During the past twenty years the family Toivonen has built the The Toivonen Animal Park and the Peasant Museum village area. It is located in countryside in Kälviä by the mainroute E8, 10 kilometers from city of Kokkola. The area currently consists of 50 separate buildnings and more than 12 500 exhibits. The Toivonen Animal Park and the Peasant Museum, is unique family-owned animal park with lots of lovely animals!

The Toivonen Animal Park and the Peasant Museum was established in year 1985 and has since been extended annually in contemporary style. The company is a family business that was celebrating its 25th anniversary in year 2010. For visitors, each summer season brings a new theme, something new interesting to see and to explore at the Animal Park and the Museum Village.

There are many interesting work demonstrations to be seen at the museum area. Some of the main work demonstrations are tar-burning, brick-making, lemonade making, woodworking and blacksmithing. You can also see demonstration on carding, spinning, yarn dyeing with naturecolors and weaving fabrics & ragrugs.

You can also visit a village school from 40`s, a village shop, old motor museum, museum of agriculture, carpenter workshop and many other interesting places! In a Antique cars and tractors area you can find vehicles and machinery from “grandfather`s period“. For children, we have very nice playground and the toymuseum in Matti`s House that invites children of all ages and their families to enjoy! We also have an exhibition of playhouses and a playshop for children to play.

Matti`s House and Savupirtti-cafe are an operational centre of the area. It takes about 13-14 people with many skills to run a park. The Toivonen Animal Park and the Peasant Museum is one of the most fascinating tourist attractions in western Finland, having over 30 000 visitors per year.

The company founder Matti Toivonen has been a spokesman of the Kälviä Local Heritage Federation for more than 40 years. He has also studied extensively the wind-and watermills history of Kälviä. Also old photographs has been “in a picture“.