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Wigry National Park is an essence of all postglacial forms. A “specialist” armed with geology textbook can find here bottom and terminal morains, eskers, kames, outwash sand plains and other forms left by the glacier. A tourist can see hills pleasing to the eye with depressions filled with ponds and lakes – a landscape reminding partly Scandinavia, and partly green Hobbiton from Tolkien's novel.
The Park is situated in the northern part of Augustów Primeval Forest, south-east from Suwałki. The area is a cultural borderland between Poland, Belarus and Lithuania an interesting place, not only for its natural values. Here is an old Camaldolese monastery which in the past was one of the most powerful monasteries in Poland and one of the richest in Europe.
Geological history of the area includes mainly the last glaciation which ended approximately 12 thousand years ago. A result of the glacier activities is the most beautiful and the biggest lake in the Park – Wigry. The lake is S-shaped and 20-kilometre in length. Its shores are irregular, as though jagged, with many islands and smaller ponds surrounding the lake. The bottom of Wigry lake is a postglacial channel, uneven and locally very deep (73 metres).
The Park flora proves the recent presence of the glacier. 18 species being relicts of the ice age were identified. These are bushes and shrubs typical for tundra, such as Arctic dwarf birch (Betula humilis) and black crowberry (Empetrum nigrum). Today, the landscape is dominated by forests taking more than a half of the Park area.
In the Middle Ages the forest occupied a much larger area. Gradual forest disappearance is related to the arrival of Camaldolese order in the Wigry region in 1667. By Wigry lake, the Camaldolese order built a church, monastery, and hermitages – isolated cottages for monks. They also started intensive civilization of the forest. They founded villages, towns, tar kilns, lumber mills and traded wood. The largest city in the region – Suwałki – was founded by the Camaldolese order. After the third partition of Poland, the Camaldolese order property was confiscated by Prussian authorities, and the monks were displaced to Bielany in Warsaw.
Today, the monastery hosts Creative Work Centre. Hermitages are made available as accommodation places. This is a rare opportunity for visitors to try a monastic life. The monastery and monk cottages were visited by many outstanding visitors, including Pope John Paul II.
Other attractions in the Park and its surroundings:
• canoeing on Czarna Hańcza – one of the most interesting rivers in Poland for canoeing;
• nine hiking trails and four bicycle routes within the Park area;
• ship cruises on Wigry lake, everyday from May to September, harbour by the monastery;
• Wigry narrow-gauge train, operates everyday in July and August, in other months at the request for at least 15 persons.
