Abstract

This article reviews the formation of the idea of national parks in Finland between the 1880s and 1910s. It argues that both the term and the concept of national park evolved in a long-lasting deliberative process between competing definitions. The main actors in this process were geographers, forestry scientists and NGOs devoted to popular education and the promotion of tourism. As a result of the debates, iconic landscapes and species were located in Finnish nature inside the wholly artificial boundaries of the national parks. Eventually, both the science and tourism poles of the decades-long debate were incorporated into the plans and visions for Finland’s national parks in the early twentieth century. The national park debate between the 1880s and 1910s focused mainly on landscapes, land formations and vegetation zones, and not so much on the wildlife or indeed the people who lived inside these areas.