Museum A-Ö » Rural life and craft » Kilen Museum

Kilen Museum is a vast museum and recreational area located on a scenic spot on the coast. The museum displays the agricultural, fishing and peasant culture of the Swedish-speaking Ostrobothnia.

The Kilen Museum area is located in an old fishing village, and it is composed of about twenty buildings. They have been moved to the area from different villages in Kristinestad. Fishing has always been an important source of livelihood in the archipelago, and in Janne’s Cabin in the old net corral the visitor can get acquainted with old time fishing equipment.

The main building of Kilen called Franssi’s House was built around 1800. There is an exceptionally beautiful porch in the house. On the walls of the front cabin have been painted large, beautiful patterns by hand. In the end chambers of the house one can familiarize one with the abundant textile collection of South Ostrobothnia.

In the 18th century house are on display old tools and instruments. The building, which originally functioned as a smoke cottage, represents the oldest building style in the region.

One of the gems of the museum area is the telephone switchboard equipped with a manual switch, which was used in Lappfjärd all the way to the 1970s. The development of the telephone and the telephone institution throughout times is displayed here. Bookworms may be interested in another museum situated on the area, namely the cabin transported from the village of Henriksdalen, which has a library in it. The library functioned in the village from the 19th century onwards.

On the area can also be found a small school museum and a restored beach chapel. Several coastal chapels functioned on the coast during the 17th and 18th century. In the harbour is a small shipbuilding museum. Sideby and Skaftung are situated near Kristinestad, which used to be one of the biggest shipbuilding cities in Finland in the 19th century. Many of the large sailing ships, that sailed on the seas of the world during the 19th century, were built by the inhabitants of Sideby.

Kilen is a living museum and especially suited for camp school pupils or groups of different ages, who want to experience life in the 19th century and do old time chores and handworks, such as churning of butter, baking of bread in a stone oven, grinding of flour by hand in a stone mill, rope plaiting or spinning of wool yarn. It is also possible to spend time in the nature: to have a vegetation, bird or fish day or participate in old time school classes.