Kirkenes – Arctic adventures on the edge of Norway

Wild landscapes, king crab safaris, wartime history and Arctic wildlife make this one of Norway’s most adventurous outposts.

The Russian border town of Kirkenes under a blanket of snow

The turning point of the Hurtigruten Coastal Express route, the port town of Kirkenes lies in the extreme northeast part of Norway - further east than Istanbul and just a few kilometres from the Russian and Finnish borders. This spirited Arctic town blends cultures, cuisines and languages, surrounded by forests and wetlands.

You might spot lynx and wolverine out here. Even brown bears - this is their biggest stronghold in Norway. But the star of the show is the king crab. Massive, meaty and straight from the Barents Sea.

A short history of Kirkenes

Before Norway’s borders were fixed in 1826, Kirkenes was Sámi land known as Akkalanjárga and loosely shared by Russia, Sweden and Norway. Even today, Russian cultural traces remain.

Tiny Kirkenes lived on fishing until its fortunes changes when iron ore was discovered in 1902. The town became a major supplier for artillery raw materials during World War I. Four years later, the Sydvaranger Mining Company set up a permanent smelting plant and workers came from near and far. Kirkenes thrived.

But in World War II, its iron ore wealth became the source of the town’s misfortune. Germany invaded in 1940, turning Kirkenes into a strategic base near Murmansk. Kirkenes claimed the dark title of being the most-bombed town in Europe, after Malta, as the Soviets fought to regain the town.

Andersgrotta, a civilian shelter, tells the story, and the Grenselandmuseet shows the devastating effects of the war on the town. When Soviet forces liberated Kirkenes in 1944, they found just 13 buildings standing.

In the post-war decades, the iron mines powered local prosperity once more. Kirkenes was the first town in northern Norway to build an airport, swimming pool and tarmacked streets. That boom ended in the 1990s when the market for iron crashed and the mines closed.

Today, Kirkenes is an Arctic frontier town turned dynamic, multicultural hub. The population numbers only several thousand but they come from dozens of different nations – something you’ll notice in the bilingual road signs. It’s a great place to head out into the Arctic wilderness on all sorts of adventures, from snowmobiling to king crab safaris.