Kaunisvaara is a village in northern Sweden

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

, in Pajala

Pajala

Pajala is a locality and the seat of Pajala Municipality in Norrbotten County, Sweden with 1,985 inhabitants in 2005.-History:Lars Levi Læstadius lived and worked in Pajala Municipality in the middle of the 19th century...

 district, 100 km north of the Arctic Circle

Arctic Circle

The Arctic Circle is one of the five major circles of latitude that mark maps of the Earth. For Epoch 2011, it is the parallel of latitude that runs north of the Equator....

.

Mining

There are large magnetite

Magnetite

Magnetite is a ferrimagnetic mineral with chemical formula Fe3O4, one of several iron oxides and a member of the spinel group. The chemical IUPAC name is iron oxide and the common chemical name is ferrous-ferric oxide. The formula for magnetite may also be written as FeO·Fe2O3, which is one part...

 (iron ore) deposits in this area; Northland Resources

Northland Resources

-Overview:Northland Resources S.A. , also known as Northland is a publicly traded exploration and development mining company. It currently focuses on iron ore bearing properties located in the northern regions of Sweden and Finland....

 began constructing the first mine in December 2011. Ore production is expected to begin in 2012, with annual iron ore production reaching 12 million tonnes by 2014. Reserves are estimated at 176 million tonnes.

Transport

There are plans to transport iron ore by truck to Svappavaara

Svappavaara

Svappavaara is a locality situated in Kiruna Municipality, Norrbotten County, Sweden with 394 inhabitants in 2005. It is a mining village and the mine was closed in 1983, but enrichment of iron ore from the mine at Kiruna is still going on...

, and then by train to Narvik

Narvik

is the third largest city and municipality in Nordland county, Norway by population. Narvik is located on the shores of the Narvik Fjord . The municipality is part of the Ofoten traditional region of North Norway, inside the arctic circle...

 (in Norway

Norway

Norway , officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic unitary constitutional monarchy whose territory comprises the western portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula, Jan Mayen, and the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard and Bouvet Island. Norway has a total area of and a population of about 4.9 million...

 to be exported by ship. In 2010, there was a proposal to build a broad-gauge railway connecting the mine to the Finnish

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 rail network.

History

In 2009, archaeologists

Archaeology

Archaeology, or archeology , is the study of human society, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes...

 commissioned by Northland Resources found evidence of stone-age settlements, dated to 9300BCE, in the area; this has shed new light on the timeline of deglaciation and human settlement in northern Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

.