Finland, Peräseinäjoki, Migration Museum, the Australian Cane Cutters' Barrack from Queensland

If you ever travel to Seinäjoki area in Finland, you can find a fascinating location to visit in the form of the Migration Museum in Peräseinäjoki, just a few kilometers from the city.

A location is a logical place for a Migration Museum in Finland as most of the early emigration to America was from this part of Finland. Many people left the country to earn a better living in America or South America.

However, about 40% of the migrants returned to Finland. Many emigrated several times in hopes for a better life. My own great grandfather went to America five times to work at the mines before settling back to Finland for good.

They contributed to the Finnish economy by building houses and starting small businesses around this region. With them, they brought new entrepreneurial ideas and technology. Seinäjoki and it's surroundings became very prosperous because of emigration.

The Migration Museum is a work in process and it is currently situated in a few places around Peräseinäjoki. Most of the collected items are in the city centre.

However, the most interesting part to me are the buildings that have been moved from some of the regions where Finnish people have emigrated to over the last two hundred years.

We visited two of them: the house that John G. Annala built with his 'American money' and what was of the most interest to me, the Cane Cutters' Barrack that was donated from the North of Queensland in Australia.

I had been following the progress of this Barrack and it's journey to Finland as I have friends up North and know something of the history of the Finnish migrants at Tully-Ingham region.

The Tully Finnish Society is the oldest of the Finnish Associations in Australia. I have heard a lot of interesting stories about the Finnish cane cutters there. Apparently they were there in large numbers in the early 20th Century. There were well over 100 of them at any one time during the early years.

The project of dismantling a Barrack from Ingham and donating it to the Finnish Migration Museum has been a complicated process. Due to the size of the building and a lot of bureaucracy, it took several years for it to be sent to Finland. Mikko Hietikko, the current representative of the Asian-Pacific Finnish Societies did a lot of work before the project was completed.

However, here it is! As a result of compassionate and dedicated people from far North of Queensland, the Migration Museum in Finland can display an original Australian building that holds a lot of memories for many generations of Finns in Australia and Finland.

The building was completed in 2010.It forms a part of fascinating history of Finnish and Scandinavian emigration to Australia and Pacifica. It is well worth a visit.


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