URN:NBN:fi:tsv-oa7637
DOI: 10.11143/7637
Oral histories as a baseline of landscape restoration –
Co-management and watershed knowledge in Jukajoki River
TERO MUSTONEN
Mustonen, Tero (2013). Oral histories as a baseline of landscape restoration –
Co-management and watershed knowledge in Jukajoki River. Fennia 191: 2, pp.
76–91. ISSN 1798-5617.
This article explores local oral histories and selected communal written texts
and their role in the severely damaged watershed of Jukajoki [and adjacent lake
Jukajärvi watershed] located in Kontiolahti and Joensuu municipalities, North
Karelia, Finland. All in all 35 narratives were collected between 2010 and 2012.
Four narratives have been presented in this paper as an example of the materials.
Empirical materials have been analysed by using a framework of both integrated
ecosystem management and co-management. Three readings of the river Juka-
joki and the adjacent watershed emerged from the materials – Sámi times, Savo-
Karelian times and times of damages, or the industrial age of the river. Local
knowledge, including optic histories, provided information about pre-industrial
fisheries, fish ecology and behaviour and bird habitats. Lastly, special oral histo-
ries of keepers of the local tradition provided narratives which are consistent
with inquiries from other parts of Finland, non-Euclidian readings of time and
space and hint at what the Indigenous scholars have proposed as an intimate
interconnection between nature and human societies extending beyond notions
of social-ecological systems. Empirical oral histories also conceptualize collab-
orative governance with a formal role of local ecological knowledge as a future
management option for the Jukajoki watershed. Watershed restoration and as-
sociated baseline information benefits greatly from the oral histories recorded
with people who still remember pre-industrial and pre-war ecosystems and their
qualities.
Keywords: North Karelia, Jukajoki, co-management, oral history, optic history
Tero Mustonen, The Department of Geographical and Historical Studies, Univer-
sity of Eastern Finland, P. O. Box 111, 80101 Joensuu, Finland, E-mail: tero@
snowchange.org
Introduction
This paper investigates severely damaged water-
shed of Jukajoki [and adjacent lake Jukajärvi wa-
tershed] located in Kontiolahti and Joensuu mu-
nicipalities, North Karelia, Finland. They are a
part of the larger Pielisjoki river watershed. Juka-
joki river has received national attention in 2010
and 2011 due to fish deaths caused by discharges
of highly acidic waters from the peat production
site Linnunsuo owned by the Finnish state-owned
energy company VAPO. Both regional state agen-
cies and the company have tried to control and
limit the ecosystem damages using science-based
methods, knowledge production and monitoring.
They have failed to restore the ecosystem health,
nor they have been able to detect the fish deaths
that occurred and were identified by the local
subsistence fishermen both in 2010 and 2011.
The key question explored in this paper is related
to the need of an improved management of wa-
tersheds in the case of an industrial discharge.
More specifically, I explore, what are the possi-
bilities that Finnish local knowledge embedded
in oral histories can provide as a source of infor-
mation both on current events and as a baseline
material for restoration actions? Secondly, in light
of international scholarship, what are the needs
and advantages for a collaborative management
of Jukajoki?
FENNIA 191: 2 (2013) 77Oral histories as a baseline of landscape restoration
Theoretical framework
This paper explores models and differing geo-
graphical discourses of time and space in the con-
text of watershed restoration and recovery from
peat production and other watershed damage,
such as ditch drainage (Tanskanen 2000). Theoreti-
cally emphasis will be on introducing unorthodox
methods (Berkes 1999; Berkes 2012) and knowl-
edge production regimes (see on the need of a
grounded approach Ingold 2000, 2004; Martinez
2011; Mustonen 2012a) in the context of address-
ing damages of peat production. I am arguing that
by using integrated ecosystem management, and
more specifically processes leading to ecosystem-
based fisheries management (EBFM) with a strong
local knowledge focus possibly more successful
conservation and restoration results can be
achieved than single-focus site-specific actions in
restoration1. This builds on the ideas and ap-
proaches developed by Berkes (1999; Carlsson &
Berkes 2005; Berkes 2012; Berkes & Ross 2013).
The village landscape of Selkie is the product of
interaction of humans and nature and has been
designated as a national landscape by the Govern-
ment of Finland in 2000. First records of inhabit-
ants are from 1500s, but pre-historic Sámi popula-
tion utilized the area prior to this time (Selkien
kyläyhdistys 2004: 112, see on the toponymic Sámi
place names of Eastern Finland in Aikio 2007,
2012). Geomorphologically the soil is filled with
phyllites extending to the lake Pyhäselkä in the
west. In these phyllites there are large concentra-
tions of iron that affects the colour of the minerals.
These phyllites indicate that the soil has been af-
fected by lack of oxygen on a former seabed
roughly 2000 million years ago. Sulphur and iron
play dominant part in the Jukajoki soil phyllites
and are the root cause for the high presence of iron
in the discharge waters from the peat production
sites (Nykänen 1971; Pekkarinen 1979; Kesola
1998; Lehtinen et al. 1998). West of Jukajoki val-
ley there are sand dunes of moraine as a result of
the last Ice Age. The glaciers flowed lastly in north-
west-southeast direction, which is the predomi-
nant positioning of water bodies within the terri-
tory of Selkie village (Lyytikäinen 1982; Kesola
1998).
In Finland the role and use of local knowledge
is emerging (Mustonen 2009; Mustonen 2012a) as
a field of practice, and it is connected to the de-
bates regarding the Arctic (Stammler 2005; Wat-
son & Huntington 2008) and indigenous Sámi
knowledge (Helander 1999; Lehtinen 2011;
Mustonen 2012b). Hence it refers also to the Finn-
ish local communities and to their subsistence ac-
tivities (Luotonen 2006; Mustonen 2009). Here
subsistence means fisheries, hunting, gathering
and other such uses of renewable resources from a
watershed that is not done for professional or
monetary gain, rather for complementary and cul-
tural purposes.
In the context of discontinued traditions of East-
ern Finland and North Karelia, a more proper term
than traditional knowledge is local ecological
knowledge (Luotonen 2006) – here referring to
those individuals that are living and habiting sites
of change and who have capacities for ecosystem
observations and interpretations. However this lo-
cal ecological knowledge in North Karelia is not
limited to a set of technical observations of birds,
fish, landscapes, mires and so on. Individuals and
families who have habited local communities in
Karelia from pre-industrial times and are still in-
volved in subsistence activities, such as berry-
picking, fisheries, hunting, mushroom gathering
and other practices continue to possess deeper
readings and discourses of this place. Luotonen
(2006: 204−222) provides a groundbreaking read-
ing of a coastal Finnish local knowledge and the
multi-dimensionality of Selkämeri region as a lived
landscape3 (Ingold 2000, 2004).
There is a difference between documented
knowledge and oral histories. It can be summa-
rized by saying that living oral histories (Burch
1991; Macdonald 2000; Eicken 2010; Mustonen
2012a) as opposed to documented local knowl-
edge are communal exercises– the people them-
selves provide the oral matrix and transfer of
knowledge that is needed to understand the wider
spectrum of multi-faceted and multi-dimensional
lived knowledge.
Such an act leads to an authentic representation
of local community epistemologies as opposed to
anecdotes, which often have been taken out of
context in the documented local ecological knowl-
edge materials. Macdonald (2000) provides a con-
vincing case of a long-running community based
oral history archive and its contextual advantages
from the community of Igloolik, Nunavut, Canada.
