Figure 1.--This undated photograph was taken at a summer camp in Northern Savonia, a region of eastern Finland in the lake areas northeast of Helsinki. We would guess that the photograph was taken about 1930. The children look rather over dressed for summer camp, the girls even wear pinafores. That was not very common at summer camps. They look more like they are dressed for school. Interesting picture. A reader writes, 'The woman at the far right in the group looks dark-skinned as does the girl, presumably her daughter. I know that there is a sizable Swedish minority in Finland, but I wonder where these two came from.' A reader tells us that they are probably Lapps.

Summer camp has become a popular activity for Finnish children. We are not sure when the first summer camp was opened. We do see some camps before World War II. Here we see a camp in the lake distruict of Northern Savonia about 1930 (figure 1). Most of information we have found, however, comes from the post-War era. As far as we can tell, the Finnish summer camp movement is largely a post-World War II development. Our information, however, is still very limited. Before the War, Finland was a largely agricultural rural country. After the War, Finland rapidly industrialized and there was a substantial increase in the urban population. As the core of the summer camp movement was to get city children out into the countryside there they could experrience nature and get fresh air and sunshine.

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Created: 7:03 PM 5/24/2011
Last updated: 12:18 AM 5/26/2011