American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis. (Photo by Julia Guttenfelder) The overall culture of Minnesota connects to a broad array of ethnic backgrounds. From the indigenous Anishinaabe and Dakota people to the influx of European immigrants and more recent growth of Black, Hispanic and Asian populations, the state is becoming more and more diverse. Still, it seems Norwegian, Swedish and Finnish traditions hold an outsized influence on what’s considered Minnesotan. Those traits — most famously the “Minnesooota” accent — took hold in the 20th century and remain prevalent. European immigration began quickly after the Homestead Act of 1862, which resulted in many Dakota people being pushed out of their ancestral land. Around the same time, Nordic people were looking to leave their home countries in response to economic problems and crop failures. Minnesota’s land offered opportunities like farming, mining and logging, which drew millions of Nordic settlers to the area. “Minnesota welcomed more Swedish immigrants than any other state,” according to Andrea Justus, content and research specialist at the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis. “Between 1850 and 1930, 1.3 million Swedes immigrated to the U.S and that was about a quarter of Sweden’s population at the time.” Though there isn’t much research available, it’s a common belief that climate was a big part of why Nordic people decided to stay in Minnesota, especially Duluth. The vast, cold lake and the long, dark season offered a similar climate to those of Nordic countries. “It’s forested, it’s wintry, it’s dark. That’s something we really connect on, especially in the winter,” Justus said. “I think what we think is Minnesota culture today, has a lot of connections to what people think of as Scandinavian culture.” Now, more than a century later, programs and businesses across Minnesota are working to get members of the community interested in engaging with Nordic culture. Bjorn Killerud, Norwegian language instructor and co-chair of Duluth’s Nordic Center, is seeing opportunity for growth. “As we expand the organization now, we can hopefully get more people involved and more people interested in learning about … Sweden, Norway, Finland, all that part of the world,” he said. Bjorn Killerud at the Nordic Center. (Photo By Julia Guttenfelder) The Nordic Center is a nonprofit organization that hosts a variety of weekly classes and events, such as basket weaving, musical gatherings, book clubs, language lessons and festivities like Pepperkakebyen, an annual gingerbread village. University of Minnesota Duluth professor Alison Aune has helped run the event every year since it began, 14 years ago. “I knew that not only did I want to invite people to look at this gingerbread village that everyone’s helping build, but we needed hands-on activities,” said Aune. “You can hangout, have some cider and cookies, and make things.” The Nordic Center’s 2025 Pepperkakebyen event. (Photo by Julia Guttenfelder) The room was filled with conversation, crafts, cookies, and of course hundreds of gingerbread houses. Each year Patrick Mulcahy builds all of the gingerbread houses for the Nordic Center for children and families in the community to decorate. “Those little community connections are the main thing we’re trying to make here, whether young or old, we want to make sure that people know that we’re here … we want to make sure that everyone feels welcome to come on in,” Killerud said. The Nordic Center is located in Downtown Duluth in a building with Nordic roots. It was a space where members of the Sons of Norway — an organization for people of Norwegian heritage — could gather and celebrate their culture. When creating the Nordic Center, the goal was to continue that cultural connection. “They were working together to try to have that same sort of organization of the Sons of Norway, but less of a place to hang out and chit chat with folks, but as a place to try to share our music and creative pursuits,” Killerud said. Another major practice that was brought over from Northern Europe, specifically Finland, is the experience of sauna and cold plunge. Justin Juntunen, a Finnish Minnesotan and creator of Cedar and Stone Sauna shares the Finnish culture through sauna to help people sweat and shiver away some stress. Cedar and Stone Sauna offers a variety of services including private or community sauna rooms, cold plunges and in-home saunas. “Lake Superior is full of Nordic immigration over the last hundred years, and those immigrants, like my family, came with this cultural gift. Now we get to give it away to tens of thousands of people a year,” Juntunen said. Water being poured on rocks to create löyly, a Finnish word for the rising steam in the sauna. (Photo by Julia Guttenfelder) A century ago, at the time of large-scale Finish immigration to Minnesota, Duluth was nicknamed Little Helsinki, after Finland’s capital. “Immediately, when they got here, they began figuring out how sauna fit in the new land,” Juntunen explained. “If you look all around Lake Superior, you see these small Finnish communities, and many of them had public saunas.” Quickly after the Finnish people arrived, Duluth had around ten saunas open