One beautiful morning at the end of summer, the air smells of autumn. The sun is already setting in northernmost Lapland and the temperatures don’t rise very high anymore, with a few exceptions. Without noticing, nature has started preparing for the coming winter.
A magical flame of land
At first, shades of red, yellow and orange start to appear in small dots among the green foliage. Soon a storm of colors will take over the whole scenery. The most hardy trees stay green long into autumn and turn color when other deciduous trees are already shedding their leaves. Did you know that the yellow color of the foliage is hidden under the green, but the red color is produced separately by the tree? Why this is so is something of a mystery. The fall comes when the trees collect their green before winter.
There is something incredible in land foliage. A continuous carpet full of different shades of red.
When and where to go on a colorful foliage hike?
Here in the northernmost Lapland, the foliage season lasts for a few weeks, but fall is affected by many factors such as the soil, the amount of rain, and the summer and fall temperatures. That’s why the foliages are sometimes different from each other. Autumn is the harvest festival of deciduous trees, so the needles of evergreen conifers do not show autumn. In every village in our region you can see the colors of autumn.
In Saariselkä, autumn tours are the most popular activity in autumn, and you can see a lot of foliage scenery during the day on a bike for example.
If you haven’t been to Karigasniemi, Utsjoki and Nuorgam before during autumn, you should head there during foliage weeks. When going north, you pass the conifers and the rest of Lapland is almost all leafy trees. So you can only imagine what kind of color splendor you can find there during fall! The North Lapland road trip in Finland will take you to wonderful landscapes in every season and also during autumn.
Auburn tones during the day and the glow of the northern lights at night
Did you know that the northern lights season starts in September. The evenings and nights are starting to get dark enough for the northern lights to be visible in the night sky again. On a clear autumn night or late evening, head to the water’s edge. The northern lights are reflecting from the surface of the still water, as if two worlds are colliding. According to many, autumn is the best time for the northern lights, and for a good reason. Autumn is also the best for photographing the northern lights, because the temperatures are not yet very low, so the batteries and fingers last better.
As quickly as fall arrives, it also disappears and the first mornings of frost are here. At last, summer is now put in storage and the wait for winter begins in earnest. Fortunately, here in northernmost Lapland, you don’t have to wait long for winter to arrive, as the first snow already falls in October, brightening the darkening autumn evenings. Wrap yourself in a blanket and sit with a cup of tea in front of the fireplace on an autumn evening. Listen to the crackle of the fire and curl up in the gentle warmth surrounding you.