Hienatiemi

Hietaniemi stands on the Torne River, where a church on a projecting point served people from both banks. After the old church at Särkilax was swept away by a spring flood in 1617, a new wooden church was built here and Hietaniemi became a chapel parish. It gained its own assistant priest in 1637. The first church fell into disrepair and was replaced in 1746. When Sweden lost the territory east of the river to Russia in 1809, the church remained on the Swedish bank.