Riisitunturi

Riisitunturi National Park was established in 1982 in the municipality of Posio, in southern Lapland, and covers 77 km² around the fjell that gives it its name. Its relief is one of rounded hills covered in spruce forest and peatland, with broad views over Lake Kitkajärvi.

What makes it exceptional are its hillside mires, the rinnesuot: wetlands that develop on slopes instead of in hollows, an uncommon phenomenon that here reaches an especially clear expression. They form because the impermeable substrate and constant runoff keep the slope saturated with water, allowing sphagnum to grow on an incline. The park preserves some of the finest examples of this kind of mire in the whole of Europe.

Its most widely reproduced image, however, is a winter one. The combination of moisture and cold produces tykky, the build-up of snow and ice on the spruces, which can reach hundreds of kilos per tree and deforms them into hunched, ghostly silhouettes. That landscape has made Riisitunturi a leading destination for nature photography and for snowshoe and cross-country ski trips, with some forty kilometres of summer paths and a score of ski tracks. The wildlife is the characteristic boreal set, with brown bear, wolverine, capercaillie and Siberian jay.