Forestry Museum: A cultural heritage in Lapland

Lapland’s Forestry Museum in Rovaniemi, which is said to be the only museum in the world on foresting and the history of forest work in Finnish Lapland, saves, researches, maintains and features the cultural heritage of Lapland’s forestry.

The museum, opened to public in 1968, now remains open to visitors in the summer from 1 June to 31 August. The place in the Pöykkölä area, just 3.5 kilometres from the city centre, is one of the most beautiful places to visit in Rovaniemi.

The museum grounds have 14 buildings offering the visitors a chance to explore and learn about a genuine, experiential history of forest work in Finnish Lapland.

Some noted artefacts at the museum are the Ahmakuusikko Cabin, which was transferred from the village of Hirvas near Rovaniemi and represents the 1950s logging history, the Horsemen’s Cabin, which was a living house for two or three horsemen’s team, the Luiro Cabin, which was built just before the Second World War near the headwaters of the Luiro river in Sodankylä that shows how catering improved in logging camps in the 1930s, and the Floating Cabin, which was built in 1904 in the village of Koivu, Tervola and presents Lappish foremen’s living standards. The steam tugboat Uitto 6, another heritage to watch, was built in Oulu in 1898.

The museum has a very rich collection. We have a plan to extend it in the future. In 2012-13, under the Savotta improvement project, the museum facilities were improved significantly. Now people with disabilities can visit the museum on their own, said the museum officials.

The number of international visitors to the museum has been increasing for the past five years and they are mainly from the central Europe, Russia and Far East. Local and Finnish people and schoolchildren also visit the museum to learn about the cultural heritage the Lappish forest work, they added.

Finland’s forest industry took its first steps in Lapland and the Forestry Museum of Lapland exists exclusively to tell these stories.