Tar and plank
Before mobile communication technology and engineering products Finland’s contribution to the world trade was based almost exclusively on wood and its processing.
Tar exports was followed by timber exports
At first there was fur hunting in the forests, followed by the first volume product of tar in the 1600s. Shipments of tar linked Finland from the Northern fringes of Europe with the major ship building centres of the continent. It can be said that Finnish tar played an important part inthe first globalization wave as an impregnation agent for instance in Dutch and British sailing ships.
Various wood products such as logs, beams, posts and from the 1700s onwards also sawn timber like battens and boards offered raw materials and building goods for the building of towns and cities, mining work and shipyards.
It has been said that the forests and the close relationship with nature have been shaping the Finnish psyche and the way to see the surrounding world. At the same time the commercial and industrial utilisation of forests have formed the foundation for economic activities and linked Finnish trade with the rest of the world.
The era of water sawmills and thinner saw blades
Wealthy European ship owners started to export sawn timber in large quantities to the Low Countries, Britain and the Mediterranean.
Finnish water sawmills, which got their energy from the rapids, had improved their production with a new innovation called Dutch sawn blades from early 1700s onwards.
Wood in various forms was the basis for the economy. Coal made from wood was an important source of energy for the iron works and the fire wood kept the dwellings warm in the winter time up until the 1900s. Wood was also used for the buildings, tools, various technical constructions and machinery – even the plates, cups and kitchen utilities were made of wood. Wood was also a component for the distillery of alcohol.
From water mills to steam mills at 17th century
First came better and bigger sailing ships, then steam ships. In Finland this development facilitated the further development of forest industries. There were increased market opportunities created by liberal policies governing the forestry industries and commerce in Finland, on the other hand lower import duties in the European countries suffering from deforestation paved the way for the Finnish industries.
Up until this point in Finland, sawmilling was strictly governed in many ways, but especially by allowing the use of steam in sawmilling around the year 1860 was an important milestone for the industry. Previous limitations in sawmilling were based largely on the fear of depletion of forested areas – which had taken place especially in many industrialised European countries.
Old technologies seldom vanish quickly, a good example of this is the change from water sawmills to steam sawmills. The overall share of production volume of water sawmills was almost 90% in 1863, a decade later it was still almost half of the total. After the sawmilling boom in the late 1880s water sawmills produced still about one third and at the turn of the Century it was one seventh.
The sawmill industry increased at a fast pace throughout the 1900s. The steam sawmill era production record of 1 Million cubic meters in 1876, was fivefold compared with the 1860s –when sawmills got their power from streams and rapids. In four decades (1927) the production figure rose to 7 Million cubic million thanks to the emergence of steam sawmills.
The breakthrough of the pulp and paper industries in the latter part of 1800s further enhanced Finland’s reputation as a forestry giant, which could supply large quantities of its products for the rest of the world.
