The cornerstone of unity

97 ICE-FISHING
About 9,500 years ago, the Ice Age ended in Finland and the Saimaa-Pielinen basin thawed. The Fenno-Ugrian 
hunters who arrived already around 8,500 years ago understood the value of fish. According to archaeological 
finds, hooks combining wood and bone were made by Fenno-Ugrian people at least as early as 4,000 years ago. 
Weights for angling that have been found in Stone Age settlements show that people already knew how to 
combine a sharp, angling part to a stone which functioned as a weight and a shaft. Sharpened fishing spears 
have also been found in settlements dating back 5,000 years. The line was probably made of e.g. bast fibre, 
nettles, animal veins, or animal hair. The point of a Stone Age ice pick made of elk bone has also been found, so 
evidently the fishermen of the day were capable of breaking through ice. 
Ice fishing for cod and perch has been professionally practised for centuries. Hermann Kauffmann described 
his experiences on Hatanpää Bay in the city of Tampere in his memoirs from 1864 to 1866, describing how on 
winter mornings a number of the town’s craftsmen and burghers gathered to ice fish, or as he puts it “huddle on 
the ice practising this most monotonous of amusem
ents.” They all sat perfectly immobile on ice sledges, and 
nobody seemed to get any fish. The ice sledge was quite essential because at the end of the day the farmhands 
would arrive to pull the weakened burghers back to the town, and I assume that the farmhands were also 
needed to gouge the holes with an ice pick. Kaufman was mistaken however in his assessment of the future 
social importance of ice-
fishing: “This healthy, fun and useful sport, which helped to while away the monotonous 
winter days, is probab
ly gone forever now. The times have changed and we change with them.” 
Ice fishing has always had its opponents. The Grand Duchy of Finland made fishing rules in 1902 that 
prohibited the use of jigs on the grounds that they damaged the fish. At the time, people used fixed hooks that 
foul-
hooked the body of the fish. According to today’s rules, fishermen have to kill fish immediately after catching 
them.
Angling spread rapidly after the war due to the skills that the refugees from Karelia brought with them, the 
clear division between labour and free time caused by industrialisation, and the Fishing Act, which made fishing 

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an everyman’s right. The men who had fought in the war enjoyed ice-fishing “thoroughly”, fuelled as it was said 
to be by liberal amounts of alcohol.
Most Finnish water areas are privately owned and administered by regional fishing authorities, and legislation 
decreed that a permit was required for ice fishing, especially at the beginning of the 1950s. At the time, ice 
fishers spent more time trying to get permits than catch fish. The creation of fishing and ice-fishing associations 
made it considerably easier to get permits, however, and also served to defend the fishing rights of those who 
did not possess land and water areas.
In Finnish society there is never any lack of persistence when it comes to fighting for a good cause. When a 
provincial ice fishing permit system was created in 1982, some felt that it would lead to a decline in perch stocks 
and the destruction of private piers and saunas. Similarly, opponents of the 1996 Fishing Act predicted that it 
would have an adverse effect on private property and the Finnish Constitution. As a result, the Constitutional 
Law Committee even had to assert in 1982 that “The fishing right that originates from the possession of a water 
area is a very special form of property”. In fact, small-scale angling and ice fishing allowed by everyman’s rights 
or a provincial or national permit has not had a catastrophic effect on water area owners. From the point of view 
of rural policy, recreational fishing and fishing tourism are a mine of unexploited possibilities. 
From 1997 onwards, angling and ice fishing were included in the legislation for everyman’s rights. This can 
therefore also be changed through future legislation, but it is unlikely that even the most fervent defenders of the 
rights of the owners of water areas want to ever again encounter the combined fervour of 1.5 million amateur 
anglers and ice fishers and question the great benefits of recreational fishing and fishing tourism.
Today’s ice fishers look like astronauts compared to the ice fishers of the 19th century. Their equipment 
includes an ice fishing suit or a survival suit, thermoboots, an auger, seat backpack, plastic and colourful fishing 
rods, coloured single or multifilament fishing lines, sunglasses, a multicoloured and -shaped jig collection, 
various natural or synthetic baits and scents, and a headlamp for burbot fishing at night. Space technology was 
certainly of benefit to ice fishers, for example in the development of synthetic fibres. Brands and trends are part 
of ice fishing nowadays, but the most important thing is staring at the hole in the ice and the rod or discussions 
with friends about how to fix the world’s problems.
Kari Rajamäki 
– Minister of the Interior 2004–2007,
MP 1983 
– 2015