The Varistaipale Canal Museum is located on the Varistaipale Canal, along the Juojärvi Waterway that diverges from the Heinävesi Waterway near the Convent of Lintula and Monastery of Valamo.  It is approximately 12 km to downtown Heinävesi. The museum is one of six canal museums in the region that belong to the Canal Museum run by the Finnish Transport Agency. The Canal Museum was founded in 1980 and the Varistaipale Canal Museum in 1987.

On the museum grounds, visitors can learn more about the canal that was built in 1915, the buildings used by canal workers and the exhibitions in them. The Varistaipale Canal is 1,100 m long and is Finland’s only canal to have four locks. The museum grounds include the canal caretaker’s house, the barn and the baking building as well as the guard box for the canal guard. The canal and the museum grounds comprise the typical milieu of the canal season and the golden age of inland boat traffic.

The museum buildings have exhibitions that talk about building the canal and life along it. The canal caretaker’s house has an exhibition about the canal workers and their life. Workers were needed for the canal to ensure that the traffic on it went through smoothly, to check the lock mechanisms and canal lighting and to collects fees for using the locks. The canal caretaker’s house also has an exhibition that uses photos and dioramas to portray the water traffic and log-driving that took place in the Heinävesi region.

The baking building has an exhibition that talks about building the Varistaipale Canal, which was dug by men with shovels. It took up to 400 men and 100 horses 4 years, from 1911 to 1915, to dig out the canal. The barn and guard box are also open to the general public. There is a coffeeshop-bakery near the museum.