This basket contains items that will call out your inner Finn of the Forest, including:
- An award-winning photo essay about this ethnic minority in Norway: Slash & Burn by Terje Abusdal
- Great Finnish pine soap for your sauna (or otherwise)
- Finn Crisps, floral napkins, and a forest print mug from Ingebretsens to start your woodsy picnic
- A $50 gift certificate to the Finnish Bistro in St. Paul MN
- A CD purchased in the Skogsfinn open air museum in Svullrya: Skogen synger by Grue Finnskog Sangkor
- A small Finnish Wooden Puzzle
- A unique birch bark woven container
Do you recognize Grue and Solør as places from which your family emigrated? If so, you likely have
some Sisu strands your Norwegian heritage!
Curious? The Wikipedia entry for Skogsfinn (Forest Finn) begins with this:
"Forest Finns (Finnish: Metsäsuomalaiset, Norwegian bokmål: Skogfinner, Norwegian
nynorsk: Skogfinnar, Swedish: Skogsfinnar) were Finnish migrants from Savonia and
Northern Tavastia in Finland who settled in forest areas of Sweden proper and Norway during the
late 16th and early-to-mid-17th centuries, and traditionally pursued slash-and-burn agriculture, a
method used for turning forests into farmlands. By the late 18th century, the Forest Finns had
become largely assimilated into the Swedish and Norwegian cultures, and their language, a variety
of Savonian Finnish ( Värmland Savonian dialect ), is today extinct, although it survived among a tiny
minority until the 20th century."
