Nuclear-powered icebreaker
On 17 August 1977, NS "Arktika" ("Arctic") became the first surface ship ever to reach the North Pole. "Arktika" was withdrawn from service in 2008 after clocking up 175,000 hours of reactor operation time and covering more than 1 million nautical miles. Rather than be scrapped, there are calls for her to be converted to a museum ship, like her predecessor "Lenin".
Sampo (1898 icebreaker)
After the newest and most powerful state-owned icebreakers, "Voima" and "Jääkarhu", were handed over to Soviet Union as war reparations, Finland was left with four old steam-powered icebreakers and the small diesel-electric "Sisu", which had been rejected due to the extensive damage it had sustained in the war. The newest steam-powered icebreaker, "Tarmo", was almost 40 years old and along with the others long overdue for replacement — even the largest Finnish icebreakers were not wide and powerful enough to assist the biggest post-war cargo ships. There was also a severe shortage of coal and occasionally the Finnish icebreakers had to rely on firewood. The steam-powered icebreakers were completely overhauled for the last time in 1951–1952 when they finally received modern navigation equipment — even as late as 1952 some had neither gyrocompass, sonar nor radar — and their crew spaces were rebuilt to modern standards. There were talks about converting the furnaces of "Sampo" from coal to oil, but it was not deemed necessary as the old icebreaker was due to decommissioning in the near future.