Øvre Pasvik National Park

Siberian taiga forest where Norway, Finland and Russia meet at a stone cairn

Øvre Pasvik, about 100 km south of Kirkenes along the border with Russia and Finland, is Norway's easternmost national park and its least visited. The landscape is pure Siberian taiga: endless spruce and pine forests, marshy ground between low ridges, brown bears and elk moving quietly through the trees. The park extends right to the Russian border, and the southern tip marks the point where three countries meet.

Hiking trails wind through the park from the visitor centre at Vaggatem; in summer the forest is alive with berries and birds, and there are wilderness cabins for overnight stays. In winter the same country is crossed by snowmobile routes from Kirkenes. The drive south from Kirkenes through increasingly isolated birch forest is itself half the experience — by the time you reach the park gates you are about as far from anything as Norway gets.

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A story
The Treriksrøysa cairn — the three-country marker where Norway, Finland and Russia share a corner — sits on a small island in the Gandvik lake. You can walk up to the Norwegian shore and look across at it, but not to the cairn itself: it sits in the water, technically in all three countries at once.

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