Finnish Net Rugs

Last week we had a very special presentation about Finnish Net Rugs. Ms. Lansdowne’s aunt makes beautiful rugs and we are very lucky that she agreed to come in and teach us all about them!

Mrs. Orr taught us about the history of the rugs and showed us how she makes them.

Did you Know?

  • The net rug was a Sointula invention
  • Mrs. Helmi Pakkalen noticed the many discarded fishing nets lying  around and knew there had to be a use for them
  • In the beginning the gill nets were made out of cotton, then came 3 ply nylon, and then mono (made more of plastic)
  • There were many discarded nets when the fishermen switched from the 3 ply web to the new mono web
  • The rugs are made by crocheting strands of the gill net together
  • When you cut the nets you get long strings with tails on them
  • The tails make the pile of the rug
  • Mrs. Pakkalen made 400 rugs
  • It takes Mrs. Orr about 40 hours to make a rug
  • Mrs. Orr has made 183 rugs and she has taught many people how to make rugs too
  • The rugs are different colours because fishermen used different coloured nets depending on the colour of the water they were fishing in
  • Gill net rugs are soft and will last a very,very long time!

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Thank you for sharing your beautiful rugs with us!

The Hilltoppers

On May 24th the Hilltoppers visited our school again.  This time they played some traditional Finnish music for us.  As a special surprise two of our community members, Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Syrjala, came along and showed us some of the traditional dances.  We all had a chance to join in the fun too!


We hope that the Hilltoppers will be able to come back and play for us again and we would love it if Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Syrjala would come and teach us to dance!

What types of dances do you like to do?

Museum Trip

Today Ms. Lansdowne took the students on a trip to our local museum. The students had a wonderful time and learned a lot about life in Sointula long ago. They all chose an artifact that was important to them to take a picture of and write about. We will be making a Voicethread about our trip later this week.