The contributions, covering a vast border region, spanning from the Arctic Ocean to the Gulf of Bothnia and from the White Sea deep into the Russian and Finnish Karelia, offer for the first time in one single volume a detailed scholarly presentation of northern wooden architecture and building tradition.

The focus has been variety as well as similarities in form and building techniques. A comparison of the contribution from the three selected regions will possibly also stimulate discussions of differences in fieldwork methodology, degree of registration details and elaboration of typology.

The ambitions of the volume presented have been to leave the individual presentations of local cases and regional surveys to further reflections.