Määttälänvaara village history is a typical Kuusamo settlement history. After the Stone Age people, the Sámi people lived in the area, until the settlers, mainly from Savo, forced them to the north. The children of the new settlers built their homes next to their father’s and the population began to grow.
The first farmer Heikki Antinpoika Määttä came from the neighbouring village of Vuotunki to the northern shore of Lake Suininkijärvi, today’s Määttälänvaara. His brothers Antti and Simo settled in Vuotunki.
In 1793, there were already five farms in the village, four of which were occupied by a Määttä and one by Lämsä. The first resident of Suininki’s Korppiniemi was Pekka Tapaninpoika Mustonen, who had Lauri Tauriainen as his neighbour. By the year 1775, Suininki’s Multasniemi had also had a resident who was a Lämsä.
Määttälänvaara’s Association of Peace
Laestadianism is a religious revival movement prevalent in Kuusamo. The Määttälä Association of Peace was founded on April 24th, 1946 and registered in 1948. The association operates in the Määttälänvaara’s communal building in Kisapirtti (Tauno Hannula’s home), which was completed in 1926.
In 1985, Määttälänvaara hosted the annual Laestadian summer conventicle. The three-day event brought around 60 000 to 70 000 people from different parts of the world to the village
