The Old Vaasa Canal runs alongside Old Vaasa, passing Kuninkaankartano, the Old Vaasa ramparts and the Old Vaasa hospital. The canal continues past the Old Harbour and flows into the Southern City Bay at Suvilahti’s Patteriniemi. Dredging of the Old Vaasa Canal was again started in the winter of 2009 and continued into 2011. The dredging extends from Suvilahti’s Patteriniemi to the ramparts. The dredging has also improved the canal’s recreational use opportunities. The Old Vaasa Canal is a site protected under the Antiquities Act.
As land uplift narrowed and shallowed the strait running past Old Vaasa, the town’s harbour had to be moved in the 1640s about a kilometre to the west shore of Hästholmen Island. In 1660 canals began to be dug from the strait to the edges of the town plots to facilitate boat traffic. Already in the 1790s the now shallow harbour had to be moved again to the Palosaari strait. Between 1838 and 1845 the Old Vaasa Canal was dug as a route to the Old Harbour and out to sea, since land uplift had made the strait leading to the Old Harbour nearly impassable.
Since the Old Vaasa Canal was established it has been dredged several times so that, despite land uplift and overgrowth, the canal could still be navigable today, at least by canoe. The most recent dredging was carried out in 2009–2011, when dredged material was used to build an embankment suitable for outdoor recreation along the canal’s eastern edge all the way to Patteriniemi. The route features valuable cultural environments and woodland that resembles natural forest. The canal bank provides habitat for a diverse range of plant and animal species.
The Old Vaasa canal bank offers a varied nature experience route that can be enjoyed both on foot and by paddling. As a rule, recreational use of the route is limited from spring to autumn. While on the route you can, depending on your interest, observe vegetation and different habitat types or animal and bird species. The canal passes by a range of environments, such as cultivated fields, meadows, groves and mixed forests dominated by conifers. You may see willow warblers, chaffinches, greenfinches and yellowhammers. The luckiest might even spot flying squirrels, bats or perhaps muskrats.