FISKARS 1649 – 360 years of Finnish industrial history

Fiskars 1649
Fiskars 1649
Preparing kindling and fire
wood at the rock face, stages
in an early method of ore
extraction.
The Fiskars ironworks used mainly ore from
the Utö mines in the outer Stockholm archipelago.
Utö was one of Sweden’s oldest iron ore mines and
is mentioned in King Gustavus Vasa’s land register
of 1559. Finns, Södermanlanders and Norrlanders
had the right to extract ore from the Utö mines.
The particular mine used by the Finns was called
Finngruva (Finns’ mine). From Utö, the ore was
transported to Fiskars on ships or lighters owned
or rented by the ironworks, first to the port of
Pohjankuru and from there, on smaller barges,
along the Fiskars River to the ironworks.
Making iron from ore in blast furnaces
Along the Fiskars River, there were three rapids.
The heavy crusher hammers on the eastern bank of
the lower rapids were powered by a water-wheel.
The chunks of ore were first crushed here, although
in Fiskars the ore was sometimes crushed by hand
since the hammers could not be used during the
dry season.
The crushed ore was then taken to the Fiskars
blast furnace, built on the western bank of the
lower rapids. Before loading into the furnace, it
was roasted and ground. It was then lifted onto the
furnace ‘ring’, where the charging took place.
In addition to iron ore, limestone and charcoal
were also needed for the blast furnace. The charcoal
was produced in kilns. The wood for burning was
first stacked in large conical heaps and covered
with earth. Once the kiln was fired, a slow burning
The charcoal used in the blast furnaces was made by burning wood in kilns. The picture shows different stages of this work in
the 18th century.
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