Tohmajärvi promotes its rare Ice Age cave as a tourism draw
Tuesday 6th October 2026 on 12:00 in
Finland
Tohmajärvi hopes a rare Ice Age cave beneath its municipal hall will attract visitors, Yle reports. The cave, in the village centre in North Karelia, is an estimated 11,000 years old and is the only known soil cave in Finland to have survived intact.
Seven similar caves have previously been found in Finland, but all collapsed. The Tohmajärvi cave was discovered in 1936, and research confirmed its Ice Age origins in 2022.
Environmental specialist Jukka Nykänen of the Regional Council of North Karelia says the cave formed when a block of ice became buried beneath soil during the Ice Age. The weight of ice above it compressed the soil. When the buried block later melted, the resulting space did not collapse, as usually happens in such cases.
The cave is eight metres long. Visitors can stand at its entrance, but must crawl through the final metres.
The municipal hall was built over the cave in 1926, ten years before it was discovered. Nykänen says the building protected the cave from changes in temperature and humidity that have caused other caves to collapse. The hall was never demolished, and now the cave also helps protect the building. The hall is listed in the regional plan as a built cultural environment of regional value.
This summer, the municipality renovated an exhibition space in the hall’s basement to present the cave and Tohmajärvi’s history. The exhibition features local personalities including singer Katri Helena, javelin thrower Seppo Räty and Matti Laurell, who invented the can opener. It also highlights Tessu, a multi-skilled dog that appeared on the children’s programme Pikku Kakkonen and in Uuno Turhapuro films.
Nykänen says a three-dimensional model of the cave could allow visitors to explore it virtually using headsets. He also says smaller soil caves may exist nearby, but dismisses stories of tunnels hundreds of metres long that were supposedly used as escape routes during the Finnish War. No such tunnel network extends from the municipal hall, he says.