Øvre Dividal National Park (; ) is a

national park A national park is a nature park designated for conservation (ethic), conservation purposes because of unparalleled national natural, historic, or cultural significance. It is an area of natural, semi-natural, or developed land that is protecte ...

Målselv Municipality Målselv () is a List of municipalities of Norway, municipality in Troms Counties of Norway, county, Norway. The administrative centre of the municipality is the village of Moen, Troms, Moen. The main commercial centre of the municipality is the ...

Troms Troms (; ; ; ) is a Counties of Norway, county in northern Norway. It borders Finnmark county to the northeast and Nordland county in the southwest. Norrbotten Län in Sweden is located to the south and further southeast is a shorter border with ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. The park was opened in 1971 and has an area of . The original intention was to preserve a largely undisturbed inland valley and mountain area. The hiking trail Nordkalottruta passes through the national park.

Name

The first element in the name ''Dividal'' is from the river name ''Divielva'' (literally ''Divi River''). ''Divi'' is from the

Northern Sami language 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 ...

word ''dievvá'' which means 'round and dry hill'. The last element is from the

Norwegian language Norwegian ( ) is a North Germanic language from the Indo-European language family spoken mainly in Norway, where it is an official language. Along with Swedish and Danish, Norwegian forms a dialect continuum of more or less mutually intelli ...

word ''dal'' which means 'dale' or 'valley'. The word ''øvre'' means 'upper' in Norwegian, thus 'the upper part of Dividal'.

Nature

Flora

Pine A pine is any conifer tree or shrub in the genus ''Pinus'' () of the family Pinaceae. ''Pinus'' is the sole genus in the subfamily Pinoideae. ''World Flora Online'' accepts 134 species-rank taxa (119 species and 15 nothospecies) of pines as cu ...

forests at the lowest elevations give way to mountain birch higher up, and finally willow and dwarf birch on the open

alpine tundra Alpine tundra is a type of natural region or biome that does not contain trees because it is at high elevation, with an associated harsh climate. As the latitude of a location approaches the poles, the threshold elevation for alpine tundra gets ...

. Some

grey alder ''Alnus incana'', the grey alder, tag alder or speckled alder, is a species of multi-stemmed, shrubby tree in the birch family, with a wide range across the cooler parts of the Northern Hemisphere. Tolerant of wetter soils, it can slowly spread w ...

(''Alnus incana'') grows along the Divi river. A total of 315 plant species have been recorded.

Rhododendron ''Rhododendron'' (; : ''rhododendra'') is a very large genus of about 1,024 species of woody plants in the Ericaceae, heath family (Ericaceae). They can be either evergreen or deciduous. Most species are native to eastern Asia and the Himalayan ...

(''Rhododendron lapponicum'') grows naturally in the area.

Fauna

All large

predator Predation is a biological interaction in which one organism, the predator, kills and eats another organism, its prey. It is one of a family of common List of feeding behaviours, feeding behaviours that includes parasitism and micropredation ...

s on the mainland are represented in the park (

brown bear The brown bear (''Ursus arctos'') is a large bear native to Eurasia and North America. Of the land carnivorans, it is rivaled in size only by its closest relative, the polar bear, which is much less variable in size and slightly bigger on av ...

wolf The wolf (''Canis lupus''; : wolves), also known as the grey wolf or gray wolf, is a Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been recognized, includin ...

wolverine The wolverine ( , ; ''Gulo gulo''), also called the carcajou or quickhatch (from East Cree, ''kwiihkwahaacheew''), is the largest land-dwelling species, member of the family Mustelidae. It is a muscular carnivore and a solitary animal. The w ...

lynx A lynx ( ; : lynx or lynxes) is any of the four wikt:extant, extant species (the Canada lynx, Iberian lynx, Eurasian lynx and the bobcat) within the medium-sized wild Felidae, cat genus ''Lynx''. The name originated in Middle Engl ...

), although wolf is rare and probably has no permanent presence. The wolverine is especially numerous in this area. Reindeer (Sami-owned) are common, as are moose, and the

Arctic fox The Arctic fox (''Vulpes lagopus''), also known as the white fox, polar fox, or snow fox, is a small species of fox native to the Arctic regions of the Northern Hemisphere and common throughout the Tundra#Arctic tundra, Arctic tundra biome. I ...

used to be living in the area.

Climate

At above sea level, Dividalen is the second-driest valley in Norway, with average annual precipitation only . The monthly 24-hour averages for the same location varies from in January to in July with a mean annual of . There is no

permafrost Permafrost () is soil or underwater sediment which continuously remains below for two years or more; the oldest permafrost has been continuously frozen for around 700,000 years. Whilst the shallowest permafrost has a vertical extent of below ...

in the lower elevations of the park. At altitudes above , permafrost is common. The Øvre Dividal National Park starts at an elevation of about and reaches up to . Together with areas in bordering

Sweden Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, and Finland to the east. At , Sweden is the largest Nordic count ...

, as well as almost undisturbed areas nearby in Norway, this park is part of a larger

wilderness area Wilderness or wildlands (usually in the plural) are Earth's natural environments that have not been significantly modified by human activity, or any nonurbanized land not under extensive agricultural cultivation. The term has traditionally ...

Geology

The bedrock consists of conglomerate,

sandstone Sandstone is a Clastic rock#Sedimentary clastic rocks, clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of grain size, sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate mineral, silicate grains, Cementation (geology), cemented together by another mineral. Sand ...

and

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous, metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade, regional metamorphism. It is the finest-grained foliated metamorphic ro ...

. Several rivers have carved ravines. A peculiarity is large rocks placed at unlikely locations. These were carried by the

ice-age An ice age is a long period of reduction in the temperature of Earth's surface and atmosphere, resulting in the presence or expansion of continental and polar ice sheets and alpine glaciers. Earth's climate alternates between ice ages, and g ...

glaciers, and deposited randomly at the end of the ice age.

References

External links

*
English language information about Øvre-Dividal-National park
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ovre Dividal National Park National parks of Norway Protected areas established in 1971 Protected areas of Troms 1971 establishments in Norway Målselv