Onni Wetterhoff

Born in Helsinki on December 28, 1835, Kurt Alfred Onni Wetterhoff was a Finnish-Swedish writer and forester. Before turning seriously to literature, he served in the military, studied forestry at Evo, and worked in forest administration and related posts in Finland and Sweden.

He is remembered above all as an early writer of Finnish wilderness and hunting literature. His best-known works include Från skog och sjö: Jagt- och fångstfärder, later published in Finnish as Saloilta ja vesiltä: Metsästys- ja pyyntiretkiä, as well as Bergön pyyntimiehet. His writing drew on direct knowledge of the natural world, which gives it an unusually concrete, lived-in feel.

Wetterhoff spent parts of his career in several different fields, including forestry, business, and even theater, before settling into his authorial work. He died in Helsinki on February 11, 1892, but his books have remained available through public-domain editions and are still valued as early classics of Finnish outdoor writing.