Every design for Pudasjärvi

Pudasjärvi is famed for its nature. Syöte, the southernmost fell area in Finland, rises within its borders, and at Siuruankylä lies the oldest dated rock anywhere in the European Union. The town's human story runs deep too. Stone-age hunters and fishers lived along the middle reaches of the Iijoki before the Sámi, whose words survive in names such as Naamanka, Kollaja and Jaurakka. Later the river became a route for traders and raiders from the coast and from Viena Karelia, and settlers from Savo came to clear land along the Ii and Livo rivers. The parish was founded in the seventeenth century, and its first vicar drowned in the lake on his way to church; generations later, a well-preserved old Bible came up from the water in a fishing net.

Kaarna and Pahka, two artworks named after bark and burl, sit alongside Kasvunkäyrät, the growth curves, as reminders of the forest that has always fed this place. Hunger years, frost and war returned again and again, and the Laestadian revival that took root in the nineteenth century still shapes local life.

Then there is Matonpesupaikka, the rug-washing place, where summer chores turn sociable. It is the kind of everyday landmark that makes a map of Pudasjärvi feel like home.