How Little Hancock, Michigan Became a Big Deal: This Year's Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture

Artwork by Minna Sundberg. Check out her comic Stand Still, Stay Silent

Many people recognize that the word sauna is a Finnish word, both a noun and a verb, that denotes the specific kind of bathing enshrined in a wooden hut heated by a stove. In Swedish, bada bastu, means to bathe (bada) in the bath (bad) hut (stuga) . The Swedish word bad is more similar to the English word bath than it is to the the Finnish word sauna. That's because Swedish and English have grown from the same ancient Indo-European branch on the theoretical language family tree. The Finnish language, as portrayed by Finnish comic book artist Minna Sundberg, is a lonely cat among Swedish and the other Nordic languages, an outlier with no one to rub up against and purr. Well, as we recently learned, that is very much not true. 

A language family gathering on Hancock's Quincy Street Green

Despite the fact that five million Finnish speakers seem alone, wedged between Indo-European language speaking Sweden and Norway to the west and Russia to the east, Finns have approximately 20 million cousins worldwide who speak a Finno-Ugric language like theirs. Some of them live in Norway and Sweden where people who speak Finno-Ugric languages include the Sàmi, the Kvens and Forest Finns. There are about a dozen Finno-Ugric ethnic groups living in Russia. There are also Finno-Ugric communities in Latvia. Additionally, Finland, Estonia and Hungary are fully independent nations with Finno-Urgic language and culture. Bonus! We can now add Hancock, Michigan to the list of places where Finno-Ugric languages live. 

The cities of Hancock and Houghton are connected by the Portage Lake Lift Bridge

This year, the annual Uralic language family reunion took place in Hancock, Michigan, population 4,500 people, roughly 40 percent of whom claim Finnish heritage. This former copper mining city sits on the edge of Lake Superior in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. It deservedly won the title, Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture 2026 and is the first community outside of Eurasia to earn the designation. The Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture program was launched "to celebrate and raise awareness of Uralic languages and identities worldwide."

Jim Kurtti, Honrary Consul of Finland in Michigan's Upper Peninsula is joined by ambassadors
from Finland and Estonia and the Chargé d'Affaires from Hungary.

We joined Hancock's festivities during the week of June 18--21. They combined the annual Juhannus/ Midsummer celebration with a gathering in recognition of this special honor. It was an event worthy of the most cosmopolitan of cities. It included visiting dignitaries from Finland, Estonia and Hungary, speeches, informative lectures, an art show at the Finnish American Heritage Center: saunas (of course) and a bonfire by the shore. A 30-foot midsummer pole adorned with birch branches, flowers and model sailboats (a blessing for the great lake) was raised among a parade of flags and folks from many ethnicities in a circling dance.

Lennart Meri (1929--2006)

The president of Estonia Alar Karis sent greetings to Hancock via video. Estonia has an interesting history as kinkeeper of this Finno-Urgic family, as I was to learn. An important part of the story begins in World War II with former president Lennart Meri (1929--2006). He and his family were deported to Siberia when Estonia was invaded by Soviet Russia in the 1940's. He grew up among other exiled people, many from places where Finno-Urgic languages were spoken. He later became a writer and filmmaker and his work followed his interest in the history and cultural kinship of Finno-Ugric peoples. (His book on the myths and earliest history of the Baltic people titled Silverwhite is on my reading list.) He became the first president of Estonia when 50 years of Soviet occupation ended in 1992. Meri remains a revered figure and inspiration for Estonians.

In conversation with activist Oliver Loode (with the URALIC Centre NGO and coordinator of the Capital of Culture program), I discovered that Minneapolis and the Twin Cities are definitely of note for people in the Baltics because of citizen resistance and protests against ICE. In turn, this was an opportunity for me to learn about Estonia and the struggle in the Baltic nations to preserve cultural identity through nonviolent resistance. One of the ways Estonia defied the USSR was by recognizing and lifting up minority cultures, their own and others, defined by Uralic language and tradition. The nation celebrates Finno-Ugric Day every year in October.

The events in Hancock demonstrated the value in giving people a voice, no matter how small. In the 1970 documentary film by Lennart Meri titled The Waterfowl People (Veelinnurahvas), an older woman, Klavdija Plotnikova, faces the camera to tell a story in a language no one is left to understand. She was the last living native speaker of Kamassian, a Uralic language. She recounts a berry picking expedition with her mother when she was very little and got lost in the forest. She remembered how unafraid she was alone in the wild. Perhaps it is not just the Kamassian language that is now lost but the ability to teach a child to be unafraid in the forest. Her story brought to mind another film that I saw many years ago that made a lasting impression on me.

I am a fan of actor Natar Ungalaaq (left) in the film The Necessities of Life

Ce qu'il faut pour vivre/ The Necessities of Life/ Inuujjutiksaq. The film is about the language and cultural isolation of an Inuk man in the 1950's who, because he is sick with tuberculosis, is plucked from his family and traditional life in Nunavut (Northern Canada) and sent to a sanatorium in Quebec for treatment. He cannot communicate in French or understand much of what is happening and he becomes severely depressed. What saves his life is meeting another patient, a young Inuit boy who shares his language. Together, they make some sense of the different culture they are immersed in and he is able to pass along his stories, his knowledge about "the necessities of life," to the boy. This relationship saves his life.

The film has stayed with me and I often think about language inheritance and the loss of languages in our global society. How do we pass along important knowledge to ensure survival in this rapidly changing world? Language seems to be the best container we have to carry the cultural tools that are needed. Let's hold onto as many words as we can, they may lead us out of the wild woods some day.

Keep up with events in Hancock, the Finno-Ugric capital, by following the following:

Visit Keweenaw Finno-Ugric Events page 
Finlandia Foundation National Facebook Page for real-time announcements and photo recaps 

Photo highlights of our visit-- © Jack Steinmann

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