From the Editor: A visit to FinnFest felt like home

FinnFest, starring Carlton County!

Although that’s a slight exaggeration, I saw more people I knew at

FinnFest Saturday morning than I usually see at the local grocery store.

I hadn’t even made it to the ticket booth when I bumped into Anja Bottila, she of the mojakka cookoff and the Carlton County Historical Society. Next it was then Mandi (Huhta) Rosebrock, working the registration desk. Near the tori — Finnish for “marketplace” — I bumped into Mary Lukkarila, former Cloquet library director and current Finlandia Foundation Northland chair, who led a tour of Carlton County for FinnFest attendees the day before FinnFest started.

Then who should walk by but Keiko Satomi, Cloquet’s adult services librarian, who hails from Japan, there to take part in the vintage Marimekko fashion show featuring the Finnish design company’s women’s clothes from the 1960s and ’70s.

Although I have northern European ancestors from Sweden, Denmark, Bohemia and England, I don’t have an ounce of Finnish blood. I quickly learned that didn’t matter: FinnFest is really more about learning and appreciating, mixed with a little eating, Nordic walking and some floorball thrown in.

After pursuing the many tori stands, my son Henry and I wandered into the floorball competition and caught part of a game between the Fort Worth Jaguars and the Fresno Force.

It looks like hockey and moves like hockey, but the rules are not the same. Players wear almost no pads, and use an extremely lightweight hockey-like stick to move and shoot what looks like a wiffle tennis ball. There’s also no checking, so far fewer concussions. This is how I see the game as a mother.

The North American Floorball League held its national championship game at FinnFest Sunday, the tail end of a four-week season played across the United States. It includes teams from various American cities and states — including the Twin Cities-based Minnesota Growlers — as well as other countries such as Sweden, Czechoslovakia and Finland.

Swedish team captain Zacharias Melin said it’s their team’s third year playing in the NAFL. In an attempt to grow the sport’s popularity here, they played in games in Austin, Texas, Nashville, Tennessee, and Duluth.

“In Sweden, it’s a really big sport. It’s like the second- or third-biggest,” Melin said.

He understands the comparison to hockey, but said the two sports are not the same.

“I think there’s a really big difference, but when you try to explain it, you almost everytime say like hockey, except you’re running.”

He encourages kids to try it.

“It’s a really fun sport, and a lot cheaper,” he said.

Henry and I have limited time, so we don’t stay for the entire game, although my 21-year-old said it looked like a fun game to try and I wondered aloud when it will become an Olympic sport. I found out later it became an official Olympic sport in 2017.

Other adventures included a conversation with a Hermantown stained glass artist and an unexpected encounter with my son Jack’s good friend, Kiana Hachey, a Cloquet class of 2021 grad who is selling SetriBarrel saunas with her mom and dad, Desiree and Chris Hachey. FinnFest has an entire section and a number of presentations dedicated to the sale and study of the sauna. (Pronounced SOWna if you’re of Finnish descent, I learned shortly after moving to Cloquet.)

FinnFest is amazing, a sort of cross between attending a conference, going to the home show, and just hanging out with friends at a cool venue. I plan to return next year, but realized there are many places in Carlton County — the Esko Historical Society for one, Sampo Beach, my good friend’s sauna — where I can learn more about Finnish culture.

Now all we need is a floorball team ….

Jana Peterson is part-owner and editor of the Pine Knot News, and enjoys asking questions about all sorts of things. Contact her at [email protected] or just stop by the office at 122 Avenue C in Cloquet.