The staircase of Bengtskär Lighthouse is dim and dark. Black and white photo taken from above.
The staircase of Bengtskär Lighthouse is dim and dark. Black and white photo taken from above.

Staircase

starting at €90.00

The 252 steps of this staircase have witnessed millions of children's footsteps as well as echoes of gunfire and battles of life and death. For over 60 years, lighthouse keepers climbed Bengtskär's 52-meter tower to maintain the lighting equipment, lenses, and clockwork mechanism that rotated the beam of light. The counterweight of the mechanism alone weighed 225 kilograms! At its peak, the lighthouse building was home to 37 people, and nowadays thousands of visitors come there every year.

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The 252 steps of this staircase have witnessed millions of children's footsteps as well as echoes of gunfire and battles of life and death. For over 60 years, lighthouse keepers climbed Bengtskär's 52-meter tower to maintain the lighting equipment, lenses, and clockwork mechanism that rotated the beam of light. The counterweight of the mechanism alone weighed 225 kilograms! At its peak, the lighthouse building was home to 37 people, and nowadays thousands of visitors come there every year.

The LIGHTHOUSE stands at the edge of the world. The stairs smoothed by thousands of steps lead to the lantern room. From there, you can see the shadows of the clouds reflected in the mirror of the sea – and the small world of the lighthouse island or cape. In Finland lighthouses began to be left without keepers or even become completely unnecessary from the 1050s. It was not until the turn of the millennium that the cultural and architectural value of these sea markers, abandoned to the mercy of the weather and vandalism, began to be understood and efforts were initiated to save them. Everyone who has participated in saving even one of our lighthouses has given a gift to all Finns.

Discover my work The Sea That Rinses My Feet  (texts in Finnish, English, and Swedish)

Discover my book Kuohu – Hooked on the Archipelago (texts in Finnish or Swedish)