Varkaus: the industrial city of the Saimaa canal

The Museum of Work Culture chronicles in detail the industrial history of Varkaus, which grew around large paper mills and metalworking factories since the nineteenth century.

A few minutes away, the Museum of Aviation in Northern Karelia displays several historic Finnish aircraft in a large and spacious hangar dedicated to this purpose.

Proceeding along the Saimaa system, one takes pleasant panoramic cruises among the numerous connected lakes, among the most extensive and labyrinthine in all of Europe.

As evening approaches, local restaurants serve lake fish according to the culinary tradition of lacustrine eastern Finland.

Varkaus, founded around a single large integrated paper mill and shipyard complex in the nineteenth century, remains a rare Finnish example of a city entirely planned around a single large productive facility.

The Saimaa lake system, the most extensive in all of Finland with over four thousand islands, also hosts the rare Saimaa ringed seal, among the rarest marine mammals in the entire world.