News Archives · Friends of the Finland Community

Catching Hoppers: St Urho Builds a Thingamajiggy!

Finland’s 44th Annual St Urho’s Celebration Schedule of Events – March 15th, 16th and 17th

St Urho Statue art by Kaare Melby

Theme – Catching Hoppers: St Urho Builds a Thingamajiggy!

Leadup Activities: St Urho’s Float Workshop – March 8th, 9th and 10th from 11am – 4pm at the Clair Nelson Center.

The Big Weekend

Friday night, March 15th – 6-8pm – Miss Helmi Talent and Beauty Contest – various stops around town

7pm-Midnight – Music at the West Branch – To Be Determined

8:30pm-Midnight – Music at the Four Seasons by Tara Nelson and Friends

Saturday, March 16th –

8-10:30am – Finland MN Historical Society’s Pancake Breakfast, and Craft Fair at the Clair Nelson Center

Noon – Tug of War across the Baptism River

Before and during the parade – Finland Fire and Rescue will be selling refreshments outside the Finland Fire Hall.

Noon-1 pm – Parade through Finland on Highway 1. Call Cheri Bischoff at 220-9947 to register for the parade.

1-3pm – Clair Nelson Center – Craft Fair, kids games, Lunch, and music by Teresa and Terri Aho

1-4pm – Music at Four Seasons by Tara Nelson and Friends

1-5pm – Music at Our Place by the Curry Band

2-5pm – Music at West Branch – To Be Determined

8pm-Midnight – Music at West Branch by the McCullough Brothers (Northwoods Band)

8:30pm-Midnight – Music at the Four Seasons by Tara Nelson and Friends

Sunday, March 17th –

3pm – Door Prizes, 4pm Raffle Ticket Drawing at West Branch

Supported by the Silver Bay Area Tourism Association and Welcome to Finland.

Click here for more information about St Urho.

Visit the St Urho’s Celebration in Finland MN’s Facebook page.

Learning to Use Locally Grown and Wild Food

by Maren Webb, Northern Wilds, January 29, 2019

Tucked away off Highway 61 in the Northern Wilds is Finland, home to about 200 residents and a hotbed for the local foods movement. This February, two Finland residents, Honor Schauland and Kaare Melby, will be sharing their passion and knowledge for wild and local foods by offering three classes for the public at the Clair Nelson Center. Whether you are new to the idea of local food production or looking to up your game, Schauland and Melby are ready to help you find, preserve, and cook with locally grown and wild food.

Continue reading this article on NorthernWilds.com…

Feb 10th – Finding, Buying, and Gathering Locally Grown and Wild Food
Feb 17th –Storing Locally Grown and Wild Food: Drying, Freezing, Canning, and Fermenting
Feb 24th – Cooking With Locally Grown and Wild Food

John Beargrease Finland Checkpoint 2019

Finland Checkpoint patches will be on sale for $5 each!

This year the John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon will be starting in Duluth the morning of Sunday January 27th, so we are expecting the first Marathoners around 8pm and Mid-Distance mushers after that. Be sure to tell your friends to come out and visit the Finland Checkpoint and experience the excitement of this unique event.

With that in mind, the kitchen at the Clair Nelson Center will be open at 4pm on Sunday the 27th and will stay open into the wee hours of the 28th. We will serve chili made with locally grown beef and wild rice, bars, and beverages. This is a fundraiser for our programs here at the Center.

We already have a bunch of volunteers to help in the kitchen – thanks volunteers! We could, however, use donations of bars or cookies. Please drop off on Friday January 25th between 10am-4pm or on Sunday the 27th starting at 3pm.

The Race and Finland Checkpoint always need volunteers. If you want to be outside helping please call 218-722-7631 to find out more info.

And last but not least, donations of firewood for the Checkpoint campfire and road crossing campfires are much appreciated.

Follow the race online here. Come out and experience this unique event!

Timber Frame Raising September 30th

Anyone hanging around the Clair Nelson Community Center this past Fall will have noticed a new structure near the swingset. What’s that going to be? Well, it’s going to be another picnic shelter. Down the road, when we can raise the money, it’s going to house a wood-fired oven for baking fun things, like bread and pizza. This new structure ended up happening for a number of reasons, the main one being that a local artisan, Heather Brown, received a Minnesota State Arts Board grant to become proficient at timber framing, and proposed to do so by building a structure that could be used for community purposes. The Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation and Co-op Light and Power’s Operation RoundUp each donated funds for the concrete slab. What this all adds up to is more room for outdoor programs and activities, such as the Finland Farmers Market, Camp Finland, community barbecues, cookouts, outdoor meetings, classes, and more!

