Australia, Queensland, Sunshine Coast at Bli Bli; The Finnish Memorial Park

On the Finland Rd at Bli Bli, at the Sunshine Coast, there is a park that would interest the Finnish immigrant population to Australia, if not all the immigrants to Australia. It is the Finnish Memorial Park, created by the Finnish cane cutter families that lived there during the times when cane was still cut at the Sunshine Coast.

It was about 17-years ago that I had last visited this place. Then it was just cane fields, but the place for the park had been selected and the organisers of the planned park were just getting to ordering the memorial sculpture. After much discussion they settled in inviting Martti Väänänen, a sculpturer from Kiiminki in Finland to create the memorial. The park itself was opened in 1997. At the same time it was also donated to the Council for upkeep.

The Finland Rd as such is a long and lumpy ride amongst the last cane fields at Sunshine Coast. Not much of them is left as the new suburbs are born across the coastline. However, it is a delight to suddenly end up in a small, well tendered park that makes one remember those people who came to Australia on ships, after spending weeks on the oceans, and months on the migration centers in the south and ending up in Queensland on the cane fields.

The Migration Museum at Peräseinäjoki in Finland, previously presented on this blog, carries matching information about the emigration of the Finnish people to around the world. I am hearing that more than million Finnish people live permanently abroad.

One of the highlights of the Finnish Migration Museum is the cane cutters cottage that was actually dissembled in Ingham, Queensland and sent to the Museum at Peräseinäjoki, where it was reassembled in a totally new surroundings to the delight of many people interested in the migration history of the people of the area.

The Finnish Memorial Park at Bli Bli carries on the delightful tradition of people building spaces for themselves where they can comfortably meet and have a picnic in memory of the times gone by. I, for one, can very well see this park as a functional meeting place for a family gathering, even a wedding as there is a kind of Finnish style pavilion included in the park just inviting dancing.

When choosing a place where people could meet at Sunshine Coast for a celebration, the Finnish Memorial Park is a good pick. It is well kept, secluded and spacious. See you there sometime on your travels.

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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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