Every design for Kauhava

Kauhava is the knife town. Many Finns know the name from the puukko knives made here in the Ostrobothnian style, and Iisakki Järvenpää Oy has been making them in Kauhava since the nineteenth century. Every June the Kauhava International Knife Festival fills a couple of days with knife exhibitions, knife making and knife throwing, and Puukkomuseo keeps the craft on show the rest of the year.

What sets Kauhava apart is the open land around it. The South Ostrobothnian plain is flat and good for farming, fields alternating with forest along the Lapuanjoki. For decades the Finnish Air Force trained its pilots here, and Lentokonepuisto, with its Fouga Magister, keeps that chapter in view. Alahärmä, Ylihärmä and Kortesjärvi joined the town, bringing PowerPark, the amusement park in Alahärmä, onto the map.

For anyone from here, coming home means the plain opening out again on both sides of the road, and a knife on the kitchen table that was made just down the street.