This video is a slideshow of the photos taken that day to give an idea of how the structure went together and how many people helped!

Poster for the Sept 30th Timber Frame Event

We raised the timber frame on September 30th, and it was an amazing community experience. Over 30 people of various ages and all walks of life came to participate. There were experienced builders, both young and old. There were small children who were excited to help. There were folks who helped by making lunch or keeping children safe. There were lots of men and women to provide the muscle of moving all of the parts around and fitting them together. There were older folks who helped by providing experienced advice. There were folks who helped by staining the wooden beams. There were many interested onlookers. At several key points, nearly everyone present mobilized to move and raise the timbers in an organized way. We were an amazing and well-coordinated team, and the result is this beautiful structure that will be used by the community for many years to come.

Special thanks to Heather Brown for applying for this grant and choosing to donate her work to the community of Finland, and another special thanks to Andrew Norcross for also choosing to donate his time and energy for this project, especially being the head guy in charge on the day of the timber frame raising.

See project photos on Google

See project photos on Facebook

Donate here to support this project! We are still raising funds to defray the cost of the concrete slab, and we’re hoping to raise about $5,000-6,000 for the future wood-fired oven. We appreciate your support. Checks can also be mailed to Friends of Finland, PO Box 582, Finland, MN 55603.

How Healthy is Your Community?

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. This one is. If you are looking for an update on how the fruit trees and berries we planted at the Clair Nelson Center last year are doing now, here it is:

Feed the Children

If you are looking for an update on how the Finland Community Youth Program is doing, well, each Thursday evening, the 30-40 kids who attend have a great time, and eat some pretty healthy snacks, sometimes even berries picked on the grounds.

If you are looking for an update on the health of our community, this is it. We have problems just like any other community, but we’re working on them. We are planting trees and thinking about the future, and making sure our kids know they are valuable and that they have a place to goof off. The adults in our community come to the Clair Nelson Center to goof off sometimes too. Sometimes kids and elders goof off here together. It’s the greatest thing ever. Intergenerational goofing off – the sign of a healthy community.

Funding for the 2017 Orchard/Edible Landscaping Project was provided through a Community Wellness grant through Live Well Lake County, the MN Statewide Health Improvement Program and the NE MN Community Health Board. Funding for the Finland Community Youth Program comes from the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, the Northland Foundation, the Cliffs Foundation, North Shore Collaborative, and donations from many different individuals and businesses. Funding for intergenerational goofing off comes from the Northland Foundation’s AGE to Age program.

Spanish Camp at the Clair Nelson Center

Friends of Finland is excited to announce our first ever Spanish Camp, which will be held at the Clair Nelson Center at the end of July 2018. Spanish Camp is being planned as a day camp for children ages 5-13, with an emphasis on language, cultures and food in the many Spanish-speaking countries around the world. Spanish Camp will be July 25th, 26th and 27th. Each day will have a theme country – Wednesday will be Mexico, Thursday will be Guatemala/Honduras/El Salvador, and Friday will be focused on the Andean countries like Chile and Peru. We will have assistance from local folks with first hand experience in many of these countries, as well as from a few native Spanish speakers.

The food especially is going to be really fun. We want kids to have the hands on experience of making their own tortillas, pupusas, empanadas, different kinds of salsas and exotic beverages like jamaica and horchata. Many of the foods we take for granted, like corn and potatoes, and things like tacos have their origins in the indigenous cultures of the (now) Spanish-speaking countries of North and South America. Food is also a great starting point for learning a new vocabulary when it comes to learning a language like Spanish.

There will also be fun games and music, as well as cultural stories and legends from the various Spanish-speaking countries. Friday the 27th will wrap up with a skit performance from 2-3pm that is open to the public. Please come have a snack and hear what the group has learned from the 3-day experience.

Anyone interested in participating in Spanish Camp should contact Honor Schauland at 218-353-0300 in order to sign up! Please sign up ASAP as there is limited space available. This program is free this year due to grant support but we appreciate donations!

This new addition to our programming has been made possible by a grant from the Duluth-Superior Area Community Foundation’s Global Awareness Fund.

We are the Solar Champions!

Crystal Bay Township (Finland, MN) was recently given an award by the Minnesota Department of Commerce and Clean Energy Resource Teams (CERTs) for having the most installed solar photo-voltaic (PV) per person in the continental United States. There are a variety of factors contributing to the high amount of solar panels in the Township:

1. Wolf Ridge’s commitment to sustainability, including recent construction projects and newly installed solar.

2. Crystal Bay Township government’s commitment to sustainability, including solar PV at the Clair Nelson Center and the Finland Fire Hall.

