Utsjoki (; ; ; ; ) is a

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

Finland Finland, officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It borders Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of Bothnia to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the south, ...

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

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 ...

as well as the municipality of 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: Standing 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 geog ...

is . Utsjoki has two official languages: Finnish 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 ne ...

speakers; of the

population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

. Ethnically, 54.6% of the population were Sami in 2019, making Utsjoki the only municipality in Finland with Sami majority. The border with Norway follows the river Teno, which flows into the

Arctic Sea The Arctic Ocean is the smallest and shallowest of the world's five oceanic divisions. It spans an area of approximately and is the coldest of the world's oceans. The International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) recognizes it as an ocean, a ...

. The northernmost village in Finland and in the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

is Nuorgam. 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 includes not just major roads, but also other public roads and rights of way. In the United States, it is also used as an equivalent term to controlled-access highway, or ...

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 (town), Vardø in Norway by the Barents Sea, and it runs south through Finland, Poland, C ...

runs along the Sami Bridge 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. "The name Utsjoki comes from Northern Sami ''Ohcejohka'', but the origin of that name is unknown", according to website Fennica.pohjoiseen.fi.

Geography

Villages

* Nuorgam * Utsjoki centre * Nuvvus * Dalvadas * Outakoski * Rovisuvanto * Karigasniemi * Kaamasmukka

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 surfaces.

Vegetation

In general, the

tree line The tree line is the edge of a habitat at which trees are capable of growing and beyond which they are not. It is found at high elevations and high latitudes. Beyond the tree line, trees cannot tolerate the environmental conditions (usually low ...

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 is characterised by open, low-growing woody vegetation. Moorland is generally related to high-ground heaths with—especially in Great Britain—a coole ...

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

blueberry Blueberries are a widely distributed and widespread group of perennial flowering plants with blue or purple berries. They are classified in the section ''Cyanococcus'' with the genus ''Vaccinium''. Commercial blueberries—both wild (lowbush) ...

and crowberry, whereas the fells, at higher elevations, have dwarf willows and alpine grasses with

lichen A lichen ( , ) is a hybrid colony (biology), colony of algae or cyanobacteria living symbiotically among hypha, filaments of multiple fungus species, along with yeasts and bacteria embedded in the cortex or "skin", in a mutualism (biology), m ...

s and

moss Mosses are small, non-vascular plant, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic phylum, division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Wilhelm Philippe Schimper, Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryo ...

es. On the fell tops, blockfields and windblown heaths with lichens and mosses as well as bare rock slabs are found.

Patterned ground Patterned ground is the distinct and often symmetrical natural pattern of geometric shapes formed by the deformation of ground material in periglacial regions. It is typically found in remote regions of the Arctic, Antarctica, and the Outback ...

occurs regularly, often as polygons and stone stripes on the slopes.

Climate

The

midnight sun Midnight sun, also known as polar day, 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 midnight sun is see ...

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. Extremely low temperatures and low precipitation result in thin snow cover 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 () 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 ...

Permafrost

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

peat Peat is an accumulation of partially Decomposition, decayed vegetation or organic matter. It is unique to natural areas called peatlands, bogs, mires, Moorland, moors, or muskegs. ''Sphagnum'' moss, also called peat moss, is one of the most ...

. Dry peat is a good insulator during the summer

heat In thermodynamics, heat is energy in transfer between a thermodynamic system and its surroundings by such mechanisms as thermal conduction, electromagnetic radiation, and friction, which are microscopic in nature, involving sub-atomic, ato ...

, 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 of matter, state from solid to liquid. At the melting point the solid and liquid phase (matter), phase exist in Thermodynamic equilib ...

. Permafrost has been found in many palsa mires in the Kevo 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. 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 (, ; UH) is a public university in Helsinki, Finland. The university was founded in Turku in 1640 as the Royal Academy of Åbo under the Swedish Empire, and moved to Helsinki in 1828 under the sponsorship of Alexander ...

and the

German Research Foundation The German Research Foundation ( ; DFG ) is a German research funding organization, which functions as a self-governing institution for the promotion of science and research in the Federal Republic of Germany. In 2019, the DFG had a funding bud ...

. The results were quite surprising for most scientists in Finland. Above the timber line, a minimum permafrost thickness of ten to fifty meters was recorded with geoelectrical soundings. 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, 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 are gasoline (or petrol) and diesel fuel. Fuel dispensers are used to ...

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

References

External links

Municipality of Utsjoki

Explore Utsjoki

Hotel Luossajohka Utsjoki
{{Authority control Sámi-language municipalities Populated places established in 1876 1876 establishments in Finland Municipalities of Lapland (Finland)