Treriksröset

A cairn in a lake

Treriksröset (Treriksrøysa in Norwegian) marks the point where the borders of Norway, Sweden and Finland meet. Today it is a concrete cairn with a boundary mark on top, standing on a small islet at the far east end of the lake Golddajávri.^[1] It is the northernmost point of Sweden and the northernmost meeting point of three countries anywhere in the world.^[2]

The point was first marked with a stone cairn in the 1760s, at the east end of the lake, and has been moved several times since, always staying around that end.^[1] A cairn was built in 1897 by Russians and Norwegians, when the third country was Russia, which then ruled Finland; the present concrete form dates from 1926.^[2]

A lake that drains two ways

Golddajávri is a bifurcation: it has outlets to two different river systems. From its east end water runs to the Torne River and on to the head of the Gulf of Bothnia; from its west end it runs down to Storfjorden in Norway and the Atlantic. Store norske leksikon suggests that is why the point sits on an islet in the lake, not at an outlet or on the shore: there it best satisfies the wish that the border follow the watershed.^[1]

That wish is old. When Denmark-Norway and Sweden fixed their border in the treaty of 1751, the commission’s main principle was that it should follow the mountain ridge between the two countries.^[3]

Visiting

There is no road. Walkers start in Kilpisjärvi in Finland and hike 11 km through Malla, Finland’s oldest national park, or take the boat M/S Malla across Kilpisjärvi to the old Sámi settlement of Koltaluokta, which leaves about 3 km to walk.^[2] Norway has a second Treriksrøysa, where it meets Finland and Russia in Sør-Varanger; that one is guarded, and lies only about half a kilometre further south.^[1]