Fiskars Village

Back in December I wrote a post about my visit to the historical Porkkala with the Global Degree team and I have finally got around to posting this story from the afternoon.

Fiskars Village is around 80km west from Helsinki. The village grew around the production of iron and copper which was found in 1649 by Petter Thorwöste. In the 1800’s the industry grew fast as they began to produce scissors, knives and ploughs.

Fiskars has grown into an international company and well known brand. It is best known for its orange handled scissors, created in 1967, the first pair of plastic handled scissors which are found in almost every home.

As production moved elsewhere there was no need for the factories and the buildings became empty. The idea came about of renting the buildings cheaply to artists, saving them from being abandoned and eventually becoming derelict. This move saved the town and a creative and unique community has grown.

It was December, a pretty miserable day with on/off rain and low heavy cloud. We were given a guided tour of the village and walked along the river until we reached a stretch of cafes, shops and art galleries.

Fiskars Village is home to many artists or artisans. One of the motto’s you here regularly when visiting the village is ‘live or work in Fiskars’, meaning that most of everything you see is produced there by people who live or work there.

Next, we were off into the woods to enjoy the Finnish nature and for some a little taste of downhill mountain biking with Canyon fat bikes.

The clouds dispersed as filming began and a couple of runs back and forth were made to make sure there was enough footage, and to have as much fun as possible. It was a generally wet morning and that had effected the ground conditions, some places waterlogged, others covered in thick ice.

Above Marco from the Fiskars Village Trail Center leads the way through one of the more difficult corners of the course on his way back into the village.

Further Reading:

This post is a continuation from A visit to Porkkala and 1950’s Era Russia.

Check out Global Degree and their YouTube channel where they aim to travel every country in the world, their episode from Finland will be shared later this year.

This visit was in co-operation with Day With A Local and SE-Action who organised the days events.