Rovaniemi to develop Ounasvaara for round-the-year sports activities

Ounasvaara area offers various activities for Rovaniemi residents and guests throughout all seasons. In the winter, people can have professional ski lessons, rent skies and use slopes and trails of Ounasvaara to their choice. They can even try out tobogganing.

Summer activities in the area are just as much exciting and varied. The activities that children and the adult could have include summer bob-sledding going down 750-meter long steel chute while enjoying the view and nice weather.

Going up the Ounasvaara hill is possible by taking a safe chairlift, which offers a breathtaking experience. The Bike Park of Ounasvaara rents out helmets, bicycles, fat bikes and dirt bikes for children and electric bikes. The Santa Claus Golf Club welcomes golfers both in the summer and the winter.

For people willing to take up indoors activities, the Santa Sport complex offers gyms, a swimming hall, sauna and bowling. Santa Sport also rents out equipment for outdoors activities: bikes, fat bikes, pedal cars, Nordic walking poles, and disc golf sets. The family Arctic Adventure Park Huima offers tree climbing, mini-golf and equipment renting.

Ounasvaara has a number of trails for walking, trekking, running, and practicing orienteering out in the woods. Ounasvaara has several laavus where people loving outdoor activities can take a break and warm up by the campfire while grilling some snacks. Summer is the season of berry and mushroom picking in Lapland and foreigners will definitely enjoy gifts of nature in the woods of Ounasvaara.

The mayor of Rovaniemi, Esko Lotvonen, talked about the city strategy on the development of Ounasvaara area.

“In the city strategy, we have stated that Ounasvaara will be developed for sport, tourism and recreational purposes. In sport, the main new buildings will be the swimming hall and the indoor soccer hall. The locations are near the Santa Sport Institute,” Lotvonen said. There will also be new cottage villages on the Ounasvaara hill.

Ounasvaara is a place which Rovaniemi guests and citizens who enjoy spending free time actively outdoors mostly love. But the construction plans raise reasonable concerns: will the construction seriously threaten the green territory of Ounasvaara area? Lotvonen said that there is no such threat. “The cottage villages on the top of the Ounasvaara hill and near the Golf Course on the northern side of the hill will, indeed, be built. However, Ounasvaara is a huge area with many not-constructed natural environment. The investments in sports, logistics and tourism are very small when it comes to the use of land. So, there is still an abundance of space for recreational activities for both residents and visitors.”