Waterways were essential transportation routes in Kuhmo until the latter half of the 20th century. After the tar-burning era, large logging operations and timber rafting (aka log driving) provided employment for many. Felled logs were floated down the waterways towards Kajaani and Oulu, and log booms were used to guide the floating. Loose log driving ended in the Pajakkakoski Rapids after the summer 1972, so the guiding booms and poles upstream the rapids were removed. 

The Finns know their wood – suomalaisen puun tarina englanniksi | Elävä arkisto | yle.fi  

The photo taken from the bell tower shows the Pajakkakoski Rapids in 1938. On the left is the riverbank by the Tuupala estate, in the centre – Hyryntie Road, the Pajakka Bridge and log booms, and on the right, the outbuildings and hayricks of Ikola Parsonage.  

On the south bank of the Pajakkakoski Rapids was a crofter’s cottage of Tuupala called Myllypirtti – a log cabin with a board-built porch. Myllypirtti housed Tuupala’s workers and tenants until the 1950s. There are still remnants of the oven stones of the cabin. 

North of Myllypirtti was the Tuupala Mill. Beside this domestic mill built in 1778, a sawmill was set up here after the mid-1800s. Both buildings burned down in the 1860s. The mill was rebuilt in 1875 and finally demolished in the early 1900s.