Museum

Nurmes Museum is a cultu­ral history museum that collects, records, exami­nes and presents the local cultu­ral heritage. It was establis­hed in 1948 after the old market town of Nurmes gained a signi­ficant collec­tion of artefacts of cultu­ral and histo­rical impor­tance. Currently, the museum’s collec­tion inclu­des 20,000 artefacts and 80,000 photo­graphs.

The museum opera­tes at two locations: Kötsi Museum in the Nurmes House is open around the year. Ikola is the location of the museum’s storage and working facili­ties and the outdoor Ikola Museum that is open in the summer.

The exhibi­tion at the Ikola Museum showca­ses local agricul­ture, dairy opera­tion, the history of Kuokkas­ten­koski ironworks, and the develop­ment of the fire services. In addition, the basic exhibi­tion contains an entity on the history of Udd’s store that was located at the market square and opera­ted in 1904–2002; the exhibi­tion contains material from the 1960s and the 1970s. There are goats at Ikola that can also be visited outside the opening hours.  Visitors are allowed to take a dog with them to the Ikola Museum’s exhibi­tions. Opening hours and ticket prices will be updated for summer 2022.

Kötsi Museum is located in the Nurmes House desig­ned by archi­tect Erkki Helas­vuo. The basic exhibi­tion of the museum presents the history of Nurmes from various points of view. The space for changing exhibi­tions presents both touring exhibi­tions produced by other museums and changing exhibi­tions that are the museum’s own produc­tion. Kötsi Museum is open Mon–Fri at 10:00 to 16:00. Free entry.

Contact infor­ma­tion:

Ikola Museum +358 40 104 51 54 (map)
Kötsi Museum +358 40 104 51 53 (map)
museo(at)nurmes.fi

Museum Direc­tor Meri Rossan­der +358 40 104 5152 (meri.rossander(at)nurmes.fi)
Curator Laura Hotulai­nen +358 40 104 5151 (laura.hotulainen(at)nurmes.fi)