Large gold nugget found in Finnish Lapland

“Unna” nugget is fifth-largest ever found in Finland

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In early August the fifth-largest gold nugget ever to be found in Finland was discovered in the River Sotajoki, a tributary of the larger Ivalojoki in Finnish Lapland.
      The 193-gram nugget was named as “Unna” after the daughter of its finders.
      “It was pretty much a heart-stirring moment. This sort of does not happen every day”, says Maija Vehviläinen, a native of the Lapland city of Rovaniemi, who unearthed the nugget with her husband Risto Vehviläinen by using a motor digger. The entire Vehviläinen family has been engaged in gold digging already for thirty years, so in that respect this was no chance amateur discovery.
      “It did stop you in your tracks for a second.”
     
The Vehviläinens announced the discovery in connection with the Tankavaara Gold Symposium on Thursday. Today, Friday, marks the beginning of the national gold panning championships.
      The Vehviläinens are believed to be putting the nugget up for sale, though its price has not yet been decided.
      A 113-gram nugget found earlier this summer is worth around EUR 30,000, explains information officer Juha Kutuniva from the competition.
      Finland’s largest-ever gold nugget was found in 1935. It weighed 393 grams. This puts it a long way behind the world's largest - the Welcome Stranger found in Victoria, Australia in 1869 weighed in at 65.2 kilos.
     
Finland’s gold-panning enthusiasts have expressed a wish to have the River Ivalojoki added on the UNESCO list of world heritage sites. “Ivalojoki is rich in cultural and natural values worthy of the World Heritage nomination”, explains Kauko Launonen, chairman of the Tankavaara Gold Prospector Museum Society.
      Already last year the Gold Museum suggested to Metsähallitus (a state enterprise that administers more than 12 million hectares of state-owned land and water areas) and the municipality of Inari that the River Ivalojoki be nominated as a World Heritage candidate.
      According to superintendent Mikko Härö of the National Board of Antiquities, the selection criteria are extremely tough. Ivalojoki might have a chance to make it to the World Heritage list as a group target under a theme such as history of gold-panning or gold rushes in various parts of the world.
      Lapland and the Ivalojoki basin experienced a minor gold rush from 1868, when more than 50 kg of gold was extracted in a single year.


Links:
  Tankavaara Gold Prospector Museum
  Ivalojoki (Wikipedia)

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