (abbreviated as TN, T.N, T.H, Tech Nh, TeNo, TENO; ) was a German organisation. It began as a strikebreaker organisation after the First World War, but developed into a volunteer emergency response unit. During the Naz ...

, which flows into the Arctic Sea. The northernmost village in Finland and in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been de ...

Nuorgam Nuorgam () is a village in the Utsjoki municipality in the region of Lapland, Finland. It has approximately 200 inhabitants. It is the northernmost point of Finland and the northernmost point of the European Union. It is situated on the De ...

, which is also the northernmost land border crossing in the world. Utsjoki is at the northern end of highway 4, the longest

highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It is used for major roads, but also includes other public roads and public tracks. In some areas of the United States, it is used as an equivalent term to controlled-acces ...

in Finland. The

European route E75 European route E 75 is part of the International E-road network, which is a series of main roads in Europe. The E 75 starts at the town of Vardø in Norway by the Barents Sea and it runs south through Finland, Poland, Czech Republic, ...

runs along the

Sami Bridge The Sami Bridge ( fi, Saamen silta; se, Sámi šaldi; no, Samelandsbrua) is a cable-stayed bridge that carries the European route E75 across the Tana River between Troms og Finnmark county in Norway and Utsjoki in Finland. The bridge is long, a ...

and continues on to Norway. The Kevo nature reserve is located within the municipality. It covers a territory of and there is a hiking trail. The trail partly follows the edge of the Kevo gorge.

Geography

Villages

* Utsjoki centre *

Nuvvus Nuvvus is a village on the Finland–Norway border on the Deatnu river. Villages in Finland Utsjoki {{LaplandFI-geo-stub ...

* Dalvadas * Outakoski * Rovisuvanto *

Karigasniemi Karigasniemi ( se, Gáregasnjárga) is a village in the municipality of Utsjoki in Finland. It lies at the foot of Mount Ailigás. The village is situated on the border between Norway and Finland south-east of the Norwegian village of Karas ...

Kaamasmukka Kaamasmukka (in Northern Sámi ''Gámasmohkki'') is a small village in Finland in Lapland in the northernmost Finnish municipality of Utsjoki. It is located 27 km east of the village of Karigasniemi directly at the main road 92 ( Kantatie 92) in ...

Topography

The Utsjoki region is flatter and lower in altitudes than many other parts of Lapland. Large areas of Utsjoki are less than 300 m above sea level. Many of the fell summits are under 500 m in height. In general, the topography is smooth and the fells slope gently. The summits are very flat and large, as is typical of old

peneplain 390px, Sketch of a hypothetical peneplain formation after an orogeny. In geomorphology and geology, a peneplain is a low-relief plain formed by protracted erosion. This is the definition in the broadest of terms, albeit with frequency the usage ...

surfaces.

Vegetation

In general, the

tree line The tree line is the edge of the habitat at which trees are capable of growing. It is found at high elevations and high latitudes. Beyond the tree line, trees cannot tolerate the environmental conditions (usually cold temperatures, extreme snow ...

is located at altitudes between 300 and 400 meters. In northernmost Finland, the tree line on north-facing slopes is just above an altitude of 100 meters.

Heath A heath () is a shrubland habitat found mainly on free-draining infertile, acidic soils and characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a cooler a ...

s extend above the tree line. The lower heathlands are dominated by shrubs such as

dwarf birch ''Betula nana'', the dwarf birch, is a species of birch in the family Betulaceae, found mainly in the tundra of the Arctic region. Description It is a monoecious, deciduous shrub growing up to high. The bark is non-peeling and shiny red-coppe ...

, blueberry and

crowberry ''Empetrum nigrum'', crowberry, black crowberry, or, in western Alaska, blackberry, is a flowering plant species in the heather family Ericaceae with a near circumboreal distribution in the Northern Hemisphere. It is usually dioecious, but there ...

, whereas the fells, at higher elevations, have dwarf willows and alpine grasses with lichens and mosses. On the fell tops, blockfields and windblown heaths with lichens and mosses as well as bare rock slabs are found. Patterned ground occurs regularly, often as polygons and stone stripes on the slopes.

Climate

The

midnight sun The midnight sun is a natural phenomenon that occurs in the summer months in places north of the Arctic Circle or south of the Antarctic Circle, when the Sun remains visible at the local midnight. When the midnight sun is seen in the Arctic, ...

remains above the horizon from 17 May to 28 July (73 days), and the polar night from 26 November to 15 January (51 days). Utsjoki, like most of Finland, has a subarctic climate (Köppen Dfc). Being the northernmost municipality in Finland, Utsjoki's annual average temperature is below freezing. Utsjoki is also the driest place in Finland, as the average annual precipitation varies between 371 and 433 mm, depending on the topography. The driest year on record was 1986, when only 234 mm of precipitation fell at the Outakoski weather station.https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/15734/2009nro8.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y Extremely low temperatures and low precipitation result in thin

snow cover Snow comprises individual ice crystals that grow while suspended in the atmosphere—usually within clouds—and then fall, accumulating on the ground where they undergo further changes. It consists of frozen crystalline water throughout ...

throughout the winters. The wind velocity strongly increases with higher elevations, and this has a major effect on the distribution of the snow. The exposed hilltops usually have no snow cover during winter. This leads to the cooling of the ground and the development of permafrost.

