Every design for Nivala

Before it was Nivala, this town on the middle reaches of the Kalajoki river went by Pidisjärvi, the name it shares with the largest lake in the area. Farmers here once rolled their tar barrels down to the river and floated them to the markets at Kalajoki on the coast. Today the flat, open fields have earned the area the nickname the Texas of Finland, as it is one of the country's most important producers of milk and beef.

The Kyösti ja Kalervo Kallion Museo tells the town's best-known story. Kyösti Kallio, the fourth President of Finland, bought the Heikkilä farm here and turned it into the largest farm in Oulu province, and his son Kalervo designed Nivala's coat of arms, a wooden gate of the local kind shaped like the letter N. The Kotiseutumuseo Katvala keeps older rural life in view, and the Tillaripatsas stands in town. Summers bring Christian gatherings such as the Awakening Festivals.

The Kyösti Kallion hautamuistomerkki, the president's grave memorial, marks the bond between a farming town and the man who led the country from it, and that is a bond worth wearing.