Alpo Koivumäki ran a farm in the western region of Pohjanmaa until his retirement in 1995. He lived on the farm with his three aunts, all of whom have since died. After his retirement he began to create up to life-size animal sculptures made of found materials, such as scrap metal, car tires, plastic parts or barrels.
In 2004 La Fabuloserie in Dicy, France, commissioned such a sculpture. Alpo Koivumäki made an elk. In 2009 the Art Museum of the Canton of Thurgau in Switzerland asked him for a work and he constructed a horse. For his second visit to Thurgau in 2011 he made a bear.