Oral histories by the communities themselves are
currently largely missing from the assessments of
ecosystem change and their meanings (Burch
1991; Mustonen 2012a). Toponymic and place-
name knowledge as a social-ecological source of
information is central to this local knowledge ma-
78 FENNIA 191: 2 (2013)Tero Mustonen
trix (Mustonen 2009). For the case here, the exam-
ple provided by Macdonald (2000) is appropriate
– the uses of the watersheds by the local popula-
tions in rural Finland are to a large extent invisible
in decision-making and analysis.
According to Martinez (2011) such oral histories
provide important knowledge of what has changed
and how in the context of ecological restoration.
Oral histories are always the product of human
agency, with their flaws, faults and other possibili-
ties for misinformation, either intentional or unin-
tentional. However, as Burch (1991) and Macdon-
ald (2000) remind us, potential for a more wide
understanding of social-ecological systems (Berkes
& Ross 2013) is possible, if the oral histories are
done with the people, as opposed to treating the
locals as informants or passive targets of scholarly
action. Long-term residence in the community
from which the oral histories emerge also grounds
them into a reflective process over several years.
Currently the human uses of the watershed of
Jukajoki are to a large extent uncoordinated – they
are simultaneous and layered4, some zoning on
regional scale directs the process, but specifics,
both from the community and ecosystem perspec-
tives are missing5. This contributes negatively to
the social-ecological systems (Berkes & Ross 2013)
in the area. A possible solution to this can be found
from the recent scholarship on joint stewardship of
natural resources. While recognizing the fault-
lines and emerging practices of models of collabo-
rative management of natural resources (Howitt
2001; Carlsson & Berkes 2005; Berkes 2012), es-
pecially land use and fisheries will be introduced
from theoretical viewpoint and compared with the
situation on the ground. More specifically the pa-
per argues that the linear science-based readings
of time and space connected with established
means of watershed restoration do not address the
local context adequately. Rather the local knowl-
edge embedded in the residents of the watershed,
if properly and respectfully investigated, can pro-
duce non-Euclidean time-spaces (Massey 2005,
2009) which will widen the scope, means and
substance of watershed and ecosystem restoration
efforts. Massey (2009) makes the case for a new
understanding of open, unbounded place, such as
quantum animisms6. Bridging tools can be found
from the co-management regimes (Carlsson &
Berkes 2005) that take both kinds of time-space
processes into account.
In terms of methodology and fieldwork thirty-
five oral histories were collected in the watershed
of Jukajoki over a two-year period from autumn
2010 to November 2012. The age group included
people from their 30s to their 80s. The interviews
were conceptualized around themes related to the
affected watershed and human histories around it,
but allowing the interviewees to steer the conver-
sations in the preferred direction. One-to-one in-
terviews were paralleled with mid-size group ses-
sions of about 5−12 people (hunters, fishermen)
and larger-scale communal events with over 40
people (4 sessions). The oral history collection is a
part of a larger, multi-year scientific study and res-
toration efforts of the watershed. Four selected
documented narratives of oral histories will be
used in this article to support case-relevant obser-
vations and community views.
They have been chosen as a sample because
they provide narratives of traditional fisheries, eco-
logical change and past baselines, connections
with the landscape through myriad ways and last-
ly, opinions that are supportive of a collaborative
management as a solution to the contemporary
crises. Subsistence fishermen and their oral histo-
ries were instrumental in identifying the problems
caused by the peat production in the first case. To
summarize, these four interviews that were chosen
as themes of the research come visible both in the
articulation of oral history and the individuals be-
ing able to illustrate the watershed condition and
impacts well, in a historical-traditional continuum.
Gender balance was proportionate with a slight
emphasis on male respondents. Interviews were
documented using digital recorders, transcribed in
Finnish, returned to the interviewed person for a
review and then stored at the Snowchange Oral
History Archive, which is a community-based
node of oral histories from the boreal and Arctic
subsistence communities of Eurasia. The paper is
driven by auto-ethnographical research as the au-
thor is the head of the community of Selkie. This
village together with Alavi, the second settlement
in the watershed, leads the post-peat production
restoration work in the watershed.
The position of a researcher as both an actor and
an analyser of events has its pros and cons. An in-
sider view provides better access to the events and
materials but also produces biases and “blindness”
to issues at hand. The author is aware of these
problems and has tried to identify them through
this inquiry and avoid pitfalls created by such a
process.
Berkes (2012) while exploring marine fisheries
calls for a widespread reform of natural resource
FENNIA 191: 2 (2013) 79Oral histories as a baseline of landscape restoration
management in the context of rapid ecosystem
change. He (2012: 466) argues that ecosystem-
based management (EBM) approach involves and
includes a holistic view of managing resources in
the context of their environment (see also Howitt
2001; Pretty 2011). It contains a consideration of
habitat issues and system resilience. By identifying
gaps in case studies around the world (mostly in
oceanic ecosystems), Berkes (2012: 466−468) em-
phasizes that ecosystem-based fisheries manage-
ment (EBFM) based solely on fisheries biological
science captures only one slice of the EBM pie.
A broad ecosystem-based approach that in-
cludes social as well as ecological considerations
has been identified as a “social-ecological system”
(Berkes 2012: 466−468; Berkes & Ross 2013),
which manifests as a complex adaptive system that
includes social (human) and ecological (biophysi-
cal) subsystems in a two-way feedback relation-
ship (see also Mustonen 2012a). In short a social-
ecological system perspective is a major departure
from the conventional view in rural Finland. In the
context of Finnish resource governance, new ap-
proaches are urgently needed as the previous
models of using natural and raw materials have
proved to be socially and ecologically unsustain-
able (for example on hydroelectric power, see
Mustonen et al. 2010; Mustonen 2012b). Of
course equity and power problems associated
with natural resources production have a global
reach too (Howitt 2001; Pretty 2011).
In the Finnish (non-Sámi) context it is well
known that the business as usual, for the most part,
has wrecked the natural habitats and left the local
communities, some of which also embrace large-
scale natural resources production, without a
voice. Local environmental knowledge as a key
source of additional and non-Euclidean knowl-
edge regarding ecosystem change can be identi-
fied as a remedy for this context. Integrated eco-
system management, with a strong emphasis on
fisheries7 and realized through a possible co-man-
agement regime (Carlsson & Berkes 2005) may
prove to be a crucial new step in the emerging
field of ecosystem restoration (Martinez 2011). It
can combine the oral histories of the affected peo-
ple (Mustonen 2012a) as a valid source of pre-use
ecosystem characteristics8. Oral histories of living
people are relevant, because as opposed to archi-
val materials, they are a part of the agency in the
watershed – actors with an active role and interest
in restoration processes. The overwhelming size
and speed of mire-marshland territory extraction
within the last 60 years (Tanskanen 2000) provides
possibilities of baseline information to be gathered
from those who lived and used the little-disturbed
watersheds prior to their alterations.
Berkes (2012: 470) argues that the system
change, whether in terms of climate or ecosys-
tems, requires us to address management in a
whole new context of principles. The transforma-
tion from management into governance has to in-
clude a set of tools to be successful. He identifies
amongst some co-management or sharing of re-
source use power, in some cases also adaptive co-
management, which would mean an on going,
self-organised, dynamic process. Social learning,
inclusive management and integrative science
have been established decades ago as valid ap-
proaches to the emerging new natural conditions,
but interestingly enough Berkes suggests clumsy
solutions, more specifically defined as “explorato-
ry solutions that include inputs from a broad range
of stakeholders along the fishing chain and require
information-sharing, knowledge synthesis and
trust-building” (2012: 470). These unexpected,
“fuzzy” solutions may provide new avenues for
ecosystem stewardship, which Berkes identifies as
being a “strategy to respond to and shape social-
ecological systems under conditions of uncertain-
ty and change to sustain the supply and opportuni-
ties for use of ecosystem services to support hu-
man well-being” (2012: 470).
