Jan Eerala,
1966
The natural
conditions of Northern Satakunta country consist of three elements of
a water divide: extensive forests and vast bogs rifted by small and violently
flooding streams.
Although the first signs of human settlement date back to 6000 BC - the prehistoric finds of Lauhala in Honkajoki are among the oldest in Finland - the region was not inhabited by modern culture until some 400 years ago. In the Middle Ages this region had been the hunting grounds of the people living on the coast. Whether this rough country was still inhabited by what was left of the previous settlers the Lapps, is still open to debate among historians.
The old wilderness between Kyrö of Satakunta and Kyrö of Pohjanmaa was populated from the south in the 17th century after the Rebellion of Peasants, and the settlement got stronger in the 19th century as the value of timber rose in importance. Tar pits smoked in the pine forests. And soon the tall ancient trees were sawn into planks.
Wealth accumulated, river beds were burned over into fields, barley painted the landscape in gold and cattle grew in number. And so did the number of the settlers, as a law of nature.
These pictures tell you about the social rupture in Finland in the 60s. That was the time when the combustion engine came to the backwoods.
With the machine at work, an end came to the manual timber work in the forest, an end came to the manual log floating in the rivers. An end came also to the old way of farming where, by the side of bigger farms, also a croft with a cow or two could secure a means of living, a corner stone for a full human dignity, a life with its small joys and sorrows alike. But a life full nevertheless.
The road headed south. Not to America this time, as in the years of famine or in the 30s' recession, but to the big towns in the south: to Tampere, to Pori, to Gothenburg in Sweden…
The oldest son, not unlike a prisoner, stayed on the inherited land. As did the civils serving him. Civil servants.
What was also left was the wilderness of forests now grown old again, and the vast bogs living their eternal sleep of thousands of years.
Like the hands of a clock at the moment of a shipwreck, these pictures portrait the substance of Satakunta in the 60s as experienced by the photographer.
Pertti Kalinainen