3. Many township residents’ decisions to live off the grid due to personal choice or lack of infrastructure in more remote areas of the Township.

4. Many residents’ commitment to sustainability by choosing to install grid-tied solar PV at their homes.

The Township plans to put up a highway sign noting that this is a clean energy community, possibly even a solar-powered sign. In order to retain the title of most installed solar per capita, we need to install more in the coming years. For that eventual growth to occur, solar power needs to get less expensive. While solar power has gotten more affordable in recent years, it remains financially challenging for many people. Because it pays for itself over time, construction loans are available from local banks. However, it is very difficult for low-income people to access these loans. Other obstacles are few local installers and logistics of some home sites. There’s a learning curve here; it’s unfamiliar technology for many people.

With our 283 watts of PV installed per person, we have more installed than all of the country except Hawaii, which has twice as many PV installed per-person as we do. We are the champs of the continental USA! This can change rapidly as PV is being installed constantly all over the country. If we are to maintain champion status, we need to keep adding more solar panels.

To facilitate this growth, our Township has advocated for the Lake County Commissioners to consider adopting the Property-Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) option. PACE is a new channel to finance energy efficiency and renewable energy upgrades for buildings of commercial property owners. This would make possible energy-saving measures to be pursued by businesses. Those eligible receive project financing that is repaid as a separate item on their property tax assessment for a set period. PACE eliminates the burden of upfront costs by providing low-cost, long-term financing.

Our Township recently requested on behalf of homeowners to be included in the SolSmart, an opportunity for Minnesota Local Governments to unlock the economic development benefits of solar energy. Through SolSmart, a national program, our township will get FREE technical assistance from national solar experts to address local barriers to solar energy development. We will see what we can learn to help us make solar installs more accessible, efficient, and affordable.

Some ideas to be explored include building a Community Solar Garden for those of us with limited solar access (trees shading our homes etc.) and limited time and money but interested in solar technology for our homes. All of this gives us greater opportunities to power our homes, businesses, and community with US made energy while reducing our impact on our environment.

We can find opportunities to learn more about solar and other renewable energy options through evening programs, workshops and community conversations around maintaining our champion status by installing more solar PV in our community. At least for now, we can really be proud of our accomplishments in regards to energy conservation, ecological and sustainable buildings and of our solar installations here in the north woods.

Welcome to Finland

You may have noticed that there is a new initiative promoting the distinctive culture and heritage of our area: Welcome to Finland (wtfinland.com). Welcome to Finland is meant to be Finland MN’s version of a local chamber of commerce, with a particular focus on building the online and social media presence of our unique community. Finland MN is made up of people who are proud to live here and be part of this community and its heritage. Welcome to Finland’s goal is to attract people who want to learn about and/or reconnect with our local culture and community. Wtfinland.com is about claiming our narrative in the digital world so that we attract people who are interested in the unique experience Finland, MN has to offer.

Though only recently launched, blog and Facebook posts have been very popular, reaching tens of thousands of people, and there are plans for many creative ways to promote our area online. Welcome to Finland is excited to have the support of a growing number of local businesses and organizations, as well as a Culture and Tourism grant through the IRRRB. In collaboration, we can help get the word out online about the great things that happen in our area throughout the year. Look for more info at wtfinland.com and www.facebook.com/wtfinland/ .

Finland Farmers Market 2018

Get Ready for the Finland Farmers Market 2018!
Summer 2018 at the Clair Nelson Center
Starting June 14th and continuing through October 4th!
Every Thursday evening from 5-6:30 pm
Under the Pavilion at the Clair Nelson Center
6866 Cramer Road
Finland, MN 55603
Vendors: 1st week is free! – $5 per week or $50 for the season
More info or to register call 218-353-0300
We are able to accept credit cards!

We are working hard to keep up with the number of vendors in our expanding market! This year we applied to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture’s Good Food Access Program for funds to install awnings and bricks around our Pavilion to expand the space for the Market. We’re crossing our fingers that we get this grant! This is the second year we’ve applied, so hopefully this is our year!

We are also permitted to accept EBT/SNAP benefits this year! We are still figuring out how this will work, but we are excited to have the opportunity to help folks of all different economic situations patronize our Market and have access to healthy food.

The Finland Farmers Market was started in 2014 as part of an effort to focus on local food in the Finland MN Area as an economic development strategy. The idea is to make space for local producers to sell their goods in their own community. The Clair Nelson Center also has a commercial kitchen space that is MDA certified and available for those taking that next step and creating a food product for retail sale.

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