In the context of Jukajoki watershed, both the
special natural conditions (acidic soils, phyllites)
combined with severe ecosystem damages result-
ing from drainage of wetlands, peat production,
ditches, clear cuts, extractive soil enterprises, hu-
man-altered water bodies and infrastructure con-
struction over a period of a relatively short time
(50 years) produce a context where extraordinary
and new mechanisms of ecosystem restoration are
needed.
Established, institutionalized land management
and uses cannot provide sufficient answers any
more. In this article the role of fisheries plays a
crucial role as the fish have been an indicator of
ecosystem degradation in 2010−2011, and a
source of local knowledge for the people in the
surrounding communities. Ecosystem-based fish-
eries management is therefore both needed and
may provide new ground for restorative work in
the watershed. Berkes (2012: 473) argues that
EBFM is revolutionary because it would involve
dealing with multiple disciplines, scales and ob-
jectives simultaneously. Addressing EBFM would
80 FENNIA 191: 2 (2013)Tero Mustonen
offer the possibilities to expand management into
a notion of governance that includes cooperative,
multilevel approaches involving partnerships, so-
cial learning and knowledge co-production.
So if local knowledge is an important source of
management in the case of Jukajoki watershed and
it receives a full expression through the various
oral histories from the communities, where does
this lead us in terms of governing the river? The
answer lies potentially in the role of collaborative
management of resources which has been defined
for example as follows:
• Co-management is a situation in which two
or more social actors negotiate, define and
guarantee amongst themselves a fair sharing
of the management functions, entitlements
and responsibilities of a given territory, area
or set of natural resources.
• Co-management of common-pool resources,
such as fisheries and forests, are depicted as
some kind of power-sharing arrangements
between the State and a community of re-
source users.
• Collaborative management, co-management,
is defined as the sharing of power and re-
sponsibility between the government and lo-
cal resource users.
• Co-management is a situation in which two
or more social actors negotiate, define and
guarantee amongst themselves a fair sharing
of the management functions, entitlements
and responsibilities of a given territory, area
or a set of natural resources.
• It is an association of co-management with
natural resources management: co-manage-
ment as a partnership between public and
private actors. Co-management is not a fixed
state but a process that takes place along a
continuum. (Adapted from Carlsson & Berkes
2005: 65−66, see also Berkes & Ross 2013)
From this set of definitions we can say that co-
management is therefore an approach to govern-
ance. It is a form of governance that, if properly de-
signed, addresses the concerns identified by Ettlinger
(2011) and Foucault (2005) with the notions of gov-
ernance, governmentality and (ab)uses9 of power.
Carlsson and Berkes (2005: 65) identify that “com-
munities” and “the State” have many faces. Most im-
portantly, they feel these actors need to concentrate
on the function, not on the formal structure of a sys-
tem. Optimistically Carlsson and Berkes (2005: 66)
see management as a right to regulate internal use
patterns and transform the resource by making im-
provements. In the Finnish context of state domi-
nance and abuse of power in resource management
(for example Mustonen et al. 2010) the co-manage-
ment regime is a new concept. Only recently some
initiatives have begun to emerge, for example in the
case of the Sámi people and the Hammastunturi wil-
derness area in Lapland. However while consulta-
tion and participation have been guaranteed in the
environmental impact assessments and hearings re-
garding various scales of resource exploitation in Fin-
land, no meaningful power sharing or local contex-
tualisation has taken place (Luotonen 2006;
Mustonen 2012a, 2012b).
Carlsson and Berkes (2005: 66−67) identify the
type of agency with which arrangements are made to
be usually agency with jurisdiction over an area (usu-
ally a state agency) and local communities. Commu-
nities are rarely “coherent and homogenous units”
(ibid.). They are constantly changing and they are
multidimensional, cross-scale social-political units.
In terms of investigations of time-space, they may
contain and produce non-Euclidean narratives of a
place (Massey 2005, 2009; Luotonen 2006;
Mustonen 2009; Ettlinger 2011).
Carlsson and Berkes (2005: 66−67) interpret co-
management as a continuum from the simple ex-
change of information to formal partnership. It sup-
poses that parties have agreed on an arrangement,
but the actual arrangement often evolves. They
(2005: 67−68) emphasize that it is a dynamic and
iterative system, a process which is constantly re-ad-
justed because ecosystems and how they respond to
resource exploitation may be highly unpredictable.
According to them “Command-and-control kind of
resource management is a poor fit for ecological un-
certainty…Nature is seldom linear.”(2005: 67, 68)
Hence “the evolution of co-management networks is
the substantial result of ongoing processes of prob-
lem-solving.” (2005: 74). Lastly, according to Pinker-
ton (1989 in Carlsson & Berkes 2005: 71), there are
an identifiable number of tasks for a well-functioning
co-management, which should include:
1. Data gathering
2. Logistical decisions: who harvests and where
3. Allocation decisions
4. Protection of resource from environmental
damage
5. Enforcement of regulations
6. Enhancement of long-term planning
7. More inclusive decision-making
In addition I propose also new steps and
methods in ecosystem and watershed-based
restoration work. In the context of Jukajoki it is
hard to establish a baseline view of the former
FENNIA 191: 2 (2013) 81Oral histories as a baseline of landscape restoration
healthy ecosystem and of the human interaction
as we do have only limited written materials from
the region from 1930s onwards. On the other
hand we have plenty of texts regarding Finnish
tradition and regional history from 1500s on-
wards (locally see Selkien kyläyhdistys 2004; for
North Karelia, see Mustonen 2009). A successful
combination of both written and oral histories
combined with the innovative, “clumsy” ap-
proaches suggested by Berkes (2012) may pro-
vide new avenues of improving this social-eco-
logical system of Jukajoki. As Martinez (2011)
proposes we need alternative baseline assess-
ments in the context of determining the scope,
extent and aims of ecosystem restoration work.
Firstly, old photographs of the area, and in some
cases old maps, may prove to be crucial in deter-
mining the situation of low or no disturbance on
the river (ibid.).
Secondly, a method which is applied in this
paper, the role of documented oral histories as a
(re)source of landscape restoration should not be
underestimated (Martinez 2011). Ecological res-
toration in the context of severe damage such as
in Jukajoki and Jukajärvi watersheds demands a
range of innovative, extraordinary and uncon-
ventional methods (Berkes 2012) in addition to
more mundane technical solutions. Oral histo-
ries can help us determine what has changed.
They act as a crucial source of complimentary,
and in some cases, primary vehicles of trying to
determine the extent of change. Oral histories
can also provide investigations into why certain
change happens, and what can be done to ad-
dress change. Lastly they may, if we are open to
radical and differing geographical time-space
discourses (Massey 2005; Mustonen 2009,
2012a), provide unique non-Euclidean views on
a place (Ingold 2000, 2004; Sheridan & Long-
boat 2006; Massey 2009).
Most importantly, in the context of this paper,
the role of these lived oral histories provides evi-
dence and targets for watershed restoration work
as limited written records hinder a baseline as-
sessment. Oral history can also provide a quali-
tative and rooted aim of a restoration work (Mar-
tinez 2011), meaning that it identifies the most
important factors that need to be aimed at during
such a process. Therefore the oral histories, if
they get expressed in culturally-appropriate
ways, may be avenues of social change in a con-
text where local voices otherwise are dismissed
in natural resources and land use debates.
