The height of friendship: Norway considers giving Finland a mountain

The novel gift idea, which spread on social media over the previous year, according to The Washington Post, is now under serious consideration, Norway’s Prime Minister Erna Solberg told the country’s TV 2, noted NRK, a Finnish news agency.

“But we are looking into it”.

When the border between Finland and Norway was drawn in the 1750s, it cut through the Halti mountain range and ended just before the peak of the Hálditšohkka mountain.

Shifting the border 20 metres would put the 1,331-metre summit of Hálditšohkka in Finland. The highest point now in Finland is down the mountainside, at 1,324m.

Svein Leiros, the mayor of Kåfjord municipality, where the peak is located, said that “The peak would be a wonderful gift to our sister nation”. Nor would mountainous Norway actually be losing much, Leiros said, since its highest peak is the mighty Galdhøpiggen, at 2,469 metres. One of the people opposing the idea is Parliamentary Scrutiny Committee Deputy Chair Michael Tetzschner who told Aftenposten earlier this year that the plan was “bewildering” and “a joke”, stressing that the Constitution “clearly prohibits the state from surrendering any part of Norwegian territory to another power”.

The idea to “gift” Finland the mountain was first proposed by retired geophysicist Bjørn Geirr Harsson a year ago, and more than 14,000 people have joined a Facebook group supporting the proposed border change.

In 2015, Harsson proposed his idea to Norway’s foreign ministry, which, by way of refusal, noted that according to Article 1 of country’s constitution, Norway is a “free, independent, indivisible and inalienable realm”.

The Halti mountain is on the border of Finland and Norway.

His son runs a Facebook page about giving Finland the peak as an anniversary gift, and it now has almost 14,000 likes.

Past year we reported that a retired Norwegian mapmaker wants his government to roll their eastern border just a bit westward.

Norwegian PM Erna Solberg says a final decision has not been made but the public reaction on both sides has been positive.