Vaalankurkku in the town of Vaala where the Oulujoki river begins was a key place in tar trade and a major transport hub of the time. It was the starting point of the tar route down the river to Oulu. A great amount of tar has been transported across Lake Oulujärvi.

Tar boats started to come from the lake as soon as the ice had melted. The best and the busiest period was the heart of the summer from late June to the end of July, but the bravest would row their tar boats even in the autumn storms.

At best, the lake could be crossed in one or two days. Antti and Kalle Roivainen, father and son, are said to have set an unofficial record using sails to cross the lake in no more than six hours with a cargo of 30 barrels of tar.

With tailwind, speed could be gained by hoisting a sail made of flax or hemp cloth to the boat – as the men of the Roivainen family did. In favourable conditions, the tar boats virtually raced the lake towards Vaala.

However, the journeys were subject to changes of weather. Headwind slowed down the boats, and stormy weather increased the risk of accidents. A fully loaded tar boat weighed approximately 4,500 kilos and did not ride the waves but pushed straight through. As a result, the lake became the final resting place for some of the less experienced boatmen.

The boatmen sometimes had to wait for more favourable weather in the shelter of the islands – in some cases for weeks for storms to subside. Even though bread, butter and salted and dried fish were packed for the journey, they sometimes ran out of food as the journey dragged on.

A popular place to rest during storms on Ärjänselkä, the widest open expanse of the lake, was Kaivanto, where you could even get inside a house to rest. It was said that the big fleas of Kaivanto would make happy noises when they saw new arrivals coming.

In the shelter of the islands, time was spent telling stories. On Niskanselkä, another long and open expanse of the lake, are the islands of Upper Mulkku and Lower Mulkku (vernacular for the male genital), whose names are a legacy of stories told by fatigued and bored tar rowers who grew tired of waiting.

After reaching Vaalankurkku, the tar rowers stopped to have coffee, often staying overnight and waiting for rivermen to be available before continuing their 100-kilometre journey down the river. On the busiest days, there could be dozens of boats in Vaala heading towards Oulu and a similar number returning up the river.

Another waiting point along the route was at Merilä before the Pyhäkoski rapids, where the boats had to wait for a riverman to take them safely through the rapids.

There are only guesses as to when the last tar boat crossed the lake, but locals recall still seeing some tar boats on the lake at the turn of the 1920s and the 1930s.

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Sources:

Mäkelä, Simo (toim.) 2000. Vaala – Oulujärven pitäjä.

Photo: Tar transport on Lake Oulujärvi. Photograph: I. K. Inha 1898. Collections of Otava publishing house. National Board of Antiquities.

Production: Rokua UNESCO Global Geopark / Humanpolis Oy, 2023. Implemented as part of the Fascinating Stories as Attraction Factors for the Rokua Geopark area project granted by the Regional Council of the European Union and the State of Finland, granted by the Regional Council of North Ostrobothnia.