The transport of heavy products from the smelting-houses and hammer-mills in Filipstad mining district were formerly a difficult and expensive problem. Where the roads were unable, they were narrow, curved and hilly with badly kept bridges. That's why they used the extensive waterways instead and built up a unique transport system with short transportation by land between the lakes.

However the numerous reloading took time and were very expensive for the mill-owners, which raised the prices of their products. In order to facilitate the transport to the port of shipment at Kristinehamn on Lake Vänern, they made the Norsbäcks Kanal between lakes Hyttsjön and Bergsjön as early as the 1630-ies. Making it one of the oldest canals in our country. In spite of this improvement the transportation of iron between Filipstad and Kristinehamn took several months, some said more than a year.

Two hundred years ago 20.000 "pounds" of bar-iron (about 4.000 tons) were transported every year to the weighbridge at Kristinehamn. Two "pounds" of iron were loaded on each wagon, thus 10.000 wagons were required to carry the iron by land. Although the haulage was necessary income for the country population, it was neglected and a lot of iron went missing during transportation. In the middle of the 19th century, small horsedrawn railways were built to facilitate transport between the lakes. The barges were provided with rails on which they could drive the wagons to reduce reloading.

The ideas to be able to simplify transport by means of canals were evoked as early as the 18th century. The following hundred years of plans and investigations were met with letters of protest and scheming plots and are a tiring and not so very edifying reading matter. Two different routes from the north met south of Storfors on lake Öjevettern, one from the western district and one from the eastern. To create the same privileges for all the foundries and iron-works, or to agree on the common welfare for all, this was almost impossible. Each and every one put their own interests in first place and the country people were afraid the whole time of losing the important income from the haulage work. The foundry proprietor of Storfors, Claes Frietzky, composed in 1775 a plan of solutions. First of all he recommended digging a canal from Sjöändan to Kristinehamn. However there was never any canal-link made with Lake Vänern.

In the beginning of the 19th century, merchants at Filipstad requested a rapid investigation into the possibilities of constructing a canal at Bjurbäcken. They took a large amount of their products from Kristinehamn via Sjöändan and considered that the time it took was unacceptable, yes even scandalous. An investigation was brought about, but after many new protests the canal issue was at a standstill and stayed that way for 25 years, until the next investigation which was also laid to rest. The mill-owners from Filipstad's area now acted on their own and in 1833 had Baltzar von Platen's co-worker lieutenant-colonel Johan Edström check up and evaluate the earlier plans. After a few months of study he presented a plan according to which the canal was to have the extension of which it has still to-day. This project made it possible for barges to sail from Filipstad to Sjöändan's port of loading at Bergsjön and then by horse-drawn rail-trolley to Kristinehamn.

However, it took another fourteen years before the Filipstads Bergslags Canal Ltd. could be founded at a meeting at Kristinehamn in 1847 under the presidentship of mine-inspector Franz von Schéele. The canal company accepted Edström's plans. The estimated cost was set at 130.000 rixdollars. Half of this amount was to be covered by the shareholder investments and the other half by a state loan.