Every design for Sodankylä

The wooden walls of Sodankylän vanha kirkko have stood since the late seventeenth century, raised for the people of Middle Lapland and still opened every summer. It is one of the oldest churches in Lapland, and it belongs to a municipality with two official languages, Finnish and Northern Sámi, where Sodankylä is also Soađegilli. The old Sámi marketplace, Saamelaisten vanha markkinapaikka, and the paintings at Museo-galleria Alariesto keep that layered story in view.

Sodankylä lies in the middle of Finnish Lapland, at the northern end of Highway 5, with the Kitinen river flowing past the centre. It is the second largest municipality in Finland by area, after neighbouring Inari, and stretches from Pyhä-Luosto national park and the amethyst mine at Luosto to Urho Kekkonen national park and Sokosti in the north. The reservoirs of Lokka and Porttipahta spread across its middle. Villages such as Tankavaara, with its gold museum, and Kakslauttanen, with its igloo village, belong here too, and every June the Midnight Sun Film Festival brings the cinema world to the village.

Just outside the centre lies Tähtelä, the 'place of stars', home to the geophysical observatory, a name that seems to fit every clear winter night over Sodankylä, even though the observatory never studies the stars.