Ever thought of traveling back in time, or visiting your stone-age ancestors? The Kierikki Stone Age Centre in Yli-Ii makes the unimaginable possible. A day’s walk from Oulu, it transports visitors to prehistoric Northern Finland – today. Patrik Franzén, center coordinator, has been with the project from its beginnings; as an archaeology student from Oulu University he participated in the first excavations in Yli-Ii from 1994 to 1996.

“The idea began with excavation and local interest,” Franzen states. “We received a lot of interest from the Oulu area and much publicity from Kaleva Newspaper and YLE News station. That helped us get where we are today,” he continues.

In 1996 the Kierikki Project began further developing the Kierikki Centre, funded by Yli-Ii Municipality and TE Keskus, and with small donations from private organizations. The leader of the Yli-Ii council, Mrs. Anneli Mehtälä, and a Professor of History from Oulu University were the prime movers, along with several others.

The first stage was establishing a walking trail along the numerous archaeological sites with a small scale exhibition. However, this soon grew into something much more substantial. Now the centre is open all year round and roughly 20,000 visitors visit it annually. Located in the middle of Finnish wilderness, on the bank of the Ii River, the centre is surrounded by near Stone Age beauty.

The centre building, an attraction in itself, is one of the largest log buildings in all of Europe and the largest in Scandinavia; many come just to see it. Inside there is a unique exhibition of history of Finland from the Ice Age, ca. 5000 BC up to the end of the Stone Age, 2000 BC. “The exhibition displays a great view of how people lived in the Stone Age including a story of their history, their ideas, and how they lived,” says Franzén.

Outside the facility is a one and a half kilometer walking trail that follows archaeological sights including a reconstructed Stone Age village. Visitors can experience prehistoric living through activities such as tool making and arrow shooting.

For long-distance travelers, Hotel Kierikki is right across from the centre and is located on the shore of the Kierikki pond. The hotel has 16 rooms including a sauna, well equipped conference rooms, a 100 seat auditorium, and smaller rooms suitable for any type of conference. Its restaurant services mean you won’t have to hunt, kill, and cook your own meal. However, that can be arranged.


Various group ‘survival’ type programs are also doable: fishing trips to prehistoric fishing waters of the River Ii, tribal competitions, a variety of guided tours. The centre presents this information in Finnish, Swedish, German, English, and also Russian, but only on the internet.

Patrik compares life old and new. “As interesting as life may be now, it was also interesting thousands of years earlier and will also be thousands of years from now. Although times are changing, people have not changed so much as far as intelligence or ways of life.”

Time will tell the future, but if you want to slip back to an age when life wasn’t as ‘high tech,’ an opportunity is just up the road.

www.kierikki.fi