Hancock named 2026 Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture

by Die_Steiner

11 comments
  1. My buddy has said that some of these Finnish-Americans wear a Sami folk dress during cultural celebrations, and this video proved to me he wasn’t kidding 😀

    The Maypole confused me too until i remembered us Swedish-speakers also raise them sometimes.

  2. I bet elementary schools in Hancock have more Finnish surnames amongst their pupils than average elementary school in East Helsinki.

  3. Growing up not too far from Hancock in Wisconsin, I can say I knew a lot of people from that area who still spoke Finnish at home even as late as the 1980’s. Far higher percentages than spoke German in any form in the area I grew up in. It wouldn’t have been a first language at that point, but we had a lot of Saari and Mackey (Mäki) and so on family names attend the university where I studied and most of them knew at least some Finnish, and several went on to do graduate programs in Finland. I won’t weigh in on the whole “capital of culture” thing but the Finnish roots are pretty strong in that area.

  4. Interesting. I guess this is kinda how the Irish feel during St Patrick’s day anywhere in the US.

  5. As others have said, the juhannus depicted here looks slightly off from a Finnish perspective. But no harm done, it’s nice that still they celebrate their Finnish roots. All in good fun. 🙂

  6. This sure is… Different. Curious, even. Congrats to Hancock, I suppose, although that’s not a Finnish town namemat all!!!(1)!!!

  7. I would love to experience their version of juhannus and Finnishness. I bet it would at times feel like a fever dream.

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