This excellent museum is by the Iijoki, whose banks are riddled with important Stone Age settlements. The informative display sensibly only includes a handful of artefacts, including fortunately preserved wooden fences to trap fish. A ponderous video gives excavation histories, and a boardwalk leads to the picturesque riverbank, with re-created period buildings. In summer you can take potshots using a primitive bow and arrow, or send the kids paddling in a Stone Age canoe.
Settlements in the Kierikki area date from about 4000 BC to 2000 BC and were coastal, moving gradually west as the land rose. Communities made a comfortable living fishing and sealing.
There’s also a hotel here, consisting of wooden buildings surrounding a little pond; the attractive, spacious rooms have balconies.
Kierikki is 5km south of Yli-Ii, itself 27km east of Ii, on the Oulu–Kemi road.
