Mässkär is a relatively young island. In this area the post glacial rebound is 8 – 9 mm a year, which means ca 85 cm in a hundred years. About A.D 700 Mässkär rices out of the sea like a smooth little slab of bedrock.
Mässkär and the islets nearby were used as pasture for sheep and Mässkär was kept as a basis for fishing. The interest of the town residents has grown steadily from the 1950’s and onward. Today about 50 families have a cottage on the island.
The waters by the Mässkär archipelago are rocky and shallow. The pilotsstation was first established on Mässkär in late 1700. During the Crimean war in 1854 Mässkär was depopulated, the old daybeacon was pulled down with all other buildings on the island. A new pilotsstation and the daybeacon we can see today were built in 1856. The modern concrete coastguard and pilotsstation began operation in 1958. Nowadays piloting is controlled from the mainland by means of high speed cutters. As a result the station ended operations in the summer of 1994.
The society -Föreningen Mässkärs lotsstation r.f – took over. Today the pilotsstation provides a restaurant, accomodation, facilities for conference and sauna.
