Seal sculpture in Kolkonpää

A small environmental work of art has been created in Rantasalmi, along highway 14 in the Kolkonpää rest area, a seal sculpture made of rebar by Osmo Lyytikäinen, Savotar.   Rantasalmi is one of the most important habitats of the Saimaa ringed seal and the home municipality of Linnansaari National Park. Arrivals to the municipality are greeted by a digital information totem. Next to it, a seal sculpture placed on a natural stone now rises from the terrain – as if the seal itself had climbed onto the shore rock to rest.

The subject of the work is the Saimaa ringed seal (Pusa saimensis), which was recognised as an independent species in 2025. It is the only mammal species native to Finland and one of the rarest seals in the world. The work was born out of a desire to make a unique animal visible to the eye of a traveler in this particular place.

The material of the sculpture, which was made by welding, is 10 millimeters of rebar. The creator’s intention is to make another sculpture to accompany the adult seal, a small cub.

Osmo Lyytikäinen (b. 1957) is a construction worker from Rantasalmi, whose manual skills have found a new form of expression in rebar. The self-taught artist has decades of experience in the construction industry, which has made rebar a familiar material and now a means of artistic expression. Over the decades, Lyytikäinen has renovated the stoves of old houses and built new buildings. The skill of the hands, which has shaped brick and wood, has now found a new form of expression. The seal work in Kolkonpää is Lyytikäinen’s first public work.

The Kolkonpää rest area offers a view of Lake Kolkonjärvi, which is in excellent ecological status. The lake is part of the Vuoksi watercourse and discharges its waters into Haukivesi – the heart of Linnansaari National Park. Linnansaari National Park is an archipelago national park established in 1956 in Haukivesi, in the Rantasalmi, Savonlinna and Varkaus areas, and it is one of the most important conservation areas for the Saimaa ringed seal. In the spring, the ringed seals nest in their snow nests, and in the summer, they can be seen lounging on rocks and islets.