Jan Karlsgården Open-Air Museum

Jan Karlsgården is a set of around twenty farm buildings moved from around Åland and reassembled beside Kastelholm Castle from the 1930s, laid out as a working nineteenth-century farmstead: dwelling house, byres, granary, smoke sauna, windmill and stable. A midsummer pole stands in the yard and is raised each year in the traditional way. The Vita Björn prison museum stands next to the site. The buildings were collected in the 1930s, when this kind of farmstead was still standing across the islands and beginning to disappear.

The main sights

• The farmstead layout - around twenty buildings arranged as a working farm.
• The midsummer pole - raised in the yard each year in the Åland manner.
• The smoke sauna - the building type that survived on Åland longest.
• Vita Björn - the small prison museum standing beside the site.

When to go

May to September is the season and the buildings are open. Midsummer is when the pole is raised. Winter closes the interiors entirely.

Things to know

Buildings are closed outside the summer season and only the exteriors can be seen. Interpretation is limited and mainly in Swedish. Two hours covers everything.

Nearby

Kastelholm Castle is beside it, and Bomarsund is east.

Key facts