The Lake Boats of Finland

Tero Mustonen has a sharp eye for the small craft known simply as “lake boats” in Finland. He runs an organization, Snowchange, that, among other things, strives to protect commercial and recreational lake fisheries in which the traditional lapstrake rowing skiffs and their descendants still play a central role.

On one mosquito-thick evening, Mustonen rows a lake boat—in this case a modern fiberglass version—onto a remote lake to check a fish trap. “We don’t know what fish are in this lake,” he says, “so the trap is to help find out what’s here.” He lands one pike. When we return to shore, he points out a wooden version of  this iconic Finnish skiff lying upside down across two logs. At about 15' long and lapstrake-planked (or “clinker-built,” as they say here), it is typical. “It’s a good example of what can be done,” Mustonen says as he runs his hand along the edge of a plank, “but by no means a masterpiece.”

Lake boats have sharply curved stems and sweeping sheerlines. For centuries, such boats have been the workhorses of the lakes of Karelia, a culturally distinct region of eastern Finland. Even in its language, the area shares Uralic linguistic roots that are rare in Europe, surviving only in Finland, Estonia, and Hungary: “We are, in a linguistic way, the westernmost outpost of Siberia,” Mustonen says. Culturally, Karelia spans the border between Finland and Russia, and, despite the area’s difficult history, lake boats are ubiquitous on both sides of the border.