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Rovaniemi
has a coulourful past, a town full of life and events, right on the
Arctic Circle. The town's history goes way back 8 000 years and into
the Stone Age the remains of such settlements can be found from the
town environment and along the River Kemijoki.
Rovaniemi was freed from the grip of the continental ice sheet over 9
000 years ago. The raised Baltic Sea waves have swashed over the
Rovaniemi district once as the fresh water Ancylus Lake when only the
highest peaks formed islands, once as the surging waves of the Litornia
sea, from beneath which the town of Rovaniemi revealed itself a little
under 7 000 years ago. The Rovaniemi bedrocks is ancient bedrock, a
root system eroded deep into an ancient mountain range. The hills
surroundins the town are made from hard quartz, created a couple of
million years ago.
However, already as far back as the Ancylus Lake period (7000-8500
B.C.), the first people, hunting and collecting folk came to shore on
what is today called Ounasvaara, then a sandy island shore.
The settlement oh the Lapps or Sámi probably began in a number of areas
already in prehistoric times and continued through to the Middle Ages
in more remote districts. The Rovaniemi region still had Sámi
habitation in the eighteenth century. Sámi nomenclature in the
Rovaniemi region, and the fact that it is still used by Finns, is a
result of long and peaceful dealings between the Sámi and Northern
Ostrobothnian settlers.
The origins of Rovaniemi's permanent peasant settlements date back to
the twelfthand thirteenth centuries. The Hämäläinen tribes, altough
renowned for being "slow", had a decisive impact on the first
settlements in Rovaniemi. Settlemenst grew and expanded. In addition to
the Hämäläinens, Finns, South-western Finns, White Sea people, Swedes,
Norwegians, Kainuu people and Germans also came to settle in the
Rovaniemi district. So, quite a mix of different tribes made up the
settlers of Rovaniemi. With the growth and expansion of settlements,
the Sámi moved away or blended with the settlers.
With the diversity of the settling tribes, the Rovaniemi dialect was
also diverse, that along with the other Northern Ostrobothnian
dialects, belongs to the Western dialect, yet it also has Eastern
influences. The dialect has some borrowed words from Sámi language, a
touch of Swedish and a hint of German (nomenclature) including some
South-western Finnish, Hämäläinen, Satakunta, Karelia, Ostrobothnian
and Savo dialects. Each settler and traveller has brought along his or
her own dialect, therefore making the local dialect just that little
bit more colourful. The language and dialects live and are shaped by
the times. The old Rovaniemi dialect is not really heard anymore, those
with the dialect are either aged or departed from this world, having
taken the dialects along with them. Just as years ago when the settlers
spread troughout Rovaniemi, a variety of dialects were also heard in
the streets, and the same is true today. Students and today's settlers
that come from all over Finland to live in the town bring their own
dialects along with them.
The Rovaniemi of 1490, then named Ruanim, was first mentioned in
documentation as a village that belonged to the Great Kemi Parish.
Despite its great natural bounty, rivers plentiful with salmon,
hundreds of water meadows and plentiful farming, life in Rovaniemi was
not that easy. Sometimes nature tested the resilience of the peasant,
sometimes it was the enemies that proves awkward. In 1578, each of the
25 buildings in Rovaniemi were destroyed, and in 1611 the irksome
Russians, when calm had been already been restored, attacked Rovaniemi
once more and burned the 20 buildings that had been constructed by the
time.
Despite adversity, the people of Rovaniemi rebuilt their buildings and
village and it developed and prospered. When Rovaniemi was separated
from the Kemi Parish in 1875, life in the parish village became busier
and gained new forms with the increase in trade. Rovaniemi's location
at the confluence of two great rivers assisted the transportation of
goods and traffic to Rovaniemi and the North.
The parish was awarded market rights in then early 1880s signifying the
strenghtening of Rovaniemi's commercial status. At the turn of the
century, the market events were important commercial happenings in
Rovaniemi. The parish village attracted folk from all over the country
and the neighbouring countires, furs and goods exchanged hands , stalls
were set up throughout the streets of the village and almost every
building offered makeshift accommodation for the market goers.
When the great logging age of Lapland began in the late 1870s,
Rovaniemi became a centre for timber trade. The population expanded and
the spring filled the rivers with timber logs destined for the stream
sawmills in the South, but naturally caused a few problems for the
salmon fishing economy. The timber and salmon dams naturally didn't fit
in the same river. At first, restricyions were put on log floating to
protect salmon fishing economy had to give way to the log floating
activities. The last nail in the coffin for the centuries old salmon
fishing culture was the harnessing of the Kemijoki River.
Rovaniemi received its first elementary school in 1870. The whole
concept of elementary schooling was strongly opposed by the villagers.
Folk were of the opinion that schooling was unnecessary, and there were
plenty of parish catechetical meetings to teach people how to read and
write, and on top of all that, they believed children would learn to
become lazy at school.
Already back in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century
Rovaniemi was envisaged as becoming a town even though the place was
not even a registered parish villageat that time. The completion of the
railway in 1909 brought "train import" people to Rovaniemi as the
villagers affectionally called them, who settled in the parrish village
giving more hope to the village becoming a town. These hopes were
fulfilled however decades later. Rovaniemi officially became a market
town in 1929, with a population of over 5 000.
The Second World War brought total destruction to Rovaniemi once again.
In the Lapland War, the Germans suffered great losses, yet
while retreating, still managed to cause significant economic damage to
Rovaniemi and the Province of Lapland as they burned and destroyed
almost everything in their path. The Rovaniemi market town was left
with only 17 buildings. Reconstruction began in lapland and Rovaniemi after the War in 1946 and reached completion in the early 1950s.
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