Urho Kekkonen National Park Travel Guide - Free Web & App

The terrain of Urho Kekkonen National Park was shaped by ancient geological processes and repeated Ice Age glaciation. Ice movements carved valleys, rounded fell summits and left extensive deposits across eastern Lapland, while rivers and seasonal meltwater continued to remodel the land. The resulting combination of forest, mire, fell and open river valley explains the park’s remarkable variety despite its predominantly low and gently rolling profile. Sokosti, at 718 metres, is the highest summit within the park and one of the defining points of the eastern fell country.

Long before the national park was established, the region formed part of the wider cultural landscape of the Sámi people. Seasonal movement, hunting, fishing and reindeer herding connected river valleys, forests and fells, with routes determined by weather, food resources and the needs of animals. Place names preserve elements of this northern heritage, while reindeer husbandry remains an important living practice in the surrounding area. The park should therefore be understood not as an empty wilderness, but as a landscape with continuing cultural as well as ecological significance.

Small farms and temporary settlements developed in parts of eastern Lapland where people combined subsistence agriculture with fishing, hunting, forestry and reindeer husbandry. Raja-Jooseppi, now preserved within the national park, is an important reminder of this demanding way of life in a remote borderland environment. Such homesteads depended closely on rivers, forest resources and seasonal work, and their surviving buildings and settings help explain how families adapted to short growing seasons, long winters and considerable distances from established towns.

Urho Kekkonen National Park was established in 1983 and named after Urho Kekkonen, Finland’s long-serving president and a prominent advocate of outdoor life and the northern regions. Its creation brought a large area of forests, mires, rivers and fells under coordinated protection while retaining the possibility of responsible recreation and established local livelihoods. The park forms part of Finland’s extensive network of protected landscapes, where trail management, hut maintenance, fire guidance and visitor information are used to balance access with the requirements of sensitive habitats.

During the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, Saariselkä and Kiilopää developed as important bases for experiencing the park, particularly through hiking, cross-country skiing and nature-based tourism. Marked routes and wilderness huts have made selected parts of the area more accessible, but the park’s scale still requires visitors to plan for remote conditions. Tourism now shares the landscape with conservation, Sámi cultural continuity and reindeer husbandry, making responsible access and respect for seasonal land use essential parts of its modern identity.