Four rivers across time and in time –
Results from the oral history work
The 35 collected oral histories over 2010−2012
identify a large corpus of observations, themes,
traditions, counter-narratives and opinions regard-
ing the Jukajoki and Jukajärvi watersheds. For the
purposes of this article only small segments of the
cultural texts from the villages of Selkie and Alavi
have been chosen from the corpus10. More pre-
cisely the oral histories here consist mainly of four
narrative texts11. Integrated ecosystem view has
been applied, which means all human uses as well
as natural processes of a watershed have been sur-
veyed. Both written communal texts (Selkien ky-
läyhdistys 2004) as well as oral histories have been
employed. Toponymic and place-name knowl-
edge of the chosen people is used to demonstrate
the quality and scale of local knowledge contents,
but a full portrayal of this theme awaits future pub-
lication.
The oral history materials which have been
collected during the fieldwork as well as the
communal written texts and histories related to
Selkie (Palomäki 1960; Selkien kyläyhdistys
2004) portray three “rivers” across time with a
fourth reading as an emerging, non-Euclidean
time-spaces (Mustonen 2009) of the river. In short
they are “Jukajoki in Sámi times” [from Time Im-
memorial to the closure of pre-history in linear
time, roughly 1500s], “Jukajoki as a Savo-Kare-
lian River” [From 1500s of first written records
through dispelling of Karelians in 1640s to 1940s],
“Jukajoki as a Damaged River” [From 1940s to
2010s], and lastly, partially sitting outside these
readings, “Jukajoki as a Dream River” [Communal
Oral History from 1930s through to future, with
prophetic and Non-Euclidean time-space quali-
ties].
Jukajoki in Sámi times
We can characterise the Jukajoki watershed in
Sámi times as having a very low human impact
(Selkien kyläyhdistys 2004). The siidas12 (Aikio
1992; Helander 1999; Mustonen & Mustonen
2011; Aikio 2012) of those Sámi Nations13 that
used and occupied the watershed as a part of their
hunting and fishing seasonal cycles are reflected
in the regional place-name knowledge, such as in
toponyms as “Eno” [a big river/rapids] (Aikio 2007;
Vesajoki & Pihlatie 2011; Aikio 2012) along the
82 FENNIA 191: 2 (2013)Tero Mustonen
Pielisjoki watershed adjacent to Jukajoki. Most
likely these communities were connected with the
lake Pielisjärvi siida communities (Mustonen &
Mustonen 2011). By 1500s, Sámi people living in
these communities were either driven further
north, assimilated to the arriving Karelians or dis-
appeared for other reasons from the watershed
(Selkien kyläyhdistys 2004; Aikio 2012). This man-
ifestation of the Jukajoki watershed social-ecologi-
cal system can be characterized as having low hu-
man impact and fairly natural ecosystem health in
this understanding of the landscape.
Jukajoki as a Savo-Karelian river
First written records locate the village of Selkie on
maps around 1500s when the habitants belonged
to Karelian culture (for summary of settlement his-
tories see Selkien kyläyhdistys 2004; Saloheimo
2010). The river was harvested for lake-bound At-
lantic salmon and other fishes and the meadows
along the shores of the river were most likely im-
portant source of natural hay. Information about
the land use and occupancy of these people re-
main vague, even though we do know some de-
tails of specific houses thanks to taxation sources.
In mid-1600s the Karelians were driven out, or
according to some materials, left willingly, to other
parts of Russian Empire [namely to Tver region]
before the advancement of Savo-Karelian peoples
from the West who belonged into the Lutheran re-
ligion attached to the Swedish Crown (Saloheimo
2010). This expansion was driven by slash-and-
burn agriculture called kaski, which required
roughly one hectare of land per year per family for
this style of farming. Fishing, gathering and hunt-
ing economies remained strong alongside foods
acquired through farming. Small mills existed
along the river Jukajoki (Selkien kyläyhdistys
2004). Meadowlands along the rivers were used
according to family territorial use – this system had
characteristics of seasonal transhumance even
though the village was the primary place of habita-
tion (Snowchange Selkie Oral History Tape
300810).
Characteristics of local ecological knowledge of
these peoples were rooted in the tradition of the
area. The key person in the community to possess
otherworldly and cosmological information was
the tietäjä, “he who knows” (Mustonen 2009).
“Power of nature flowed through him” has been
one oral history by which such people were de-
scribed in the North Karelian communities (ibid.).
As our focus is on the wetland uses of the area of
Jukajoki, the oral histories of an 80-year-old male
describe the mires in the following:
“The mires were far wetter before. It caused the
lake great damages when the ditches were made
and mires drained to the lake – these waters went
straight into the lake. It caused great damages.
They used to be cloudberry mires, and we of
course went there constantly.”14 (Snowchange
Alavi Oral History Archive 171012)
Jukajärvi lake and Jukajoki were sources of lake
iron in the late 19th Century, more precisely the
activity started in 1860−62. This iron oxide was
produced into iron in the region. It is mostly lo-
cated in 1−3 m depth. All ore was taken by hand.
On Jukajoki River a small smelter produced chunks
of iron from the natural ore. Its capacity was for
approximately 1020 kg of ore in 24 hours. Iron
was mostly used to make everyday items for the
small farms in the region. In 1862 in total 42500
kg of iron was produced but already in 1865 the
amounts went down to 3400 kg. This enterprise
was discontinued in 1865 (Selkien kyläyhdistys
2004: 21).
Fisheries have been and continue to be a crucial
subsistence activity in the watershed. In earlier
times they provided food security for the commu-
nities and even today remain a source of cultural
and subsistence harvest. The land-locked Atlantic
salmon came up the Jukajoki River in 1930s, pro-
viding to be a key indicator of a healthy river
(Snowchange Selkie Oral History Tape 300810;
Vesajoki & Pihlatie 2011). Hydroelectric power
stations and subsequent ecological damage has
discontinued these habitats (Vesajoki & Pihlatie
2011).
Oral histories from an 80-year-old man on lake
Jukajärvi provide a view to the fisheries in 1930s
and 1940s:
“I have memories being 10-years old fishing with
my grandfather, the father of my father…He used
to walk to the lake with a walking stick and I was
the rower. My cousin was there and my little sister
Liisa, always were together…We made the nets
ourselves. The spawning times of bream [lat.
abramis brama] was our main fishery prior to mid-
summer and at the time of midsummer the big
breams came to spawn close to the shore and
then we got them. Two-three kilogram fish. Our
neighbour made so-called ancient fish traps from
strips of pinewood. Spawning times of the fish
were known well, smaller bream spawned prior to
midsummer and on midsummer the big breams
FENNIA 191: 2 (2013) 83Oral histories as a baseline of landscape restoration
started to spawn…When we got the big breams
our boat bottom was covered with them, we never
had to go to fish and return empty-handed, I do
not recall we ever came back empty-handed.”
(Snowchange Alavi Oral History Archive 171012)
The Savo-Karelian times along the river started
to display impacts from the human uses, but both
oral histories and written texts (Palomäki 1960) in-
dicate that this level of disturbance remained fairly
low or took place in the context of subsistence
farming, fisheries and small-scale harvest of tim-
ber. Iron harvest towards the end of 19th century
represents one of the first larger-scale harvests of
natural resources from the watershed. But things
were about to change towards the end of 1930s
and 1940s with the WW2 looming on the horizon.
