Hancock and the Copper Country's Finnish roots

Lots of immigrant groups came to work the Copper Country mines, but in Hancock one stands out above the rest: the Finns. Starting in the 1880s, large numbers of Finnish immigrants crossed the Atlantic to dig copper and cut timber in the Keweenaw, and they put down roots so deep that the area is still one of the most Finnish places in America. You’ll catch it in the surnames on the mailboxes, in street signs that appear in Finnish as well as English, in the sauna culture that’s simply part of life here, and in the pasty — the hand-held meat-and-vegetable pie the Cornish miners brought and the Finns made their own.

Hancock was the cultural capital of Finnish America. In 1896, Finnish immigrants founded a college here — Suomi College, which grew into Finlandia University and was the last college in the country founded by Finnish Americans. Sadly, it closed in 2023 after more than a century, a real loss to the town. But its most treasured cultural piece lives on: the Finnish American Heritage Center on Quincy Street, now run by a national Finnish foundation, which holds the largest collection of Finnish-North American material anywhere in the world and hosts exhibits, concerts, plays, and community events.

If you’re new to the area, the Finnish thread is one of the most enjoyable things about it. Try a real pasty from a local bakery, take in an event at the Heritage Center, and — when a neighbor invites you — don’t turn down the sauna. It’s pronounced “SOW-na” up here, and saying it right is your first step to fitting in.