1 February sees the start of Åland Post’s new three-year stamp series featuring boathouses captured by Åland photographer Kjell Söderlund. “The boat’s own house represents a unique type of building and is a common and visible element in the Åland coastal environment. With our new stamp series, we wish to capture the boathouse culture and highlight the wealth of variation in terms of both architecture and function. First up are two stamps with two older classic red boathouses”, explains Johanna Finne, Marketing Design Manager at Åland Post Stamps.

---

There are no statistics on the number of boathouses on Åland, but the building tradition is very much alive with boathouses scattered around the landscape, in boathouse villages or at summer cottages and permanent homes along the coast. Boathouses have been part of the inhabited coastal landscape since the Iron Age and serve as shelter and storage for boats. A boathouse stands in the water with the opening facing the water for the boat. The house often has few or no windows. On Åland, boathouses usually stand on stilts, but are also built on stone boxes. One stamp shows “Greggkil’s boathouse” in Finnö on Kökar. This boathouse was built in the late 1950s by fisherman and farmer Albin Andersson. The other stamp shows a row of boathouses by Västerängaviken bay in Lemland. The boathouse in the foreground was built in the 1960s.

Facts

• Name of issue  Boathouses
• Date of issue    1 February 2024
• Photographer  Kjell Söderlund
• Design Johanna Finne
• Edition 2 × 40 000
• Denominations Lokalpost (€2.60) & €0.40
• Price FDC €4.00
• Stamp size 35 x 35 mm
• Sheet size  2 × 15 stamps
• Paper 110 g/m2
• Perforation13 per 2 cm
• Process 4-colour offset
• Printer Cartor Security Printers

Order the stamps and first day cover at alandstamps.com, by post to Åland Post Stamps, P.O. box 1100, AX-22111 Mariehamn, Åland, Finland, e-mail stamps(a)alandpost.com or telephone: +358 18636639.