Permafrost

Palsas Palsas are peat mounds with a permanently frozen peat and mineral soil core. They are a typical phenomenon in the polar and subpolar zone of discontinuous permafrost. One of their characteristics is having steep slopes that rises above the mir ...

are a typical permafrost feature in northern Finland. Permafrost formation in palsas is dictated by the properties of

peat Peat (), also known as turf (), is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, moors, or muskegs. The peatland ecosystem covers and is the most efficient ...

. Dry peat is a good insulator during the summer

heat In thermodynamics, heat is defined as the form of energy crossing the boundary of a thermodynamic system by virtue of a temperature difference across the boundary. A thermodynamic system does not ''contain'' heat. Nevertheless, the term is ...

, but frozen peat in winter conducts heat outwards, and the winter frost can penetrate deep into the peat layers. Due to these physical properties, palsas may be formed and preserved even in a climate where the mean annual air temperature is just at the

freezing point The melting point (or, rarely, liquefaction point) of a substance is the temperature at which it changes state from solid to liquid. At the melting point the solid and liquid phase exist in equilibrium. The melting point of a substance depend ...

. Permafrost has been found in many palsa mires in the

Kevo Kevo Strict Nature Reserve ( fi, Kevon luonnonpuisto) is a strict nature reserve located in Utsjoki, northern Lapland, Finland. It was established in 1956 and covers . The reserve is a popular backpacking destination due to its canyon-like g ...

and Utsjoki regions. After detailed studies on palsas, researchers were convinced until 1982 that "so far, permafrost has been found, and probably exists only, in mires in the cores of palsas". The permafrost core in palsas is easy to detect by digging or sounding with a steel rod, and the frozen ground necessitates modern geophysical techniques for geoelectrical soundings. They allow measurement of the thickness of frozen bedrock due to its higher

specific electrical resistance Specific may refer to: * Specificity (disambiguation) * Specific, a cure or therapy for a specific illness Law * Specific deterrence, focussed on an individual * Specific finding, intermediate verdict used by a jury in determining the fina ...

. Matti Seppälä (1941-2020) was undoubtedly the foremost expert on palsas. Based on existing innovative research in Scandinavia he suggested to look for the general permafrost distribution in the mountains also in northernmost Finland. The field campaign in summer 1985 in Utsjoki was supported by the Academy of Finland, the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...

and the German Research Foundation. The results were quite surprising for most scientists in Finland. Above the timber Iine a minimum permafrost thickness of ten to fifty meters was recorded with geoelectrical soundings. It seems obvious that permafrost is widespread on fjell summits of northern Finland. The Puollamoaivi mountain (432 m high) is located some 13 km NE of the Kevo Subarctic Research Station. Close to the Skallovarri palsa mire about 290 m a. s. I., an estimated permafrost thickness of over 100 meters may be expected at an altitude of 360 m, just 30–70 m higher than the surface of the palsa mire. It is concluded therefore that all sites on the crest of Skallovarri (Puollamoaivi) show the existence of permafrost, but its thickness seems to be different. These findings were confirmed with similar results in the adjacent Peldojoki, Hietatievat, Peera sites, where permafrost exists in debris as well as in bedrock. This is also of importance in the construction business, e.g. for deep foundations for telecommunication masts.

Notable people

Inger-Mari Aikio-Arianaick Inger-Mari Aikio (prev. Inger-Mari Aikio-Arianaick; born 1961 in Utsjoki, Finland) is a Sámi poet who writes in Northern Sámi. In addition to writing poetry, she has worked as a reporter, photographer and proofreader for the newspaper '' Sámi ...

, writer, born in Utsjoki in 1961 * Pigga Keskitalo, Sámi academic, born in Utsjoki in 1972 * Helvi Poutasuo (1943–2017), teacher, translator, editor, politician * Irja Seurujärvi-Kari (born 1947), politician and academic

Gallery

Image:Utsjoki, Lapland, Finland (51237637345).jpg, Old cabins on the hill Image:Utsjoki Norjan puolelta.jpg, Utsjoki seen from Norway Image:Bridge at Utsjoki between Finland and Norway.jpg, The Sami Bridge connects Utsjoki to Norway Image:Nuorgam Sami mootor 7578.jpg, Samimootor, a car repair shop and

filling station A filling station, also known as a gas station () or petrol station (), is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. The most common fuels sold in the 2010s were gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel. Ga ...

, Utsjoki Image:Nuorgamin Lomakeskus 6867.jpg, ''Nuorgamin lomakeskus'', the camping center of Nuorgam

References

External links

Municipality of Utsjoki

Hotel Luossajohka Utsjoki
{{Authority control Sámi-language municipalities Populated places established in 1876 1876 establishments in Finland