Jäämerentien tiehistorialliset kohteet

English translation (from the Finnish)

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Description

The Jäämerentie is a road completed in its entirety in 1931, which linked Rovaniemi with the port of Liinahamari in Petsamo. The Saarenputaan museum bridge in Rovaniemi is the only bridge on the Jäämerentie to have survived the Second World War. The original alignment of the road has been preserved in Inari as the Magneettimäki museum road.

The Saarenputaan bridge is the oldest reinforced concrete bridge in the Lapin piiri. It is a single-span bridge, with a clear span of 10 metres.

The Magneettimäki museum road is a 5 km long steep hill section of the former Jäämerentie, a few kilometres north of Saariselkä. In the 1930s and 1940s, lorries had difficulty climbing the hill, and the road section got its name from a belief that the hill had a magnetic pull, which drew the power out of the lorries' engines.

The Saarenputaan bridge was designated a museum site by Tiehallinto in 1982, and Magneettimäki in 1992.

History

The Jäämerentie descends from the old Ruijan polku, of which the first written mentions date from 1598 at the Saariselkä location. A road was completed to Ivalo via Vuotso in 1913, and to Petsamo in the 1930s, when the Rovaniemi–Petsamo road was named the Jäämerentie. The Jäämerentie became part of valtatie 4 in 1938. The Second World War interrupted road construction in 1939.

The northern slope of Urupää in Saariselkä was given the name Magneettimäki during the Petsamo traffic in 1941–1942. The Jäämerentie from Rovaniemi to Liinahamari in Petsamo was one of the most heavily used and strategically important road connections during the wartime: Liinahamari was the only year-round ocean port in use in Northern Europe in 1940–1941.

When the new road was completed in the late 1970s, the Magneettimäki road section was left aside from the general road network.

As early as the 19th century, there was a bridge at Saarenputaa, which was called Vaskurinsilta after a coppersmith. The deck of the low-lying bridge was always covered by spring floods. Planning for a higher concrete bridge on the site began in 1916. The project was interrupted by the war, but was resumed in 1924, when the plans of engineer Olli Martikainen were approved by the tie- ja vesirakennusten ylihallitus. Construction began in March 1924 under master builder Jänti. More than 10,000 horse-work hours and 400,000 man-work hours were used for the work. The bridge was completed in 1925. Valtatie 4 ceased to pass through the Saarenputaa bridge in 1965.