In terms of socio-ecological system there was a
great shift in late 1940s when families arrived from
the ceded Karelia after the Continuation War and
were re-settled along the Jukajoki river (Palomäki
1960). They cleared new fields and farm sites from
the forests in the watershed. Then in 1959 the local
farmers with state agencies supporting them de-
cided to lower the water levels on lake Jukajärvi
for the third time. The purpose of the act was to
receive new farmlands from the emerging lake
bottom. This was partially successful. However the
process had great consequences for the whole wa-
tershed below Jukajärvi. Also impacts to the fish-
ery in the lake and river were tremendous. It is
clearly a key marker in the past 100 years in the
ecosystem. Subsistence fishermen resisted this
draining of lakes as is evident from one oral history
by a male, 80 years old:
“A piece of paper was circulated in the village
where you had to sign your agreement, indicating
that you approve of the draining of the lake. I re-
call my father and a certain Vartiainen…they did
not sign the paper even though they went through
whole village all the way to Pyhäselkä to collect
signatures…There was a need for farmland then.
That was the primary reason and it caused bene-
fits to a certain family, they could now make a
new road that they could use. They had to travel
through the forests prior to the road. Those that
signed the letter approved of it. My father and Var-
tiainen did not protest further but they refused to
sign this letter, as they were suspecting that there
would be no more fish in the lake as a result. The
people from the villages of Heinävaara, Särkivaara
and Alavi approved it and then they made needed
changes to the river Jukajoki, digging the river up
and so forth… and then the waters started to
move, it was wintertime. Ice was left on air as
more water was drowned out from the lake than
was planned…We went to see it and wondered…
It caused negative changes as the shoreline we
used to have was real good and it was wrecked…
At first it was ok, but then water plants and mud
arrived to the shores and you could not swim
there…Fish disappeared completely after the
draining. I do not know if they went to river Piel-
isjoki or where…Slowly they started to make a
comeback and new stocks were brought also from
small lakes from Heinävaara, mostly perch and
roach which was caught by the local fishermen
with a fish trap and brought here…”
(Snowchange Alavi Oral History Archive 171012)
Breams15 which were introduced to the lake af-
ter the 1959 draining have started to reproduce
rapidly, as is evident in the observations made by
one subsistence fisherman, 58-year-old from Alavi:
“Those that are still trying to catch bream have
noticed it has become really small. When the lake
lost its fish it was a great mistake then to reintro-
duce bream there in those numbers as the lake is
so eutrophic that it is an ideal environment for the
bream.”
(Snowchange Alavi Oral History Archive 220612)
Place names and toponymic knowledge along
the watersheds was still mostly in its oral form.
They reflected the Savo-Karelian land use and sea-
sonal rounds, where hunting, gathering and fisher-
ies formed crucial subsistence activities. They
were recorded on Finnish maps by the state car-
tographers in the 20th century. These toponyms
provide crucial indicators of ecosystem health
when combined with the oral histories. As an ex-
ample of such a process two place names are dis-
cussed here. “Hirviniemi” means “Moose Cape”,
an area through which the moose crossed the lake
Jukajärvi on their way to their winter pastures – a
cycle that had been in place most likely since
post-glacial times. Information about this toponym
is provided in the narrative of a subsistence fisher-
man, 58-year-old from Alavi:
“Hirviniemi…when I moved here there used to be
a lot of moose here on the move as there was very
little human habitation on the opposite shore. The
lake used to have a real strong bottom here and it
could hold the weight of a moose. In summertime
large herds crossed here too. I could see them
when they came and ate and then they went over
to the Särkivaara area. They fed themselves here,
large herds. But then when human habitation in-
creased on the cape the natural crossing point was
abandoned. Now they have to go around the lake,
84 FENNIA 191: 2 (2013)Tero Mustonen
and cross the road to Ilomantsi, which means a lot
of car crashes on the road. There is a tremendous
amount of moose tracks here and territories where
there is food, food for them and peace. These are
good wintering grounds for them. Around mire
Valkeasuo they had an aerial surveys for herds
and they could spot 200 moose at once on these
wintering areas. And towards Riuttavaara it is a
good area for calving too.”
(Snowchange Alavi Oral History Archive 220612)
Further north as a part of this hunting-gathering
subsistence economy the toponym “Linnunsuo”
[Marsh of the Bird] had been allocated to a marsh-
land, which is situated along the Jukajoki River
and adjacent watershed. This toponym is based on
the central role of capercaillie (lat. Tetrao urogal-
lus) and black grouse (lat. Lyrurus tetrix) in the sub-
sistence hunting complex16 (Berkes 2009) for the
villages of the region. A famous ethnographer R.E.
Nirvi who worked in the villages in early 20th Cen-
tury documented that in the local dialect the marsh
was called “Linnonsuo” (Nirvi 1974: 977). The
marshland was a crucial moose hunting and berry-
picking area too (Snowchange Selkie Oral History
Archive 2010−2012). Nirvi also confirms the lo-
cals considered this place to be a crucial berry-
picking area (Nirvi 1974: 977). This area was
wrecked by the peat production started in 1970s
and 1980s (Vesajoki & Pihlatie 2011; VAPO 2012).
We can establish that the end of the period for Ju-
kajoki as a Savo-Karelian River took place around
1930s.
Jukajoki as a damaged river
Due to the massive changes in society ushered in
by the war and subsequent state-sponsored indus-
trial land use projects from 1940s to 1990s (Tans-
kanen 2000), the Jukajoki also was impacted by
these developments. Most of the mires were
drained, amount of discharge from ditches for for-
estry altered water quality and peat production
changed whole water regimes on Linnunsuo mire.
Additional impacts came from the hydroelectric
stations that were constructed along the river Piel-
isjoki (Vesajoki & Pihlatie 2011). As a result, the
time when it was still possible to fish Atlantic salm-
on and trout along the river came to an end.
In the 2000s the state-owned energy company
VAPO produced peat in the former mire of Lin-
nunsuo. On 17th July 2010 a local subsistence fish-
erman living in Tiittala [a part of village of Selkie],
along Jukajoki observed four dead fish floating
down the river (Snowchange Selkie Oral History
Archive 220710). Observation was made three km
downstream from the VAPO production site. On
18th July 2010 far more dead fish were seen and a
large flock of seagulls flying back and forth along
the river, eating the dead fish. The acidic discharg-
es from the production site killed all the fish in the
river downstream from the VAPO site both in 2010
and 2011. These damages bypassed the monitor-
ing regimes of the company and the state environ-
mental authorities. The local knowledge of the
fishermen still made relevant observations, 50
years into the large-scale alteration of landscapes
and watershed by humans.
Case samples of the oral histories from this pe-
riod illustrate the scope and quality of knowledge
today. How do the people living in the contempo-
rary times conceptualize this watershed and how
are skills learned? Answers can be sought from an
oral history of a 58-year-old fisherman:
“We fished for burbot a lot, also with fish traps
actively. We tried those old spots harvested by the
old people, we asked where they had been fish-
ing.”
(Snowchange Alavi Oral History Archive 220612)
This excerpt from the oral history account is
relevant for a number of reasons. The Finnish
communities and peoples have often been iden-
tified as having lost their traditions through the
modernisation process in our country (Mustonen
2009). Here something remains. First off, the
people are still targeting a non-game species,
the burbot using fish traps. Secondly they are
harvesting spots passed on from the “old peo-
ple” and they have actively sought these spots
and sources of oral knowledge themselves. As
long as the subsistence activities, such as fishing
persist, so do remnants of the larger body of lo-
cal knowledge.
Building on this surviving body of knowledge,
emerging observations of ecosystem health can
be gathered. For example a 58-year-old fisher-
man shares his observations about the lake Juka-
järvi. The lake suffers from the discharge of or-
ganic matter from several dozen forestry ditches:
“In the deep spots and on the edge of the deep
people have tried to fish and have noticed that
there seems to be a lack of oxygen in the winter,
not even pike perch persists there. In the sum-
mertime the nets become so slimy that I do not
really have an interest to fish there anymore.”
