The story
Sotkamo has grown beside a water route formed by a continuous band of lakes and rivers. The waters of the Sotkamo route run through Kajaaninjoki into Oulujärvi and finally to the Baltic Sea, but in the past the waterways also created an important commercial route to White Sea in the east. The same water route has been used by soldiers of Russia, Sweden and Denmark to rob and ravage this remote countryside for centuries. The name Sotkamo comes either from the Finnish word "sotku" which means a mess and refers to the obscure water route, or from the word "sotka" which was a general name for water birds in ancient Finnish and now designates the common goldeneye.
During the 19th century Sotkamo was visited by notable Finnish artists such as Akseli Gallen-Kallela and Hugo Simberg.
On November 17, 2007 first pictures of the Kern arc were made in the town of Sotkamo by Marko Mikkilä.
From Wikipedia’s article on Sotkamo, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4