In 1996, the Finnish Forest History Society started to gather information on forestry traditions with the help of funding from the Metsämiesten Säätiö foundation. During 1996-1999, a study was made on the kind of research material available about forest history (Forest history file sources in Finland, produced by Katri Kaunisto, 2001). Particularly sought after were memo material and unpublished data that had not previously been widely used. There had been little information gathered on individual destinies during the swirl of changes in forestry during the 1960’s, and particularly little information had been collected on the degree foresters, foresters, women working in forestry and the effects of mechanisation on the work of forest professionals. Thanks to the Metsämiesten Säätiö foundation grant, this deficiency began to be rectified with the launch of a new project titled “Forest professionals during forestry’s period of transition”. The project was carried out in co-operation with department of ethnology at Helsinki University and Lusto, the Finnish forest museum. The objective of this information-gathering project was to interview a thousand forest professionals during 1999-2002. This objective has now been achieved. During the period 1999-2002, a total of 1053 forest professionals were interviewed as part of the project. Approximately 2,500 hours of speech have been recorded on tape. There are over four shelf metres of clean typed interviews in Lusto’s files. The storytellers have been men and women of different ages who are either working or have worked in forestry; lumberjacks, the woman cooks in the forest camps, degree foresters, foresters, forest machine contractors, harvester operators, clerical workers and also forest machine manufacturers and service staff. Part of those people interviewed had experience of the changes in forestry since the 1950’s and some had just began working life. The “Forest professionals during forestry’s period of transition” project has been led by Hanna Snellman, Ph.D., docent, and co-ordinated by Katri Kaunisto MA from Helsinki University. The project’s main researchers have been Katri Kaunisto, and Leena Paaskoski MA from Lusto. Sanna Nikula MA from Oulu University and Sani Koponen MA from Helsinki University have also worked as researchers in the project. Over three years there were 16 research assistants, whose task was to interview forest professionals and transcribe their own interviews. The members of the interviewing group were ethnology, history, cultural history, cultural anthropology and ethnology students from Helsinki, Oulu, Joensuu and Turku Universities and Åbo Akademi. Esa Ihalainen, Matti Leikola and Markku Rauhalahti from the Finnish Forest History Society and Risto Hyvärinen from the Metsämiesten Säätiö foundation belonged to the project’s control group. The Metsämiesten Säätiö foundation funded the project with a total 2.4 million Finnish marks (400,000 euros). The material provides an extensive picture of the changes that occurred in forestry over the last five decades. The point of view is ethnologic: the focus is not on the companies and organisations, but on people’s experiences. In addition to the work and changes to it, other matters concerning the living environment have been dealt with; every day life and festivities. The home and family have also been targets of the interviewers’ interest, often to the astonishment of the people interviewed. The cross-section of material gathered from different parts of Finland provides an excellent opportunity to monitor Finnish post-war society and its changes. Correspondingly, such extensive interview material has never been collected from these points of view. The extensive material allows testing and analysis of different hypotheses. The core hypotheses of ethnology are to do with passing on traditions and socialising in order to become a member of the group. A generation is formed from those people who have lived their youth at the same time and in the same social conditions, so that they recognise just this group’s characteristics and core experiences. In research literature they have been referred to as key experiences. On the other hand, people’s experiences can overlap so that based on their experiences they can belong to several different generations. One person’s story is a window to the whole of society for a certain time, place and social group. The interview material is confidential and is used for research purposes only, as was promised to the interviewees. There are several theses being made in Helsinki and Oulu Universities based on the material gathered.