Gold History of Finland

The Lappish Gold History exhibition offers a glimpse into life in the arctic goldfields. The exhibition takes you through the history of gold prospecting in Finland, from the first gold discovery to the time of mechanical mining. The visitor encounters the poor conditions in the Grand Duchy of Finland in the 1860s and gets the idea of the goldfields of Lapland on a map. The discovery of Tankavaara gold in a dream and the stories about the Lemmenjoki prospectors open up life in the goldfields before large-scale mining.

Living in the wilderness, manual skills and survival in nature have been essential skills for gold prospectors. Exhibits ranging from tools to illegal spirits barrel bring the past close to you. The inhabitants of the goldfields had to make do with scarce resources, which required resilience and ingenuity. Peering into a gold prospector’s cabin, you can imagine yourself living a modest life in the middle of the wilderness. Stories of Lapland’s legendary gold prospectors offer a human perspective on a hardscrabble lifestyle while videos and photographs bring existence in the goldfields to life.

Copies of some of Finland’s most remarkable gold nuggets evoke the visitor’s inner gold prospector and are enough to ignite the gold fever in anyone. Are you the finder of the next record-breaking nugget?