First, we suggest you admire the open landscape from the point of view of the waterline. You can see the sandy beach reaching far with rising dunes here and there. Later on, you get to see the same landscape from above the dunes.

How can sand as soft as here form these big and lasting dunes? The answer is that it takes time and a lot of wind.

Learn more about the wonders of the local nature:

Hiekkasärkät represents the natural phenomenon known as shifting sand.

The central area of Hiekkasärkät is formed by a 3 km long and half a kilometer wide shifting sand, which is framed by a 20-meter-high moving dune.

The moving dune has been moving at a high speed, around 200 meters in just one hundred years. These days the movement has stopped, and the dune is slowly being covered by flora.

The two dunes, called Herrainpakat and Tuomipakat, are a memory of a dune movement from 300-500 years ago.

The high speed of shifting sands is most likely caused by the harsh cutting of forests in the mid-1800s. There was also a big fire in the area in the 1830s. These events have had an impact on the delicate nature of the area.

The highest peaks of the Hiekkasärkät area rose from the sea around 1000 years ago. The waterline has moved around 50 meters in just one hundred years.

A hundred years ago, the camping site was still underwater. In 1869 the waterline was near the Tuomipakka dune.

All of these phenomena are caused by the tectonic uplift which is a geologic uplift of the Earth’s surface. This is quite a common phenomenon around the Gulf of Bothnia, since the area was covered with ice during the latest ice age.

A few thousand years ago, the entire coast was still underwater.

Land is still slowly rising from the sea in Kalajoki.

Image descriptions:

• 1: The remains of a forest at Hiekkasärkät.
• 2: Duckboards were built on the sand in the 1990s.
• 3: An old aerial shot of Hiekkasärkät.