Mikkeli Finland
In the 1500s a man named Heikki Tossavainen was travelling around present day Jäppilä, Finland. He finally crossed a lake teeming with brim and perch and found a small island covered in forrest land with plenty of animals to hunt. Nearby grew wild mushrooms and blueberries. It was a good place to raise a family, so he settled down with his wife, built a house, had three sons (Pekka, Paavali and Läuri) and lived there for around 50 years.
Each of his three sons moved on to other parts of Finland to start their own lives and families. One of his grandsons, Markku Tossavainen, ended up in Lievestuore, Finland around an hour west of the original homestead. He worked as a cobbler making shoes in the city.
His son, Olof Tossavainen, was a farmer who was invited by the Swedish King to immigrate to Sweden in 1612. He was among one of three Finnish families invited to settle Dalarna, Sweden.
His son, also named Olof, left the farm. In 1641 he set sale on the Kalmar Nyckel Ship along with other Finnish and Swedish settlers bound for the Swedish colony of New Sweden in present day Delaware, USA.
Eventually, over a period of about a hundred years, the family name transformed into Tussey and members of the family made their way to the Southern United States.
Today, Heikki Tossavanien’s great (x 15ish) grandson came all the way from North Carolina, USA to visit the place where it all began. Josh (who has always had an interest in genealogy) had recently connected with a family association of the Tossavainen family in Finland after tracing his ancestry back to Heikki Tossavanien.
Through the association, Josh was connected with a man named Markku - a distant Finnish cousin - who also traces his family line back to Tossavalansaari Island and it’s original inhabitant, Heikki Tossavanien.
Marrku, his wife Terttu and their dog Wendy drove over an hour to meet up with us and show us to the Island. Markku was part of a project in 2008 to place a marker on the site of the old homeplace.
The land is now owned by someone else, but Markku told us the current owner was very helpful and eager to assist. He found a huge rock/blouder located on another part of the property that was likely around back in Heikki’s day. They moved the rock to the site of the homeplace and placed a plaque identifying it as such.
In Finland, and several other Nordic countries, property laws are very different than in the US. Property is privately owned, but laws allow for anyone to enter and use the property without issue - up to and including, foraging, fishing and camping for one night (no fires, no taking from someone’s garden, no overstaying).
Because of this, we were able to enter the land and walk around after visiting the homestead and marker. Markku and Terttu took us for a nature walk to nearby Syvansi Lake where Heikki and his family would have fished, swam, bathed and gathered water daily. On our way back, they introduced us to wild blueberries (which were very small, but sweet).
Markku and Tettru were so gracious and I couldn’t help but be touched at how welcoming and nice they were to take time out of their lives to host complete strangers from across the world.
After our visit, they gave us a gift of freshly smoked fish, Finnish beer and chocolate - along with all the paper products needed to have a side of the road lunch picnic on our drive back to Mekkeli.
It was the kindest gesture, made even sweeter when they shared that the fish had actually been one they caught themselves on their fishing trip to the countryside the day before.
The fish was phenominal - some of the best we’ve ever had - and the beer and chocolate were throughly enjoyed.
After our visit with Markku and Tettru, we drove a little over an hour back to our cabin in Mekkeli. We spent the rest of the evening at the lake relaxing and using our wooden sauna. Tomorrow we leave the quiet reprieve of our little red lakeside cabin and head to the countries’ biggest city, Helsinki, for the remainder of our trip. I will surely miss this precious time by the lake.
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