Ekenäs skärgårds Nationalpark (Swedish: Ekenäs skärgårds
Nationalpark) is located in the outer Ekenäs archipelago in western
Uusimaa. The national park was established in 1989 and covers an
area of 52 km². The starting point of the national park was
Jussarö Nature Park, founded in 1956. The park is managed and
managed by Metsähallitus, as are other Finnish national parks.
Most of the park's area consists of rock islets near the open
sea and the surrounding waters. Metsähallitus' tasks mainly include
calming waterfowl nesting areas and controlling fishing.
Consequently, landing and motor boating in the vicinity of the main
birdcards is prohibited from 1 April to 17 July. between.
The
nature of the inner archipelago can be found above all on the island
of Älgö (before Elgö), and in everyday language it is often said to
be the source of Älgö National Park. On the Skedö side, at the
western end of the Rödjan fjord, there is another very sheltered
excursion port used since ancient times in the area belonging to the
national park.
Rödjan and Elgö are mentioned in the Danish
sailing guide as early as the 1240s.
Attractions
Ekenäs Nature Center in the center of Ekenäs
Älgö Island, where the Rödjan Nature Center is located
Fladalandet
Modermagan
Jussaari
Jussaari (Swedish: Jussarö) is an outer island group
in Raseborg in the area of the former city of Ekenäs. Until
November 2011, the Jussarö Coast Guard Station of the Border Guard
operated there, which was also a border checkpoint for recreational
boaters. Jussaari is also known for the Jussarö lighthouse south of
the islands.
The island used to house the Jussarö mine, from
which iron ore was mined. However, operations ceased to be
unprofitable in 1967. Residential and commercial buildings still
remain on the island during this period. An automatic coastal
weather station has been operating on the island since 1 June 1990,
which has become familiar to many through the Finnish Broadcasting
Corporation's weather report for seafarers under the name Jussarö.
Pleasure boaters are served by the guest marina, café, nature trail
and boat sculpture in the northern part of the island.
About
the name of the island
Linguists have speculated that the name of
the island would originally be Juutinsaari, from which it would once
have distorted into Jussaari. The first mention of Jussaari is in a
Danish sailing guide from about 1250. The guide, written in Latin,
mentions a place called Iuxarae, which is supposed to mean Jussaari.
Later the name is Written e.g. Jusar (1547) and Jussar (1581).
Jussarö lighthouse
Already in medieval sailing guides,
Jussaari is mentioned as an easily recognizable landmark. The strait
between it and Pikku-Jussarö has always been a sheltered anchorage.
The lighthouse to Jussaari was first designed as early as 1811, but
it was allowed to be replaced by a conical culvert built at Sundharu
islet. Later, the pile was painted red and in 1856 was whitewashed.
Towards the end of the century, it was then decided to build a
lighthouse. The round, 17.5-meter-high brick tower, completed in
1891, was plastered white and surrounded by a wide, red belt. The
lighthouse lens was the most efficient model in use in Finland at
the time. Id light of the white light and rotating the two red
flashes every half minute. The lighthouse was operated by a
lighthouse master and three lighthouse keepers.
In 1922,
construction work began on a new lighthouse building. A new
25-meter-high lighthouse was built on the same Sundharu islet, which
had previously been a sea sign, two miles south of Jussaari. The
north side of the truncated pyramid-shaped concrete tower was
painted red and the other three sides white at the bottom and red at
the top. The light symbol was two white flashes every ten seconds.
The new lighthouse was Finland's first completely unoccupied
lighthouse. The lighting equipment is powered by gas, which was
brought to the scene by the inspection vessel once a year. A
side-by-side lighthouse attendant then went once a month to change
new gas cylinders. There were problems with the gas because it was
not always possible to change the gas cylinder in time due to the
weather. In 1984, the situation was rectified by installing a wind
farm in the lighthouse. The light fixture is now rotating and has a
range of 16 nautical miles. In 1998 the lighthouse was renovated and
painted.
Mining
After Finland came under Russian rule,
there was a desire to strive for independence from Swedish iron. In
1817, a cavalry master took over the nearby island of Lerharu and
engaged in small-scale mining for some time. Proper mining
operations at the Jussarö mine began in 1834, when an ore deposit in
Jussaari was located and taken to the crown.
Labor costs in
the mine were high. Although the workers were each given potato land
and fishing rights, the salary also had to be paid relatively high
due to the awkward location of the island. So a cheaper labor was
soon invented: 45 prisoners convicted of laxity were brought to the
mine from Viapori. Of course, there was no free labor either,
because 30 seafarers and more officers were needed to guard the
prisoners to guard the soldiers. Prisoners were paid a small salary,
and hard-working people were paid tobacco and liquor. For one reason
or another, however, the distribution of liquor was soon stopped.
Initially, work was done only in the summer, but once the necessary
accommodation was built on the island, mining became year-round.
Soon 95 men were already at work in the summer, half in the winter.
The length of the working day was 12 hours. When the construction
work on the Saimaa canal began, there were no longer enough loose
people in Jussaari. From 1846, criminal prisoners began to be used,
now guarded by Russian soldiers.
The Crimean War stopped mining in 1854-56. After the war, it was
started again with bulk prison labor. The sentence of these
prisoners was of indefinite length. In other prisons, they had the
opportunity to be released if they got a job in private service. Due
to the long distances in Jussaari, there was no possibility for
this, and therefore the imprisonment could be very long. For this
reason, many of the prisoners even considered Siberia a better
option, and asked to be transferred there. According to a rumor
circulating among the prisoners, Siberia could even get land to be
cultivated.
In the late 1850s, better quality iron became
more readily available, and Jussaari's ore no longer wanted to be
suitable for Finnish blast furnaces. Privatization of mining began
to be considered, but when the only buyer candidate went bankrupt,
all that helped was to close the mine for nearly a century.
The Jussarö mine was thus opened for the first time when the Swedish
government used Finnish ore shortages in the mercantilist 19th
century as a means of extorting various credits in the field of
import duties. It is alleged that when Vuoksenniska Oy reopened the
mine in 1954, the reasons were similar. Finland needed a negotiating
power when discussing the price of Swedish steel. The toil of a
couple of hundred miners did not produce properly even with a newer
company, but apparently it worked well enough as a bargaining chip.
In 1967, mining was stopped again.
Jussarö Parish
Jussaari
had a pulpit from the 1830s to 1860, which was for the prison's
labor force and the inhabitants of the archipelago. Once a month,
the Ekenäs chaplain held a service in Finnish and Swedish.
Jussarö Nature Park
Jussarö Nature Park was established in 1956.
In 1989, it was merged with the new Ekenäs Archipelago National
Park.
Fladalandet
Fladalandet is an island in Ekenäs National Park
on the border of the inner and outer archipelago, about 14
kilometers south of Ekenäs center. The island belongs to Raseborg.
Fladalandet is a popular hiking destination and the island has
services for hikers. Flada refers to a bay or pond that protrudes
inside the island, of which Fladalandet has several.
Transfer
boulder in Fladalandet
The interior of Fladalandet is wooded and
rocky.
Fladalandet is thought to have been used as a summer
pasture for sheep. In connection with the establishment of Ekenäs
National Park in 1989, the island was protected as a traditional
landscape biotope.