(Snowchange Alavi Oral History Archive 220612)
FENNIA 191: 2 (2013) 85Oral histories as a baseline of landscape restoration
Another excerpt by him addressed the dis-
charges from the drained mires and their impact
on lake Jukajärvi, portraying the baseline infor-
mation that Martinez (2011) supports too:
“I am wondering as I used to set nets here on my
shore, perhaps ten years ago, I was using nets
which were at least two meters tall. Now there is
not even that much water there, perhaps one me-
ter twenty centimetres.”
(Snowchange Alavi Oral History Archive 220612)
The same fisherman, known for his skills in the
community of Alavi, commented on bream in his
narrative:
“Then it is a time when the bays are sloshing
when big bream fish come to spawn, they are
midsummer bream, it comes around both sides
of midsummer. The water temperature affects it
and also air needs to be still and hot, over 25 °C.
When the air is still you can see their fins. There
is not a lot of bream and when nets become dirty
so easily we do not fish them so much.”
(Snowchange Alavi Oral History Archive 220612)
This narrative is relevant for a number of rea-
sons. Again, traditional calendar built around
bream spawning times and harvests seems to
have been passed on from the people who mas-
tered it in the 1930s (see Snowchange Alavi
Oral History Archive 171012) despite the mod-
ernization process. Secondly the knowledge
contains information about seasonal marker
(midsummer), water temperature (over 25 °C, in
Finnish helle) and wind (it needs to be still).
Lastly optic history17 is used to confirm that the
big bream fish enter the bays (“you can see their
fins”).
During the times of damaged watershed an-
other human impact was restocking. A male
fisherman in his 60s observed that:
“Until 2008 or 2009 and when pikeperch start-
ed to flourish in the lake due to restocking, we
used to fish with winter nets in the deep parts
of the lake…Across the deep part. Then we
started to wonder as the nets were three meters
tall and in the lower part, perhaps for a half a
meter or a meter, a brown rust colour emerged.
We could not wash it off with anything. Usually
we checked nets once a week and if there was
a pikeperch on the lower part of the net and it
had gone into the bottom mud its gills and
mouth were filled with this rust goo.”
(Snowchange Alavi Oral History Archive 130912)
In this narrative fisherman has identified the re-
stocking as a source of subsistence fishery. He
continued the winter net fishing and made obser-
vations of the deep part of the lake, more specifi-
cally about a phenomenon of emerging goo from
the deep. It had impacted pikeperch caught in the
nets. Regarding other species, observations of
birds can be seen in the following narrative by a
male, 58 years old:
“I went to the shore where the pier is and duck
had ducklings there, eight of them. Swans, usually
two pairs. There was a crane and a swan nests
close to each other here in the bay of Iso Rapalah-
ti. But some autumns ago swans stopped here on
the bay and I am not lying, they must have been in
their thousands...the bay was all white. Last Au-
tumn this was not the case however.”
(Snowchange Alavi Oral History Archive 220612)
Some of the fishermen along the watershed
have observed events and phenomena that they
cannot explain easily, as is the case in a narrative
told by a fisherman in his 60s:
“I went to fish towards Kissapuro creek and it was
a still morning. To my big surprise I heard kind of
splashing, water splashes, and I was thinking it
must be breams spawning. Then I rowed closer
and I noticed that a bay covered with weeds and
grasses produced these great bubbles of air.”
(Snowchange Alavi Oral History Archive 130912)
In this oral history fisherman is visiting an area
he knows well. Sounds are heard and he positions
them to the seasonal event for the bream spawn-
ing. To his surprise this is not the case, as it is un-
explainable bubbles emerging from the lake bot-
tom to the surface. The polluted waters contrast
with the memories from the deep knowledge of a
cleaner watershed.
The surviving local knowledge systems act as a
pool of self-reflection too. An 80-year-old fisher-
man, who also worked as a farmer from the 1940s
to 2010s, says regarding the draining of mires and
creation of ditches that:
“I believe some kind of a matter has flowed from
the forests, and I have to confess that I have played
a part in it too myself…as the waters have flowed
through my fields and we have used fertilizers to
make them fertile. These fertilizers are accumulat-
ing and start to grow hay on the lakeshores, and
then waves bring these substances to the shores…
it was not there when I was a child…It used to be
clear sandy beaches, now there is soft and muddy
86 FENNIA 191: 2 (2013)Tero Mustonen
materials in meters at the bottom, in my shore
over four meters deep, they say those researchers
who have made drilling samples there.”
(Snowchange Alavi Oral History Archive 171012)
This part has focused on surviving elements of
local knowledge in the context of Jukajoki as a
damaged river and watershed from 1930s to
2010s. Subsistence fishermen continue to make
observations that have relevance for the whole
river and lake. They also observe throughout their
fishing areas anomalies like the lack of oxygen,
presence of iron, and unexplainable chemical pro-
cesses in the form of bubbles. Lastly those in the
community who lived through the state-sponsored
alteration campaigns of ecosystems, especially
mire drainages, reflect on the damages and posi-
tion themselves as a part of the problem, admitting
that mistakes were made.
Jukajoki as a dream river
Three readings of rivers embedded in the local knowl-
edge have been identified and categorized according
to the amount of human impacts the watershed has
received. Lastly, an element of the local ecological
knowledge that contains multiple “time-spaces” is ex-
plored.
During the oral history documentation work some
of the older ladies (in their 70s to 80s) in the villages
were interviewed. These women from the lake and
riverside spoke openly about what has been called
with various terms, including “sacred”, “hidden” or
“mystical” elements that local knowledge may have.
For example the role of dreams as an information tool
to know about things to come is central to this pro-
cess. Sheridan and Longboat (2006) as representa-
tives of Indigenous societies have ventured the fur-
thest in academic literature and made the claim that
instead of forming “socio-ecological systems”, those
humans with rooted connections with their home ar-
eas belong to those places – meaning there are con-
nections that exist beyond the Euclidean (Ettlinger
2011) readings of time and space.
Such elements are present in one oral history we
recorded in late summer 2010 when the damages
were most pronounced. This older woman from the
village of Selkie is known in the region for her knowl-
edge of the local tradition. She fished for salmon as a
young girl with her father in 1930s. Through 1930s to
1950s she was able to meet and listen to the oral
knowledge from one of the last publicly known ti-
etäjä, a spiritual person of Selkie, who lived in Pal-
ovaara. She told me18:
I was remembering Jukajoki and all those experi-
ences that came to my mind, and then I saw this
dream the other night, and in this dream we were
walking along the river…It was on the meadow
[next to the river], to the right at the bridge, to-
wards river Pielisjoki. I do not remember who was
with me. Perhaps my father or someone else. The
meadow had turned into humus, turned upside
down, it was no longer a meadow. And this river
Jukajoki was as narrow as it is today for a stretch
of one kilometre. But [the river] was filled up with
soil or with some kind of mud which had dried up
there. All of a sudden the river widened up into its
former width and there was a sandy bottom–
though no water at all. And in such form it flowed
to the river Pielisjoki. I remember also in the
dream that I became so glad when I saw that there
was sand and that the river is wide again; I gave a
shout in the dream, that there is sand here! And
thus it ended.
(Snowchange Selkie Oral History Archive 300810)
While the more specific meanings of this event
will remain within the community, what is note-
worthy is that as this oral history demonstrates the
people and the river have very sensitive and inti-
mate connections that can manifest as dreams. The
old woman sees the different stages of life of the
river from the salmon stream, through the damages
of today into things that are perhaps yet to come, a
sandy, wide, healthy river. Such power stories of
intimate connections that local people may have
demonstrated that their knowledge is not only a
set of observations. Instead it can be read as a
wide-ranging “cosmovision” where past, present
and possible futures create non-Euclidean (Et-
tlinger 2011) renderings of time-spaces that need
to be assessed carefully and within their cultural
matrixes.
