If you haven’t already heard, Finland is the most literate country in the world, as well as the happiest. Plus, the Finns practically live in the sauna. Obviously, Finns know a lot about living right, but what gives them these magical powers?
With that question in mind, I set out to discover what Finland is all about—in my hometown of Duluth. Instead of buying a Finnair ticket to Lapland, I went to FinnFest 2025, held at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center (DECC). This four-day celebration of Finnish and Nordic culture has taken place on the Duluth waterfront for three years running, and will be back again next July.
For over 40 years, the festival has featured lectures, films, live music, dances, and more, plus the Tori Nordic Fair, which offers a wide range of shopping, food, and activities.
Courtesy of FinnFest
FinnFest is definitely your best chance to get up close and personal with Finland, without taking that 11-hour flight to Helsinki. Here’s what I learned at this year’s festival, which ran from July 31 to Aug. 3.
First, I found out that the Finns’ famous wry sense of humor is alive and well. At her fireside chat, entitled “Finland in the 21st Century World,” Leena-Kaisa Mikkola, Ambassador of Finland to the United States, was asked about how the Finns continuously win the world happiness ratings. “Every time another announcement is made, we’re thinking ‘Oh no, not again!'” she said, laughing. “Everybody here knows we Finns aren’t happy and cheerful all the time, but we’re content with our lives.”
Photo by Christopher Pascone
“Finland is a trust-based society, where children get a good education, you get your long summer vacation, we cherish ties with nature, and we love our sauna evenings on Saturdays. Our lives make us happy, but more so we are content and satisfied,” Mikkola explained.
Following the Ambassador’s fireside chat, I went on to explore contemporary Finnish-American literature. James (Jim) Johnson, a son of Finnish immigrants who settled in Cloquet, Minnesota, has been examining the Finnish mindset throughout his decades-long career as a poet. Johnson—twice Poet Laureate of Duluth—gave a seminar on writing family history, in which he warned that we can lose our culture if we don’t write it down. Johnson focused on how to encapsulate family stories: First, choose an object, such as a precious family photo, piece of jewelry, or item of clothing. Write its physical description, then write down the family stories it evokes. Thirdly, do more research on the object. “If you find a topic you don’t know how to write about, that’s one you should write about,” Johnson said.
“We have to write these stories down to remember them,” Johnson explained, and he has certainly done his part. His poems, such as “Heiki Goes America,” “Aino’s Big Noise Tavern Blues,” and “At Kalevala Hall,” are all records of the Finnish immigrant experience in Minnesota.
On the last morning of FinnFest, Johnson read from his collection of poems, “A Good Sauna Always Burns Down” (2024). It was an honor to hear this living legend bring the Finnish experience in Minnesota, full of hardship and poetry, to life.
Then, I was on to film. I attended a documentary about the town of Finland, Minnesota, (population 220) made by current University of Minnesota students Ville Besonen and Isaac Hanson. These young filmmakers have been taking Lily Obeda’s Finnish language classes in Minneapolis, and their final exam assignment a year ago was to give a five-minute classroom presentation in Finnish. But rather than write a simple script, they took the assignment way further, spending the whole next year making an ethnographic documentary on one of Minnesota’s quirkiest communities—”Finland, Minnesota: History, Culture, Legacy.”
Photo by Christopher Pascone
Besonen and Hanson are both leaving in two weeks to spend their whole next year of college studying Finnish in Finland. I was awed by their raw energy and drive, both at making the film about such a tight-knit community on the North Shore, and at pursuing Finnish language study. The crowd was impressed by the filmmaker duo’s “go-get-‘em” approach. Having been to St. Urho’s Day myself, celebrated each March in Finland with a parade, drag show, and “This can’t happen on Hennepin Avenue” attitude, I knew the documentary would be a fun one, and it was.
Getting back to modern Finnish politics, a big theme of Ambassador Mikkola’s fireside chat was just how quickly Finland has changed in the last three years since Russia invaded Ukraine. Finland completely shut down its 833-mile border with Russia and became a part of NATO, and it has dramatically increased its defense spending, while also increasing military partnership with the U.S.
Then, Mikkola touched on a source of Finnish pride: icebreakers. She described how Finland is the world’s biggest producer of icebreakers, and gave the statistics to back it up: 80% of the world’s icebreakers are designed by Finnish firms, and 60% are built in Finnish shipyards. “We’re a small country, but we’re tops at icebreaking,” she quipped, to uproarious applause in the DECC’s Lake Superior Ballroom.
The pace of change in Finland has been almost overwhelming in recent years, yet the country has kept its balance through it all. It must be that dry, wry sense of humor.
If you’re interested in Finland and the Nordics, FinnFest is your ticket to Helsinki, right here in Minnesota.