to the public. Contrast therapy, also known as the “Nordic cycle,” involves moving between extreme temperatures, such as a cold plunge and sauna. Cold plunging is a practice with a long history across cultures, and for Nordic people, dates back to the Viking Age. Contrast therapy is said to offer numerous physical and mental benefits, and Juntunen explained how the rising popularity of holistic and fitness-focused lifestyles is drawing people toward these practices. “We have studies that prove sauna is really good for our health,” Juntunen said. “My gut is that there will be somebody that sees it as a trend, but more importantly, there are these cultures that have held it for millennia.” For Finnish people, this type of therapy is a necessity that’s embedded in their day-to-day lifestyle. “In Finland, there are more saunas than cars,” Juntunen said. “It’s like air, water and food in Finnish culture. Sauna is just part of it.” Cedar and Stone sauna team member tending a sauna fire. (Photo by Julia Guttenfelder) The story of Cedar and Stone Sauna began 15 years ago with a trip to Finland. Juntunen and his wife, co-founder Gretchen Juntunen, spent much of their time in Finland visiting public saunas. “One of them was floating on the Baltic … we sauna’d and swam and sauna’d and swam, and it was just magic,” Juntunen said. It was at that moment he realized this thing, so valued and natural to him, could become something bigger, for everyone. “The family pastime that I’ve known growing up with … I thought maybe that could be a thing one day,” Juntunen said. Their sauna doors officially opened to the public in early 2020. They now have more than 10,000 customers, with locations in both Minneapolis and Duluth, including a floating sauna located next to Pier B Resort on the Duluth Harbor. A plunge into Lake Superior at Cedar and Stone Sauna. (Photo by Julia Guttenfelder) “It can be life changing, but at the least, very relaxing,” according to Callie Sleper, a Cedar and Stone staff member. Juntunen emphasizes that “sauna” is for everyone. It doesn’t require anything but showing up and being present. “I do think that sauna does create a safe space where all of our … circumstance and identities of who we are, kind of get left at the door,” Juntunen said. “There’s this old Finnish proverb that says, ‘All people are created equal but no more so than in the sauna.’” Like the experience of plunge and sauna, water has always played a big role in Nordic culture. Lake Superior is what makes many of these practices possible and, more importantly, uniquely Minnesotan. John Finkle, master builder of wooden boats, runs a nonprofit boat-building project in Knife River called Duluth Faering Project or Nóatún, which translates from Viking mythology to “boat home.” According to Finkle, the translation is, “A land of abundance and peace and prosperity and happy people and beautiful sunshine.” John Finkle and his two goats, Aloise and Pinto. (Photo by Julia Guttenfelder) Finkle spent ten years living on a houseboat on the Mississippi River and the majority of his life traveling by bicycle, so living an authentic lifestyle is something he values. “I kind of chose to be not focusing on wealth,” Finkle said. In 2011, Finkle rode his bicycle into Duluth and met Justin Anderson, his current apprentice, who helped him get the grants to create the project. One of Nóatún’s official missions is “to breathe new life into the tradition of community boatbuilding and integrate it into contemporary life in order to bring people together.” Similar to Juntunen, Finkle took something that has always been a part of his life and transformed it into something bigger. “That’s Nóatún. We work with community. I’ve built lots and lots of boats by myself and that’s great … It’s way better to do it with other people, and so we’re doing community stuff and working with little kids, old people, anybody that has an interest,” said Finkle. In 2024, Nóatún had to relocate from Downtown Duluth to Knife River, 22 miles up the shore. To move the biggest boat, Finkle built a pair of wooden wheels and rolled it by foot. “We moved it last year on Earth Day. It was a Sunday morning, and we were on bicycle and on foot, and it was about 20 of us, and we pushed it from Duluth all the way to here,” Finkle said. “It was a great day,” Finkle, Anderson, and their team pass on their passion for wooden boats and Lake Superior by inviting the community to try some hands-on boatbuilding and, when they can, time on the water. Finkle said the best part about it is gathering together to create, whether it be boat parts or just a good shared experience. “One of my favorite ways to describe (the atmosphere of Nóatún) is the land of misfit toys,” Finkle said. “It’s really eclectic, people that have an underlying curiosity about things and creativity.” Practices from Nordic cultures continue to create the Minnesota we know today. Immigrants from across Northern Europe found ways to rebuild the communities they left behind by sharing their traditions, which have become a part of the Minnesotan lifestyle. “I like doing the foolish and the impossible,” Finkle said with a smile. The post Embracing the Nordic of the North Shore appeared first on Perfect Duluth Day.