What do you give a country that has 188,000 lakes for a birthday present? Its highest mountain back, obviously.
Norway’s government has confirmed that for the centenary of Finland’s independence next year it is considering moving the border, gifting its Nordic neighbour a mountain peak that would be the country’s highest point says Jon Henley in his article for the Guardian.
“There are a few formal difficulties and I have not yet made my final decision,” the Norwegian prime minister, Erna Solberg, told NRK, the national broadcaster. “But we are looking into it.”
At 1,324 metres above sea level, the highest point in Finland currently lies on a bleak mountain spur known as Hálditšohkka, part of a far larger fell known as Halti, more than 200 miles inside the Arctic Circle.
Halti’s summit, at 1,365 metres high, is a kilometre away in Norway. But moving the border barely 40 metres further up the mountainside would put Hálditšohkka’s 1,331-metre summit in Finland – and make the country’s highest point seven metres higher.
“Geophysically speaking, Mount Halti has two peaks, one Finnish and one Norwegian,” NRK explained to bemused viewers earlier this year. “What is proposed is that Norway gives the Finnish peak to Finland, because it is currently in Norway.”
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Feature image courtesy www.travelandleisure.com
