Northern Lights Forecast for Enontekiö

Northern Lights in Enontekiö

Enontekiö is the municipality that forms Finland’s north-western “arm”: about 8,400 square kilometers with fewer than 1,800 people in it, the second-lowest population density in the country. About a fifth of the residents are Sámi. The main village is Hetta, about 500 people on the north shore of Lake Ounasjärvi. There is no town anywhere near, so the sky is dark from the edge of the village, and from about 6 December to 6 January the sun does not rise at all.

Lake Ounasjärvi and the Hetta-Pallas trail

In winter you can walk or ski straight out of the village onto the ice of Lake Ounasjärvi and have open sky in every direction, with the Ounastunturi fells to the south. In summer a boat takes hikers across the same water to the start of the Hetta-Pallas trail, about 50 km over the fells to the Pallastunturi visitor center. It was marked in 1934 and is the oldest marked hiking trail in Finland. Summer hikers go over the tops; the winter ski route runs mostly lower down.

Jyppyrä above the village

Jyppyrä is the hill next to Hetta. A marked trail from the Fell Lapland Visitor Centre, 1.8 km there and back, leads to a campfire hut on top that looks across the lake to Pyhäkero in the Ounastunturi fells. The 10 km ski track around the village is lit, so step off it when you are watching.

Charter flights and the road from Palojoensuu

Enontekiö Airport is a few kilometers west of Hetta and has been run by the municipality since 2021. It handles winter charter flights, mainly from Britain, and has no year-round scheduled service, so most independent visitors fly to Kittilä, about 150 km south by road, or to Alta in Norway, about 200 km north. Hetta is 25 km off the E8 at Palojoensuu, and buses from Kittilä and Rovaniemi come up through Muonio.

Kilpisjärvi is in the same municipality but about 170 km away by road, up the E8 toward Norway.

Hetta in daylight

The Fell Lapland Visitor Centre has the Vuovjjuš exhibition on Sámi culture and fell nature. Enontekiö Church, finished in 1952, replaced the church burned in 1944; its altarpiece by Uuno Eskola shows the risen Christ blessing the people of Lapland. In March the village holds Marianpäivät, the Mary’s Day gathering of the Sámi of Enontekiö, with reindeer sleigh races, lassoing, Sámi music and art exhibitions; it has run in its present form since 1971.