 Lars Levi Laestadius, the famous botanist, Lutheran minister, and founder of the revivalist movement Laestadianism, lived and worked in Pajala Municipality in the Mid-19th Century.He lived in Kengis, but in 1869 his house and grave and the whole church of Kengis were moved to Pajala.The town was mistakenly bombed by Soviet airplanes during the Finnish/Soviet Winter War, in spring 1940.