 Southern
Savo’s industry has developed at the mercy of two local resources: wood and
water. Driving logs down waterways was vital to the development of the wood
processing industry and hydroelectric energy was used to power saws and to
produce electricity.
Lusto, a living forest museum in Punkaharju
 The
Finnish Forest Museum Lusto presents the close relationship of Finns and the
forest and the history of that relationship. In addition, Lusto teaches
visitors about and preserves forest culture by organising many types of events
on the subject..
 See
museums site
Inn at the Rauhaniemi Museum in Sulkava
 The
Rauhaniemi Museum is a Metsähallitus inn for community gatherings that was
built in the 1850s. The building was moved from Syrjäsaari in Lohilahti to
Rauhaniemi in the beginning of the 1970s. The inn served as a home for the men
driving logs and the forest ranger lived there year round. Visitors will feel
like they have gone back in time and are sharing the inn with the log drivers.
See
museums site
Log-driving base at Miekankoski in Mäntyharju
The Mäntyharju Log-floating Association had a building built at Miekankoski in
1947 for log-drivers to use as their base and to store the equipment needed
for log-driving. Nowadays, this building serves as a coffeeshop and the
warehouse next door has an exhibition on log-driving and the tradition of log
drivers. Visitors to Miekankoski can experience this tradition in its actual
environment.
See
museums site
 The
sawmill industry started up in the 18th century. The Miettula Sawmill in
Puumala was established in 1765 and the boards it sawed were exported, mainly
to Russia. A few other sawmills were established in the following decades, but
production was small-scale. Only in the 19th century did the magnitude of the
sawmill industry start to grow. From 1810 to 1870, the number of sawmill
employees increased almost ten-fold. The worldwide recession at the end of the
1920s, however, hit the sawmill industry in particularly hard. In Finland, the
other branch of the wood processing industry, the paper industry, bypassed the
sawmill industry in importance.
Home of a sawmill employee and family at the Sawmill Museum in Puumala
 The
exhibition at the Sawmill Museum has been decorated to portray the home of a
sawmill employee and his family in the 1910s. Although the home is cramped and
humble, it is nevertheless cosy and allows visitors to picture themselves as
part of the community that sprang up around the industry 100 years ago where
paid work mixed with traditional farm activities, as the employees grew what
they needed and fished, as well.
See
museums site
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