At the end of the last Ice Age, areas that had been covered by thick layers of ice for several thousand years started to appear again. This happened comparatively early in Varanger - the inland ice had already withdrawn from the Varanger peninsula about 12.000 years ago. The ice-front was lying at the south side of the Varangerfjord. Thousand years later the whole area along the coast of Finnmark was ice-free.
In the first period after the ice had withdrawn the vegetation was open and consisted of willows, grass and heather. This vegetation gave good life conditions for reindeer. Warm sea currents (Golfstream) created the best conditions for a variable and rich marine fauna. The same counts for the birdfauna, and the summers must have featured a whirling birdlife.
The weight of the inland ice put pressure on the land, and when the ice smelted the land slowly began to rise. This deplacement of the shoreline progresses differently at various places along the coast of Finnmark. The closer an area lay to the core of the inland ice (Bottenvika), the greater the subsequent evalation of the land. That is why the land in the inner fjord areas in Finnmark rose more than the outer coast.
Until recently, geologists believed that the inland ice mass at the last stage of the glacation covered the entire Kola peninsula and the Barents Sea eastward from Kola. If true, it would have effectively blocked migration from the east. However, more recent surveys and datings done by Russian scientists show, that the ice covered a far more limited area, i.e. the land connection from the Urals via Kola to Finnmark was ice-free already 12.000 years ago. Moreover, the winter ice on the White Sea served as a natural bridge to areas in the south and east. It is therefore most probable that the first migration of animals and people to Varanger came from areas in the east and south- east.