As a city dweller, my relationship with nature is complex. The city and its pervasive sounds create a sense of security that’s hard to leave behind as I prepare to go to our family’s cottage in Punkaharju. Even upon arrival the restlessness lingers for a while, until about a day later when I begin to soften. I stop counting the days until my return. I venture deeper into the forest. Working with my hands and body begins to open up space within me. The more I do, the freer I feel. Stories begin to surface.

Tove Jansson created a world of her own for herself and her loved ones, where life was divided between the city and the archipelago, dependent on the season. In the archipelago, nothing was grand or ostentatious; everything was designed to offer space to ground oneself and live as freely as possible.

First came Tuuliruusu, a cabin Jansson was deeply involved in designing and building. The brief relationship she had with Vivica Bandler had just ended, and the building project became a way to channel her frustration. After the war, resources were scarce, so Jansson’s uncle in Sweden sent nails to help with the construction. Tuuliruusu quickly became a shared meeting place for the extended family.

Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietilä first got to know each other in 1956. In the early 1960s, they began dreaming of a place for just the two of them. In 1963, they camped on the island of Klovharu and fell in love with the small and temperamental islet. Eventually, their cabin on Klovharu was completed in July 1965.

A cabin in the archipelago is also a space where one cannot avoid confronting their own smallness in relation to nature. There is the sea, which first embraces with softness, and then becomes dangerous and unpredictable. It can trap you, cutting off access to the mainland, until a new calm morning dawns and the passage opens again. And when the opportunity to leave finally comes, one realizes they’ve become attached to both the danger and the serenity, no longer wanting to leave behind what initially made them restless.