Welcome to Museum Archipelago. I'm Ian Elsner. Museum Archipelago guides you through the rocky landscape of museums. Each episode is never longer than 15 minutes, so let's get started.

This is episode 100 of Museum Archipelago, and I’m in a rental car 80 kilometers outside of Helsinki, Finland looking for a museum.

Field Audio - GPS: “In 400 meters, turn left onto the ramp”.

Field Audio - Ian: “I think… I can feel we are close to the Gulf of Finland”

But not just any museum. I’m deep in rural Finland because of the name of this podcast: Museum Archipelago.

Field Audio - Ian: “You know, I hope the museum has a bathroom…”

When I was starting this project and choosing a name, I hoped to create an audio lens to look at museums as a medium, and to critically examine museums as a whole. If no museum was an island, I reasoned, why not name the show after another geographic feature – a collection of islands?

And I enjoyed the symmetry with Gulag Archipelago – just a slight sinister undertone that this won’t be a fluffy museum podcast. And when I came across the quote by philosopher Édouard Glissant, “I imagine the museum as an archipelago”, the name stuck.

Museum Archipelago was snappy and a great name for a podcast – there was just one problem: the Archipelago Museum, located somewhere in Finland.

Field Audio - Ian: “Ah, I see a sign for the museum, but I can't pronounce it – ”

Field Audio - GPS: “Turn left”

For the first 20 or so episodes of the show, every time you searched the words Museum Archipelago on the internet, the top results would be about the Archipelago Museum in Finland, instead of my podcast.

It didn’t really bother me – well maybe a little – but no, it didn’t really bother me. Archipelago is a great word, and the museum was all the way in Finland, and it certainly was around for longer.

But as my podcast continued to grow and my search rankings improved, I didn’t forget about the Archipelago Museum. I would wonder what they were up to. I wondered if they had heard of my podcast. Maybe they came across it one day? Maybe I was annoying them with my similar name. Every few months, I would think to contact the museum, to highlight the similarity and hopefully make a new friend – only to remember that they didn’t have an email address. An old email address, from an archived version of their website, bounced back with an undeliverable error.

The more I thought about it, the more it sank in: the only way to reach the museum was to physically show up at the museum. No planned appointment, no scheduled interview.

A few years later, with help from those of you who have supported the show through Club Archipelago, visiting the museum finally became possible.

I decided to hop on two planes, book a rental car, spend a night in an airport hotel in Helsinki, drive down the coast, and visit the Archipelago Museum in person.

Even if there was nobody there willing to talk to me, it would still make for an interesting 100th episode.

Field Audio - GPS: “Turn left. Then your destination will be on the right.”

Field Audio - Ian: All right. This is the Archipelago Museum.

Field Audio - GPS: “Your destination is on the right.”

Field Audio - Ian: “ Wow. I think it's open and I see a WC sign! Okay, I'm gonna park where it says parking.

The Archipelago Museum is a long, old stone barn on the Gulf of Finland that’s packed full of boats.

Field Audio - Ian : *walking over stones”

Field Audio - Ian: “How are you?”

Field Audio - Naomi: I'm fine, thank you. How are you? Welcome.

Field Audio - Ian: “I’m very good, thank you! I would love to visit the museum. One ticket, please.”

Field Audio - Naomi: Yes, you are welcome. That’s 5 euros. With card or cash?

This is Naomi.

Naomi Nordstedt: “Hi, my name is Naomi and I work at the Skärgårdsmuseet Rönnäs [Rönnäs Archipelago Museum]. So as the cashier, guide, whatever.”

Naomi told me that the museum usually gets one or two visitors from the US every summer.

Naomi Nordstedti: How did you find us? Or like how did you, how did you come to Finland of all places?

Field Audio - Ian: “Well, to visit this museum!”

Naomi Nordstedti: Oh wow!

The Archipelago Museum tells the human story of life on the archipelago off the coast of Finland. The main area of the exhibition underscores the centrality of surviving among the remote islands by fishing, seal hunting, and cattle breeding. The main idea is

Naomi Nordstedti: To see how people lived within the archipelago and like how the archipelago has sustained the people, while the people sustain the archipelago. The sea is very important. That's the most important thing. And it, since it's very like the people who live here live very scattered cuz it's a bit remote. We have couple neighbors, but then to one side there's nothing but forest for like kilometers. So you become closer with the people who live close by. Sometimes you have to go a bit further to meet. And that becomes also part of like, you meet up with bigger groups of people a couple times a year because you know, you might not see them that much otherwise.

And also just as a side point, most people here have a boat. Most people sail. That's just a thing. You do that here.

People have been making this part of the archipelago their home for 500 years, and the reasons always come back to geography.

Naomi Nordstedti: We know there's been a medieval village here since the 13th century. Over here, there used to be an inland lake. This is all, there's no water over here now. And so like the water line is over here. Which means that there used to be back in 1414 or 1421, there have been records that people used to live here and this used to be like a bigger, for that time, bigger town, because this made it possible for commerce to happen way more since this led to the sea.

The medieval village d