"This is a thing that can’t be solved anywhere else but at the Kela sauna." This saying originates from the time when Janne Waarala hosted the Kuusamo town council meetings at his home of Kelankartano estate. Elected MP in 1907, Waarala provided accommodation to farmers from remote villages who had come to town for the council meeting. In the evenings, the benches of the Kela lakeshore sauna were crowded. Opinions softened in the intense heat of the sauna, and the bathers who stepped out into the cool terrace were amicable towards each other. During the village market, farmers who had had too much to drink were brought to the Kela sauna to clear their heads.

At the beginning of the 20th century, Kuusamo was a densely built, lively parish village with several cafés. People came to the village shore by boats, and Kuusamo-laiva, an inland waterway boat that could carry 30 passengers, operated in Lake Kuusamojärvi.

On the shore of Lake Kuusamojärvi, there are visible signs of water level decline. There was a shortage of farmland in the 1800s, and land for fields was acquired by lowering the water level of lakes. On laundry days, the women of the village had to walk much further to reach the new shoreline.

Visit International Tourism and Culture Centre Karhuntassu to view the scale model of Kuusamo Parish Village in the 1930s and its stories