Finland’s era of kelo wood construction ends as material runs out
Finland’s centuries-old tradition of building with kelo—naturally dried, standing dead pine—has effectively come to an end, reports Finnish public broadcaster Yle. The country’s two leading kelo construction firms say they can no longer source the material, marking the close of a near 50-year boom in the craft.
Olli Möttönen, owner of Huliswood in Karstula, one of the last specialized kelo workshops, now faces empty shelves where stacks of the prized silver-grey timber once stood. “In practice, we can no longer get building material,” he told Yle. The company’s final domestic shipment arrived in March, with reserves expected to last only through this year. From 2025, Huliswood will shift focus to conventional log construction.
Marko Puustinen, CEO of Kelorakennus Puustinen in Iisalmi, confirmed the same reality: “We have enough stock for this year, but next year it’s over.” His firm, like Möttönen’s, relied heavily on Russian imports—cut off by the war in Ukraine—while Finland’s own forests no longer yield viable kelo in meaningful quantities. What little remains is typically left standing to support biodiversity, though current forestry guidelines do not explicitly prohibit its harvest.
Experts attribute the shortage to a century of intensive logging. Tuomas Aakala, professor of forest disturbance ecology at the University of Eastern Finland, called kelo a “non-renewable resource” under modern conditions. “We’ve known for decades that saved trees today won’t become kelo,” he said, noting that natural drying now requires rare events like forest fires—largely suppressed in managed lands. Panu Halme of the Finnish Environment Institute added that the disappearance of kelo reflects broader declines in unprotected old-growth forests: “A huge share of kelo-specialized species are threatened. That alone shows how few are left.”
Kelo’s rise as a luxury material began in the 1980s, fueled by Lapland’s tourism boom. Möttönen’s collaborations with top Finnish designers produced kelo saunas, restaurants, and spas exported globally, with peak demand in Central Europe, the U.S., and Japan. Even now, inquiries persist—recently from a New York interior architect seeking kelo for a Montana spa—but Möttönen must decline: “Unfortunately, it’s no longer possible.”
The last significant stands of building-grade kelo survive only in protected areas like Pyhä-Häki National Park. Artificial attempts to replicate the wood in the 1980s failed; forced drying yielded inferior color and texture. With Russia’s own kelo stocks dwindling and no new supply emerging, Finland’s tradition faces extinction—leaving behind only remnants in national parks and a legacy of craftsmanship now frozen in time.