Tuesday, February 08, 2022

Sámi National Day, but many Michiganders might not know what that is

Elissa Welle, Detroit Free Press
Sun, February 6, 2022,

A Sámi flag flies outside Finlandia University in Hancock, MI in celebration of Sámi National Day.

Today is Sámi National Day, a day of celebration for the thousands of members of the indigenous group from northern Norway, Finland, Sweden and the Kola Peninsula in Russia.



What Michiganders might not know is the Upper Peninsula is home to the highest concentration of Finns -- many of whom are Sámi -- in the U.S. Between 16% and 34% of residents of Marquette, Baraga, Gogebic and Keweenaw counties list Finnish ancestry, according to U.S. census data between 2015-2019.

James Kurtti, Honorary Finnish Consul for Upper Michigan and former director of the Finnish American Heritage Center at Finlandia University in Hancock, Michigan, said the presence of Sámi descendants in northern Michigan is significant but not necessarily noticeable.

Sámi immigrants began to arrive in northern Michigan in the 1860s to work in copper mines after a decline in the mining industry in Scandinavia, Kurtti said. They also left the region to escape governmental pressure to assimilate to Swedish, Norwegian or Finnish culture. Many Sámis lost their land and languages through land seizures and forced residential boarding schools, similar to what indigenous tribes experienced in Northern America by the U.S. and Canadian governments.


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In moving to the U.S. in the late 1800s, many Sámi people buried their cultural identities, Kurtti said. The Sámis were often mistaken as Finnish, despite having distinct languages and culture. This mischaracterization continues today in Michigan.

"There was a time when it wasn't popular to be (Sámi) and people saw it as something that was fading away," Kurtti said. "It's only been in recent years that there's been this rekindling and exploration of people into their Sámi roots."

Sámi National Day commemorates the first Sámi congress held in Trondheim, Norway, in 1917 to discuss problems common across the Sápmi region. Despite never having their own country, the Sámi worked to establish their own parliament in Finland, Sweden and Norway.

The Sámi continue to fight for land rights in the Sámpi region. As recently as Feb. 4, Sámi activists were joined by Greta Thunberg to protest the proposition of a new mine in northern Sweden.


A resurgence of interest in Sámi culture in the last several decades has led cities in northern Michigan to include Sámi traditions in annual events. Kurtti said the Sámi flag is raised outside the Finnish American Heritage Center in Hancock on Sámi National Day. The center also offers programming on Sámi culture.

Since 1999, Hancock has hosted a Finnish-American celebration called Heikinpäivä around the time of St. Henrik’s Day, a day that signifies winter's halfway point. It has been canceled for two years due to COVID-19. Kurtti hopes it can resume next year.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Today is Sámi National Day, a celebration of the Sámi people

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