Excellent for families with children and for those who wish to go on an active holiday
The landscape of Syöte National Park, with its rugged hills, special bogs on hill tops and slopes, and old spruce forests create an attractive setting for a hiker. Syöte is the largest of the four parts of the Park, and it offers excellent possibilities for hiking in the summer as well as skiing in the winter. The cross-country skiing trails in the National Park form a remarkable part of the skiing trail network that serves the tourist centres of Syöte. The areas in the municipalities of Taivalkoski and Posio are quieter and very suitable for trekking.
Syöte National Park is a chain of old-growth forests, part of which is high altitude forest. One fourth of the area of the Park is mires of different types. Most of these are North Ostrobothnian aapa bogs, but some are hanging bogs on the hill slopes at altitude of even 300 metres. Many of the mires represent the old meadow culture. Remains and marks of the slash-and-burn agriculture, reindeer-herding, and forestry of the old times can be seen in many places.
Syöte National Park is managed respecting the nature and the history of land use in the area. The buildings are being renovated or rebuilt, the traditional agricultural landscapes are being restored, and the recovery of plant populations there is being studied.
The Syöte National Park was awarded the European Charter for Sustainable Tourism in Protected Areas (www.european-charter.org) by the EUROPARC Federation in 2004.
