Qualla: Rohkunborri National Park

Rohkunborri National Park: Introduction

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Rohkunborri National Park did not exist until 2011, making it one of the most recently established protected areas in Norway. But the landscape it guards is ancient. The Sordalen canyon cuts through the park's 571 square kilometers like a wound in the earth, its walls rising toward mountains that reach 1,500 meters on both sides. Located in Bardu Municipality in Troms county, roughly 30 kilometers southeast of the village of Setermoen and 50 kilometers northeast of Narvik, the park occupies a stretch of the Norwegian-Swedish border where boreal forest transitions into alpine tundra and three of Scandinavia's most elusive large predators still roam.

Rohkunborri National Park: The Canyon and the Heights

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Sordalen is the park's defining feature -- a deep valley carved by millennia of water and ice, its forested floor contrasting sharply with the exposed alpine terrain above. The large lake Geavdnjajavri sits within the park boundaries, while the even larger lakes Altevatnet and Le...

Rohkunborri National Park: Predators and Herders

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Brown bears, wolverines, and lynx all inhabit the park -- a concentration of large predators that is increasingly rare in Western Europe. Snowy owls and gyrfalcons patrol the open fells, while reindeer move through the landscape following seasonal patterns that long predate the p...

Rohkunborri National Park: A Border Park

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Rohkunborri does not stand alone. To its south lies Sweden's Vadvetjakka National Park, and less than ten kilometers to the north sits Ovre Dividal National Park. Together, these protected areas form a cross-border wilderness corridor that allows wide-ranging species like wolveri...

Rohkunborri National Park: Remote and Untrammeled

Fri, 27 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

There are no roads into Rohkunborri. Access requires hiking from Setermoen or other points along the E6 highway, and the park sees a fraction of the visitors that more accessible Norwegian parks attract. This remoteness is also its character. The canyon, the predators, the Sami h...