One of Norway's hottest summers on record has caused overheated reindeer to take refuge in a highway tunnel located in the far north of the country.

The invasion came as temperatures soared to 72 degrees Fahrenheit at the 1.4-mile-long Stallogargo tunnel, located about 250 miles north of the Arctic Circle and near the Nordic outpost of Hammerfest.

Temperatures there peaked at 84 degrees earlier this summer.

“Our maintenance crew attempted to chase the reindeer out of the tunnel, but it’s hopeless; after a few hours they’re back,” highway official Tor Inge Hellander told the Finnmark Dagblad daily.

Drivers were forced for two days to take a detour on a precarious, narrow road due to the danger of striking the Arctic grazers.

Hellander says that the reindeer typically stop entering the tunnel as soon as it cools off outside.

Photo: Finnmark Dagblad