Levi

The Levi fell was already known in the 19th century for its views, but the area had no roads and was hard to reach. Lake Immeljärvi, between Levi and the neighbouring Kätkä fell, had long been a sacred place for the Sámi. Small-scale tourism began in the 1930s once a road arrived from the south: fell skiers took the post bus to Kittilä and a horse and sleigh on to Sirkka, where they lodged in farmhouses. In the Lapland War of 1944–45 retreating German troops burned Kittilä village, and only a few buildings, among them the church, survived.

In 1964 Kittilä municipality bought land on the northern slope and built a piste and a ski lift there — today's front slopes. Growth followed the opening of Kittilä Airport in 1982 and the first international charter flights in 1993. The deep recession of the early 1990s helped rather than hurt: local entrepreneurs bought lift equipment cheaply from bankrupt resorts in the south, and Levi became one of Finland's two largest ski centres, rivalled only by Ruka.

The first gondola in Finland opened here at the start of 2000, and in February 2004 Levi held its first World Cup slalom. By 2012 about 27,500 beds had been built, enough for the resort to be described as a holiday town, and planning has caused disputes — a 15-storey tower hotel proposed in 1990 had to be halved in height after objections. A second ski area on the southern slopes opened in 2014.

Levi's culture is above all a winter-sport culture. The November slalom on the Levi Black course draws the world's best technical skiers to the start of the season, and it has given the resort one of the sport's odder traditions: the winner of the women's race receives a reindeer, which in practice stays on a local farm. Ski schools teach downhill, snowboarding, telemark and cross-country skiing, and the resort has snow parks, a superpipe and kilometres of floodlit trails for the dark months.

The resort is also known as a nightlife centre, not only for skiers from abroad but for young people from across rural Lapland, who come for the bars, clubs and concerts of the season. Away from the centre the rhythm is quieter and more traditional, built around reindeer herding, sauna and the outdoors. Herding families and tour operators run reindeer rides and safaris, and in summer visitors can join activities such as marking reindeer calves.

Kittilä has a strong place in Finnish art through Reidar Särestöniemi, born and died in the municipality, whose large, richly coloured paintings of Lapland's nature and people made him one of the best-known artists of the north. His home on the Ounasjoki river is now a museum.

Levi has no large permanent population of its own. Sirkka, the village at its heart, had about 540 people in its built-up area at the end of 2021, and the whole of Kittilä municipality had about 7,000 residents at the end of 2025. In season, though, the resort holds many times that number: by the mid-2010s around 200 companies were serving more than 600,000 visitors a year.

Tourism is the main business, and work follows the snow. Lift operators, ski schools, safari companies, restaurants and cleaning firms hire heavily for the season. Mining elsewhere in Kittilä adds year-round jobs. Summer was long a quiet time, but golf, mountain biking, hiking and fishing have slowly grown, and Levi is used as a base for exploring the fells nearby.

The year is shaped by the light. Kittilä has the midnight sun from late May to mid-July and around two weeks of polar night in late December, and the area holds Finland's record low temperature of −51.5°C. Life in winter means studded tyres, ski buses and snowmobiles, and reindeer are a constant presence on the roads.

Levi's restaurants lean on the traditions of Lapland. Reindeer comes in many forms, most famously as poronkäristys, sautéed reindeer: steak or back meat is sliced thinly while still frozen, fried in fat, seasoned with black pepper and salt, then simmered with a little water, cream or beer until tender, and served with mashed potato. Willow grouse, known in Finnish as riekko, also appears on menus, as do fish from the rivers and lakes — salmon, Arctic char (nieriä) and whitefish (siika) — usually fried or smoked.

Lohikeitto, salmon soup with cream, is one of the most popular salmon dishes in Finland, and home-style dishes such as reindeer casserole and salmon soup are served in Lappish huts around the resort. Leipäjuusto, a fresh "bread cheese" with a squeaky texture traditionally made from cow's colostrum, is often served with cloudberry jam and coffee; cloudberries (lakka) grow in bogs and also flavour liqueurs such as lakkalikööri.

Coffee is drunk constantly, and outdoors it is often taken from a kuksa, a cup carved from birch burl in the Sámi tradition. Alongside the Lappish dishes, burgers, pizza and kebabs keep skiers fed late into the night.