”Round and round the Kitka shore, for me the fishes to bestow, mother into soup them cook, butter and some salt in shook. All the children like it so.”

In the old days, the families in Kuusamo had many children, so there was always someone to play with. Children made animals like cows and sheep out of pine and spruce cones, and herded reindeer made from roof shingles. The little reindeer were poked into the gaps in the log wall to gallop. Small reindeer bones were used as playthings when they played paaskasilla, i.e., the idea of the game was to tip over the bones.

Another game was ruoppisilla, which was played with sticks and a small ball. All the players, excluding one, went into a circle and made a small pit or ‘ruoppi’ in front of them. The player who didn’t have a pit moved the ball with a stick and tried to get it into someone’s pit. From the 1950s on, summer evening yard games such as konkka (like ‘freeze tag’), 10 tikkua laudalla (10 sticks on the board, a tag game), nelimaali (four bases, like ‘baseball’), naurisvaras (turnip thief) and tervapata (tar pot, like ‘duck goose’) were often played. In hide-and-seek or war games, the player deemed “it” shouted "Puks!" and the names of those who were seen. In winter, children were skiing, sliding down slopes, and skating. Particularly in the parish village, children gathered into big teams to play against each other in snowball fights.