Where to Stay in Rautavaara, Pohjois-Savo

Rautavaara is known as a remote forest parish of Pohjois-Savo, in eastern Finland, in the lakeland where rivers and woods run far between the villages. The wooden Rautavaaran kirkko gathers the centre, its separate belfry, the Rautavaaran kirkon kellotapuli, standing beside it as a protected pair. Timber and water made the place.

The Tiilikanjoen uittorakenteet recall the log-floating trade on the Tiilikanjoki, while old burial grounds at Kalmosaari and Kalmoniemi mark the long human past of this corner of the eastern Finnish lakeland.

The Rautavaaran kirkko anchors Rautavaara, the wooden parish church standing at the heart of the village in Pohjois-Savo. Beside it rises the Rautavaaran kirkon kellotapuli, the separate belfry protected together with the church. Water shaped the rest.

The Tiilikanjoen uittorakenteet recall the log-floating trade on the Tiilikanjoki, while the old burial grounds at Kalmosaari and Kalmoniemi mark the long past of this remote parish in the eastern Finnish lakeland.

Rautavaara grew as a farming, fishing and forestry parish in the lake country of Pohjois-Savo, in eastern Finland, its people working the land, the water and the woods of a hard inland district. Long before the church, the people of these shores left their dead on islands and headlands, and the old burial grounds at Kalmosaari and Kalmoniemi still mark that distant past. The parish came later.

Rautavaara was chartered in 1874, and the wooden Rautavaaran kirkko with its separate belfry, the Rautavaaran kirkon kellotapuli, gathered the scattered settlement of the new municipality around it. Timber carried the wealth of the district downstream, floated along the rivers of the lakeland, and the Tiilikanjoen uittorakenteet on the Tiilikanjoki remain as the works of that log-floating trade. The logs are long gone.

Forests and waters of the Rautavaaran kunta have shaped the life of this remote parish, deep in the eastern Finnish lakeland, through every long winter and short summer.

Rautavaara lies in the forest-and-lake country of northern Pohjois-Savo, in eastern Finland, in the lakeland away from any large town. Lakes, rivers and pinewoods fill the broad Rautavaaran kunta, the village gathered by the Rautavaaran kirkko while the water spreads out on every side. The lakeland runs deep.

The Tiilikanjoki threads the forests of the parish, its old log-floating works at the Tiilikanjoen uittorakenteet marking where timber once moved through this part of eastern Finland.

Rautavaara sits in the cold inland north of Pohjois-Savo, its seasons set hard by the lakes and forests of this part of eastern Finland. Winters are long and snowy, deep frost gripping the rivers and the pinewoods around the parish from early in the season until the late spring thaw frees the Tiilikanjoki and the lakes. Summers are short and green.

The long northern daylight warms the water and the woods around Rautavaara through a brief growing season, the weeks when the cabins of the eastern Finnish lakeland fill before the snow returns.

Rautavaara sits on the country roads of northern Pohjois-Savo, and the car is the usual way in across this thinly settled part of eastern Finland. The main route through the district passes the village, linking the Rautavaaran kunta to the larger towns of the region, with buses running the same roads to the centre by the Rautavaaran kirkko. Trains do not call here.

Most travellers come through the bigger towns of Pohjois-Savo before the last forest stretch into Rautavaara.