Sunday, November 04, 2007

Helsinki, 1996

It was the spring of 1998 when we went to a local library, wondering how we could find more places. After having tried some quite senseless and random searches in the library database, we came across a strange title: "Satakunta Sahaa Suomessa" (some hundred sawmills in Finland). It sounded like something that had to be checked.
The yellow book was available in the shelf, so we took a look at what it had to offer. First impressions were stunning: the book really introduced nearly a hundred (okay, about 80 but anyway) Finnish sawmills, complete with photos, detailed descriptions of history and even approximate location information. The book was only two years old and most of the included targets had complete buildings remaining, not just "memories" except a few places. Truly a dream book! That's why we soon named it the yellow bible.
After having loaned the book and inspected it thoroughly we did a couple of test trips in nearby to find some of the places. Then we did a whole 4 day trip following a route based on locations introduced in this book. These first attempts were not too uplifting, since the places had either been demolished (Piikkiö, Iloniemi, Koskenkorva), they had new use (Pyhäjärvi, Nokki, Mainiemi, Tuiskula) or we just couldn't find them (Holm, Saikonkoski). But later, the book has been really useful and it has to be considered the most important single information source for our adventuring activities. I don't believe there are many targets in the book that would still be around that we haven't already visited, or tried to visit.
It's a fact that the material for yellow bible was gathered in 1994. It's already ten years ago now, and since old and unused buildings are really endangered it's natural that as a target reference the yellow bible is slowly becoming obsolete. But the book itself is still highly recommended for anybody interested in industrial history, architecture or anything related to sawmilling. Quite many public libraries have this book, and it's quite seldom loaned. Also, the book store Granum sells it nowadays for a ridiculous (cheap) price.
Although we may not always fully support what the bureaus and all kinds of official departments do, this time all credit must be given for the Finnish National Board of Antiquities for publishing the yellow bible. And of course above all to Mr's Timo Kantonen and Erkki Härö who did the actual job. This must be the best book ever written of the subject.

The yellow bible:
Satakunta Sahaa Suomessa
Kulttuurihistoriallisesti merkittäviä saharakennuksia ja -ympäristöjä
Timo Kantonen
Museoviraston rakennushistorian osaston julkaisuja 18
Helsinki 1996

http://www.dm-exp.org/gallery/raamattu.html

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Interesting, but it's so depressing to see smart people who are unable to correctly style paragraphs.

3:59 PM  

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