M/S Jäämeri

M/S Jäämeri was a Finnish freight/passenger ship manufactured in Helsinki's Heinälahti dockyards. It was ordered and paid by the Finnish government and was finished in July of 1933. It's intended use was to deliver passengers and light cargo to small northern Petsamo communities. The ship was based in Petsamo and started regular routes in late 1933. It traveled regularly between Petsamo and Liinahamari and also between Petsamo and the Kalastajasaarento peninsula. The peninsula had a few hard-to-reach and quite small villages where the ship visited and also provided supplies and mail (Maattivuono, Pummanki, Kervanto and Vaitolahti). The ship also made monthly trips to Kirkkoniemi in Norway.

For unknown - but probably tourism and propaganda - reasons the ship had it's own post office and post mailed via it received the special purple cachet of the ship. The mail was actually canceled in post offices along the route of the ship (such as Liinahamari and Petsamo but there exists extremely rare postmarks from the small Kalastajasaarento villages as well). 

The ship was badly crippled and set ablaze by Soviet Union's bomber planes during the first few days of the Winter War in 1939. It was sunk in 30.11.1939 in the Liinahamari area by either a second volley of Soviet bombings or by Finns themselves. There are records indicating either option could be true. So eventually the ship did it's job for mere six years and thus the cachets are quite rare. A vast majority of the cachets are on postcards. There has been speculation that the ship's post office had a variety of pre-cacheted postcards available to travelers. This may be true but also there are quite many postcards in existence that were clearly brought in by the passengers themselves and then cacheted in the ship's post office.

A postcard depicting the former president of Finland - Svinhufvud - on the pictorial side. The text on the card indicates that the person who wrote it had brought the postcard with him to the ship. The postcard has a Liinahamari postmark dated 14.7.48. Quite probably the Liinahamari postoffice's stamp had an incorrect number indicating the decade. It should be 14.7.38. The rate of the postcard in 1938 was 1,25 marks which is neatly covered by the stamps. The rate of the postcard in 1948 would have been 7 marks and also the ship itself was sunk in 1939 so a faulty stamping makes sense here.

A greeting postcard from Petsamo to Juupajoki (in the Pirkanmaa region) dated 4.8.1939. So only a few weeks before the Winter War began and the ship met it's demise. The postcard's pictorial side depicts the church of Oulu hundreds of kilometres away. This would be a highly unusual postcard to be pre-cacheted in the ship's post office so most probably the person brought it with them. Greeting cards at this time were allowed to be posted with a reduced rate of 50 penniä (printed matter; as explained here) so this card has the correct rate.