Every design for Polvijärvi

The fields of Polvijärvi, whose name means "knee lake", were once the bottom of a lake. When Höytiäinen was being lowered in 1859, the lake broke through and drained out of control, laying bare thousands of hectares of good farmland between Höytiäinen and Viinijärvi. Less than twenty years later, the municipality of Polvijärvi was founded on that land.

Vapaussodan 1918 muistomerkki recalls a later chapter, but the older story is of a remote corner of the Liperi parish that wanted its own church and priest because the roads were so poor. A prayer house came first, with the priest from Liperi visiting a few times a year; the first elementary school opened in Kuorevaara. Since then the parish has quarried talc and leopard stone, a spotted soapstone, and named mykyrokka, fried fish and cranberry kissel its parish dishes.

If you come from Sotkuma, Kinahmo, Martonvaara or the church village west of Höytiäinen, the map is yours to wear. It shows the land your parish was built on, the land the lake gave back.