Conclusions - Integrated ecosystem
management in heavily damaged
post-industrial watersheds in Finland
through co-management
Lastly the questions of management of the water-
shed were explored in the corpus of the 35 oral
histories collected between 2010 and 2012. Local
people of Alavi and Selkie have witnessed, as is
evident, the events, which have happened, they
have been involved in some of them through
workforce (Snowchange Alavi Oral History Ar-
chive 171012) or instigators of change (ibid.) as is
the case with lowering the waterlevels of lake Ju-
FENNIA 191: 2 (2013) 87Oral histories as a baseline of landscape restoration
kajärvi. They have also witnessed impacts from
imposed industrial uses of land as is the case of
fish deaths as a result of peat production. How do
they then think of “integrated ecosystem manage-
ment” in heavily damaged areas in their own
terms?
In those oral histories that are presented here,
answers range from a set of technical-land use de-
cisions into governance. The former is present in
the narrative of a male, 58 years, from Alavi:
“In my view it would be most important to tackle
the existing ditches that have been done back in
the old days, the forest and mire draining, they
should be the target of the first set of actions.
There should be proper dam structures and less-
ening of water flow to the extent that that organic
matter, the solid matter in the flow, would stay in
the pools of the dams…Regarding the field zones,
there should be protective zones that are manda-
tory today, the pressure coming from the water-
shed to the lakes should be fixed, and then we
could start to consider the water levels, dredging
and cutting hay, and fishing for ´coarse fish’, if
there was a need, and that is about all there is to
it…”
(Snowchange Alavi Oral History Archive 220612)
In this view the local man positioned the role of
surrounding watershed as a primary target of re-
storative actions prior to actions on the lake and
river itself. Instalment of dams to control the or-
ganic and solid matters flowing from the ditches
and the proper zones to the fields could control
the damages according to him. Dredging and oth-
er management options on the lake would only
come later.
In another narrative a male subsistence fisher-
man in his 60s linked governance (Ettlinger 2011)
to the responsibility that both society and the local
communities have:
“Around the lake there are several villages and
joint management would presuppose good and
clear cooperation between these communities…
perhaps if there was a joint cooperative body to
which representatives of different villages would
be chosen to…I do not know what such govern-
ance would mean to us if it became…but at least
it would mean that this [cooperative body] would
collect information and observations about the
lake and would see a range of uses and values for
the lake…A joint land ownership…what would
be the economic building blocks for such a thing
or to a governance…It is a process we ought to
consider and think about. But all in all the future
of the lake depends on funds from society at large
to repair this lake, because those that have caused
all of this remain active in the watershed and so-
ciety has received funds through their activities,
such as through forestry…A joint responsibility
should be clear in the sense that the impacts are
taken care of too, all of what they have caused. It
is almost the same, we can compare this to the
large sawmill sites in North Karelia or former gas
stations…in those locations the environment was
totally ruined due to the company and what they
did, so in fact it is the society that has to pay for
these impacts. We can make a direct comparison
to here, this environment has been heavily used
and we can see the impacts here, I cannot believe
the local people would have the financial resourc-
es to correct these results by themselves.”
(Snowchange Alavi Oral History Archive 130912)
In this oral history there are several key con-
cepts that link almost precisely to the definitions of
a co-management regime proposed by Carlsson
and Berkes (2005). Firstly the person identifies the
need of the villages to be in close proximity to
each other. Secondly he drafts an organ that would
be a joint representative body in a future arrange-
ment for cooperative management. However he
has no experiences from such events so he is not
yet quite sure what does it mean but at least it
should collect “information and observations”, re-
ferring to both science and local knowledge of
oral histories. Lastly the person identifies responsi-
bilities, saying that the local people cannot possess
resources for the damages caused by the industrial
activities.
Carlsson and Berkes (2005) identified the co-
management of a given territory as a power-shar-
ing arrangement. Berkes (2012) while discussing
fisheries called for “fuzzy” and “clumsy” solutions
on the basis that ecosystem change, including im-
pacts of climate change (Arctic Council 2005), re-
quire us to think outside the box. The local oral
histories collected from the local people in the
empirical materials link autonomously similar
needs for the Jukajoki watershed and go on to
identify how it should be organised and providing
mandates for local knowledge observations to be
included in the valid sources of decisions regard-
ing this area. They reposition a village as an actor
regarding its lands, manifesting traditional govern-
ance through possible co-management arrange-
ments. Importantly enough such proposals emerge
from the oral histories of people living in ecosys-
tems, or socio-ecological systems that have been
affected by a full range of modern and industrial
activities, causing severe damages. It means that
88 FENNIA 191: 2 (2013)Tero Mustonen
the communal arrangements and knowledge re-
garding the watershed has lasted through the vari-
ous stages of this process and are re-emerging,
again strengthening the argument for non-Euclidi-
an readings of time-space if viewed from the grass-
roots subsistence level.
Discussion
The purpose of the paper was to explore (mis-)
management in the context of severe ecosystem
damage on the river Jukajärvi and adjacent water-
shed. More specifically, questions emerged on
what are the possibilities that Finnish local knowl-
edge embedded in oral histories can provide as a
source of information both on current events and
as a baseline material for restoration actions? Sec-
ondly, in the light of international scholarship,
what are the needs and advantages for a collabora-
tive management of Jukajoki?
This article has explored local oral histories and
selected communal written texts and their role in
the severely damaged watershed of Jukajoki [and
adjacent lake Jukajärvi watershed] located in Kon-
tiolahti and Joensuu municipalities, North Karelia,
Finland. All in all 35 narratives were collected
2010−2012. Four narratives have been presented
in this paper as an example of the materials. Em-
pirical materials have been analysed using the
framework of both integrated ecosystem manage-
ment and co-management proposed by Carlsson
and Berkes (2005) and Berkes (2012). Three read-
ings of the river Jukajoki and the adjacent water-
shed emerged from the materials – Sámi times,
Savo-Karelian times and times of damages, or the
industrial age on the river.
In the case of Jukajoki, the local knowledge
played a crucial role in detecting fish death, and as
the oral and optic histories were documented be-
tween 2010−2012 many additional observations
on health of watershed were discovered. It pro-
vided information about pre-industrial fisheries,
fish ecology and behaviour and bird habitats. The
oral histories contain non-Euclidean, or specific
categories and ways of discussing the area and
species. Such cultural texts range from spawning
times of bream fish as an indicator of lake use into
intimate, mystical connections in dreams regard-
ing the river. These are, as indigenous scholars
have proposed (Sheridan & Longboat 2006) as an
intimate interconnection between nature and root-
ed human societies possibly extending beyond no-
tions of social-ecological systems (Berkes & Ross
2013).
Empirical oral histories also conceptualized col-
laborative management with a formal role of local
ecological knowledge as a future management op-
tion for the Jukajoki watershed. Watershed restora-
tion and baseline information it needs benefits
greatly from the oral histories recorded with peo-
ple who still remember pre-industrial and pre-war
ecosystems and their qualities, as suggested by
Martinez (2011). The current times with multiple,
layered interests for the area of the watershed need
to be coordinated better to avoid further damages,
and collaborative management could be devel-
oped to achieve that goal.
