Stories of Houses and Fells

We’ve been searching for our own house in Lapland for two years now. Seriously. Even before that, we would occasionally browse the house listings from this region, dream about different areas, and wonder what it would be like to own a home here.

Two years of searching for our own home. It doesn’t sound like a long time, but it certainly feels like it. We spend time on it daily—often hours at a time.

Buying a house in Lapland isn’t the same as it is elsewhere. At least not in our experience. We check the main property listing sites every day, but so far, they haven’t been all that helpful. The biggest advantage of those sites is getting a sense of where properties are being sold and at what prices, but the listings available to the public are just the tip of the iceberg. When someone finds a house for sale—one way or another—the deal can be made within 24 hours.

In this game, you have to be fast and serious.

Our house search has mostly relied on telling everyone we’ve met over the past two years that we’re looking for a home in Lapland. And I mean everyone. The restaurant worker who serves our food. The cashier at the store. The mechanic. Even municipal leaders—yep, in the north, you can reach them pretty easily in person. We’ve told random strangers we bump into on the fells. We even asked during a loan meeting if the local bank officer happened to know anyone who might want to sell us their house.

The harsh truth is that no one wants to sell their house in Lapland.

Especially in Fell Lapland, the area is largely dominated by cabin owners and tourists. Tourism is one of the biggest industries, and it’s reflected in the housing market. There are cabins (although even those are rarely sold), but we’re searching for a permanent home, a real house with land around it. Even people who live permanently in these municipalities struggle to find homes, while the forests are full of second-home cabins, most of which sit empty for nearly the entire year because the rental income from the peak seasons can easily cover the yearly costs.

It’s pretty ironic.

Back to the houses. We’ve probably driven through every village, small road, and trail in Fell Lapland. We’ve looked at maps to find houses in potential locations, tracked down the owners’ contact information, and asked if they’d considered selling. The answer?

No.

Most people are incredibly friendly. They’ll give us their neighbors’ contact details, mentioning they might have talked about selling. They’ll offer us coffee in their homes, share stories about their villages and their history, and most sincerely wish us luck in our search for a home. The people are wonderful, even though hitting a dead end again and again can be frustrating.

A few times, we’ve come close to making a deal. There are even a couple of houses still under negotiation. In other words, we haven’t received a flat-out rejection to our offer, so we’ll follow up later. We don’t want to be annoying, but from our experience, we’ve learned that house hunting here follows its own northern law: directness, speed, and being in the right place at the right time. That’s our strategy.

As we’ve spent days driving hundreds of kilometers through Lapland’s small villages, we’ve made it a habit to combine the trips with hiking in the fells. Sitting in the car for long stretches gets exhausting, and the many rejections can be discouraging, so it’s nice to balance it out by getting some fresh air in the windswept fells. We’ve gotten to know our future home region well, both from the road and from the above.

For some reason, we always forget our snacks ("we'll just take a quick drive through that village, it won’t take long"), but luckily, the northern berries are finally ripening, so we can pick them to stave off hunger. This comes in handy during hikes in the fells—and apparently also during house-hunting trips, which tend to take at least half a day. In that time, hunger inevitably sneaks up on us.

Our recent old and new acquaintances have been Aakenustunturi in Kittilä, Aalistunturi in Kolari, and Pieskänjupukka in Pello, which isn’t a fell, but a beautiful place nonetheless.

We spent an entire night at Aakenustunturi. We hiked leisurely to the new Aakenus Hut, and even though it was a weekend, it was empty. Instead of camping in a tent, we got to sleep comfortably in the hut, which still smelled of fresh wood. There wouldn’t have been many good tent spots around the hut anyway.

There’s been an attempt to turn Aalistunturi into a national park, but so far, with little success. It’s really a shame, as its diverse nature was a pleasant surprise. It reminded me of Särkitunturi, and in my opinion, its landscapes were just as impressive. Särkitunturi, where the number of visitors has exploded in recent years (they’ve just opened a huge new parking lot there), now requires careful timing and a bit of luck if you want to walk in peace. But at Aalistunturi, there was plenty of solitude. On top of the fell, there’s a small day hut, and according to its logbook, only a handful of visitors come each month.

Pieskänjupukka in Pello is a high hill near Miekojärvi. The trail to the summit was only a couple of kilometers long, but a sweaty one at that. It reminded me of Norwegian mountain trails—Pieskänjupukka was steep and challenging. However, the views from the top were well worth the effort. Miekojärvi (which, according to rumors, has also been considered for a national park) is an incredibly beautiful lake surrounded by vast forest areas. Natural sandy beaches have formed along its shores, visible even from the summit of Pieskänjupukka. The road to the trailhead was long, bumpy, and remote, but surprisingly, in the middle of nowhere, there were still a few other cars parked at the small roadside parking area—which, at these latitudes, I’d consider a small traffic jam. Thankfully, there’s plenty of space in the forest for everyone.

Every now and then, I wake up with the feeling, "Today we’ll find our home." It’s a strong feeling, and I truly believe in it. So far, it hasn’t brought any concrete results, but I know that day will come.

Somewhere out here, our home is waiting for us. It’s wild to think that it already exists—it’s out there right now. We just have to find it.

Final greetings from Papu by the shores of Lake Pallasjärvi. Papu turned 12 last week. You could count her as a senior dog by now, but quite a spry one at that. We sometimes joke that Papu is related to Aira Samulin because both have a rear end that wiggles with equal enthusiasm.

♥ Sanna