Experience life as the locals do

People have lived in Sompio since time immemorial.

Discover a sense of wellness from nature: foraging in Lapland

Many wild berries grow in Sompio. They are true superfoods, bursting with vitamins: blueberries, lingonberries, cranberries and cloudberries. When you go for a hike, take a basket or bag with you, for you never know what delicacies you might find. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to top off a pancake or morning porridge with berries that you’ve picked yourself?

The midnight sun makes Lapland’s wild herbs grow stronger and more potent than in the south. In Sompio you can find many edible plants such as nettles, fireweed, Lady’s Mantle and yarrow.

According to Everyman’s Rights anyone can pick berries, mushrooms and wild plants that are not protected by law, without any special permission. You might also come across chaga in Sompio’s forests, famous for its health benefits and usually brewed as a tea-like drink. However, you do need special permission from the landowner to remove chaga. Only gather plants and mushrooms, that you are certain that you recognise and that you know you are allowed to pick.

Sompio’s Strict Nature Reserve is a separate nature conservation zone, which was created to protect an extremely valuable area of arctic nature. If you want to pick wild herbs, you must do this outside of the Sompio Strict Nature Reserve and Urho Kekkonen national park. Picking berries and mushrooms is allowed in the national park but prohibited in the strict nature reserve. However, you don’t even have to go far from Tankavaara to find great forests for foraging!

From wild deer to reindeer

Nowadays you can see reindeer anywhere in Sompio. Even though they spend most of the year living in nature wild and free, every reindeer is owned by a reindeer herder.

Sompio Lake is famous for fishing

In Sompio there are superb fishing waters, of which the most famous are the reservoirs, Lokka and Porttipahta. In these reservoirs you can find white fish, pike, burbot and perch.

Have you ever heard the Sami language?

In Sompio, particularly in Vuotso village, you might hear the locals speaking a very different sounding and rare language. This language is Sami.

The sad tale beneath Lokka Reservoir’s surface

Lokka is one of the largest reservoirs in the EU, and was created by man at the end of the 1960s. Under Lokka was left a huge swamp, Posoaapa.

The Sámi villages of Vuotso and Purnumukka

In the nook of the Sompio Strict Nature Reserve and Urho Kekkonen National Park by the E4 carriageway lies Finland’s southernmost Sámi village, Vuotso (Vuohčču in Sámi language).

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