Berkes (1999, 2012) highlights local or tradi-
tional knowledge as being a crucial basis for such
systems of collaborative management and inclu-
sion of a larger knowledge base in fisheries. Many
of the examples he draws on such as Sub-Arctic
Canada (ibid. 1999), marine fisheries and tropical
regions discuss mostly indigenous populations
which position their knowledges in a marked dif-
ference with the mainstream or state expert knowl-
edge. Often also the land base and uses of these
communities differ from the mainstream society.
In the case of Eastern Finland, exportability is-
sue emerges while applying the frameworks of
Berkes (1999) and colleagues (Carlsson & Berkes
2012). The ownership of land, composition and
role of kylä -communities in rural Finland and the
invisibility of subsistence and even commercial
fisheries (Mustonen 2009) practices in relationship
to the state decision making provide an exciting,
emerging inquiry filled with tensions, expectations
and possibilities20. For the future, next steps of in-
vestigating the role and scales of local knowledge
in Jukajoki point to a need of a land use and oc-
cupancy mapping, as this could be a potential tool
to bring forwards the “unseen” realities from
ground up. While maps are always limited, two-to-
three dimensional representations of a much wid-
er multi-dimensional reality, they are a tool that
administrators and companies understand.
Lastly the use of oral histories may (Macdonald
2000) provide us with radically new and relevant
readings of nature and human societies, which al-
low more sustainable societies to emerge. For East-
ern Finland, this potential should be explored in a
systematic manner for a wide range of communi-
ties engaged in subsistence uses of land. As a resi-
dent of the Jukajoki watershed, the oral history and
ecological restoration work along the river and
FENNIA 191: 2 (2013) 89Oral histories as a baseline of landscape restoration
lake has been a tremendous journey into a land-
scape pulsating with lived (Ingold 2000) stories,
human experiences and our living tradition, so of-
ten pronounced dead.
NOTES
1 Majority of watershed and post-peat production
restorative actions in Finland rest on natural scienc-
es-based options. See e.g. Pellikka (2001).
2 This document, a village book, contains both sum-
maries of scientific studies of the natural conditions
in Selkie, as well as stories, reflections, poems and
songs written by the villagers. The latter group repre-
sent ”communal texts” – materials authored by the
residents in the village.
3 This statement emphasizes the need to experience,
with various senses, the places of dwelling and oc-
cupancy as opposed to seeing them as linear time-
spaces.
4 To name a few overlapping processes, a copper
and gold mine exploration licence has been pro-
vided on an area that contains protected areas, fish-
eries, forestry zones, a village habitation of
Heinävaara, hunting territories, a railroad and so on.
Furthermore, all industrial uses of the land are built
on rather Euclidean notions of time-space.
5 Priority, in the form of publicity, public support
and infrastructure is given often to large-scale natu-
ral resources extraction land uses over other activi-
ties in North Karelia.
6 Here the non-euclidean space refers to multiple,
culturally-grounded understandings of places in
space, which are not bound (Massey 2009). They
may manifest in and through dream experiences, al-
tered states of consciousness, long-term experiences
with a river through fisheries and so on. Most impor-
tantly, they put the emphasis on the groundedness
of the human experience of space (Ingold 2004). I
am arguing that the local oral histories focusing on
relationships with watersheds from on-going village
life in Eastern Finland is to a large extent unex-
plored, exciting representation of a time-space that
needs to be further investigated. It contains continu-
ums of tradition in the middle of lost traditions of
Finnish society, such as the role of dreams in con-
nection with a landscape.
7 Both commercial and subsistence in the case of
Jukajoki.
8 Other innovative materials can include old maps,
aerial and other photographs, written historical nar-
ratives, catch records or diary entries. In Finland the
ecological restoration plans tend to lead towards
natural sciences with oral histories dismissed as
”anecdotes” or supplementary data (see Mustonen
et al. 2010).
9 Use and/or abuse of power depends on the point
of view. Those in power, when using it, may produce
results in the targets of power, if this relationship is
asymmetrical and without checks and balances. The
local communities in rural Finland have very little
possibilities to contribute to uses of power within
village territories (kylä), as there is no legal context
for it. Villages are only represented through third
sector associations.
10 The full oral history corpus regarding Jukajärvi
and Jukajoki watersheds is located at the Snow-
change oral history archive, www.snowchange.org
as well as the affected individuals. All in all the cor-
pus contains over 1,000 pages of documented oral
histories from July 2010 to December 2012. Cultur-
al texts here include oral histories, diary entries from
the villages, written lay texts and other narratives,
which emerge in the local context and community.
11 They have been qualitatively chosen based on the
information related to past fisheries and tradition,
relationship with landscape and watershed and last-
ly, thoughts for the better management of the eco-
system. This choice reflects the role Martinez (2011)
puts on those oral histories, which are relevant for a
comprehensive ecosystem assessment, leading to
restoration. These texts are not exhaustive, others
could have been chosen.
12 Siidas were and to certain extent still are the Sámi
indigenous tribal communities prior to large-scale
colonial influences. They had specific territories,
and governance bodies, such as the Eastern Sámi
sobbar village council.
13 Aikio (1992) makes the case of multiple Sami ”na-
tions” in this part of Finland – however, no historical
records exist to confirm or deny this claim. If com-
pared with other existing, specific Sami peoples, it
seems clear that ”nations” could exists side-by-side
within a fairly small territorial base, see more for
Eastern Sámi siidas in Mustonen and Mustonen
(2011).
14 The oral histories are available as transscripts and
and audio tapes from the author in Finnish.
15 The Finnish local fisheries are organised as
osakaskunta – local fisheries bodies consisting of lo-
cal people who can decide issues related to permits
and stocking, for the most part. They have very lim-
ited powers.
16 Knowledge-practice-belief complex as defined by
Berkes (1999). However the questions of belief as-
pect of the knowledge apparatus require further re-
search in the Eastern Finnish communities and await
future research.
17 Optic histories are an exciting and emerging field
of engagement with subsistence and other fisher-
men on their observations of ecosystem change.
Mustonen and Feodoroff (2013) provide a number
of definitions and uses of the term – it refers to visu-
ally observed events narrated using oral history, but
also to digital photos taken by practitioners them-
selves on their terms of change that they position as
meaningful. Ingold (2004) hints at this direction
with the emphasis on felt and grounded experiences
as a source of information.
18 I have reviewed the use of this sequence of her
90 FENNIA 191: 2 (2013)Tero Mustonen
oral history in detail with her for public use several
times and she has approved it, saying that it is im-
portant these issues are discussed too.
19 Peat production, forestry and gravel companies.
20 In Finland the role and scales of local knowledge
embedded for example in fish harvest data is mostly
located in the Sámi areas. Differences between lo-
cal and indigenous knowledges in Finland have
been discussed in Mustonen and Feodoroff (2013).
In short, the Sámi knowledge contains elements of
surviving ways of cosmologies and interactions with
nature that have for the most part been broken in the
Finnish communities as communal exercises. To
what extent such knowledge and practices can be
revived, see more the Conclusions section in
Mustonen (2009).
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This article has been made possible by the Turvetuo-
tanto ja vesistövaikutusten hallinta: Relevanteista fak-
toista tehokkaisiin normeihin/WATER MANAGE-
MENT AND PEAT PRODUCTION: From the Relevant
Facts to Effective Norms (WAPEAT) (Suomen Akatemi-
an hanke 263465) Project. I am thankful to the two
anonymous reviewers who provided crucial com-
ments to the manuscript. I am also thankful to Dennis
Martinez, Kaisu Mustonen, Ari Lehtinen, Hilkka
Heinonen, John Macdonald, Pirkko and Veikko Sil-
tala, Leena Leskinen and Terho Törrönen as well as all
the interviewed people for their helpful contributions
to the framing and writing of the text.
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