The wreckage of an old pinewood ship was found here, beneath the hotel’s carpark, in August 2019. It was named the Hahtiperä Wreck after the site. The vessel had been built out of northern Finnish pines, probably in the late 1600s. The shipbuilding technique was similar to that of sailboats made by local peasants, or barges used for carrying cargo. The hull was clinker built, with seams caulked with a mixture of pitch and a leafy moss species. The pitch might have come from Pikisaari (“Pitch Island”), on the other side of the sound.

The ship would have been shocked to have seen daylight after so many centuries in 2019, with the city looking rather different than it had three hundred years before. Back then, Hahtiperä still had an inland port with quays and storerooms. Oulu surpassed the modest number of 1,000 permanent inhabitants in the early eighteenth century, but the town had long been busy during the meltwater season. Rather than Finnish or Swedish, the languages most spoken in the harbour would have been English, German, Russian and French. Oulu was a genuinely international maritime town. The market square was named Pakkahuoneentori (“Customs Warehouse Square”), and the sellers had names like Staffan Smoswen and Anders Bad-Iron.

On the water in front of Hahtiperä port were storehouses built on stilts, intended for goods to be loaded off or onto incoming and outgoing ships. The Hahtiperä Wreck might have carried pitch, tar and firewood between the mainland and Pikisaari, or been a cargo boat meant for taking goods in and out of large oceangoing vessels, which would have been anchored further away. Export goods included tar, lumber, butter, salmon and dried pike, while imports consisted for instance of salt and grains. Naturally the upper classes, who were making money from trading and tar exports, started demanding all kinds of accessories and luxuries, such as fabrics, tobacco, spices and tulip bulbs.

International trade brought not only foreign products but also new customs to Oulu: people began enjoying exotic infusions such as tea and coffee out of Chinese porcelain cups, flavouring their foods with oriental spices, and dressing according to continental styles.

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Sources:

Halila, Aimo 1953: Oulun kaupungin historia I. City of Oulu.

Kaila, E. E. 1931: Pohjanmaa ja meri. (PhD thesis)

Korhonen, Markus H. 2001: Tervakaupungin tarinoita II osa. Radioasema Q.

Riutankoski, Matleena 2019: Oulu Hallituskatu 1, Hahtiperän hylky, hotelli Radisson Blun pysäköintialueen arkeologinen kaivaus 2019. Finnish Heritage Agency.

Vuori, Katariina 2021: Hahtiperän hylyn biografia: 1600-luvun lotjasta immersiivisen taideteoksen proomupääosaan. (Pro gradu thesis)

Wacklin, Sara 1966: Sata muistelmaa Pohjanmaalta. WSOY.

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Photo: Finnish Heritage Agency. Oulu market square in 1933.

Augmented reality: "Hahtiperä" (https://skfb.ly/6XSGW) by Museovirasto Museiverket Finnish Heritage Agency is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).