(Peter chuckling)
(lively music)
– [Peter] All right, here
in the Upper Peninsula
of Michigan, 8 1/2 hours from Detroit
if you drive here straight.
– Yeah.
– So Scott,
I just wanna let you know I came prepared.
– What you got?
– [Peter] “Da Yoopers Glossary.”
– [Scott] Uh-oh. (chuckling)
– [Peter] You know these words? Junker.
– [Scott] Oh yeah, that’s your old car.
– [Peter] July 4th. First
of Yooper deer season.
– Oh, come on, that’s when
you take your long johns off
and you put ’em back on on the fifth.
That’s what July 4th is.
– All right, well-
– I won’t go to Detroit
in the summer.
It’s too hot, concrete
jungle. I stay outta there.
This is a native lake trout.
Caught it in 2006.
45 1/2″ long, 33 1/2 pounds,
so it’s like a big buck (chuckling)
for me.
Check out the sauna.
– [Peter] Okay, so you’re
saying a lot of people
have saunas up here.
– Quite a few.
When the Finns moved here,
the first thing they
did was build a sauna.
– [Peter] Okay, are you Finnish?
– I’m Finnish, 100%.
– 100%?
– Yep.
There’s Randy, my friend.
He might try to steal the show. Watch him.
(Peter laughing)
– [Peter] Sauna.
So you come out here during
the winter, put some wood.
– Yep. Heat up the stove.
– [Peter] Yeah, on the stove there. Wow.
– [Scott] Anytime, actually.
– [Peter] How you doing?
– Show stealer. Quit
trying to steal the show.
– Touring the sauna?
– Peter.
– I’m Randy.
– Randy.
– Yeah, and then the steam room here.
– We didn’t have a shower
or a bathtub in our house.
We just had a sauna.
– Growing up.
– Growing up,
and so like when we were little kids,
the whole family would
go in there together.
Kids are sitting in
buckets on the bottom bench
and mom, dad are up on the
top bench throwing steam,
and then my mom would wash us up.
And then as you grow older, like you know,
relatives would come over,
guys would go together,
but I mean, it was a ritual.
Saturday night was sauna night.
You would heat it maybe
during the week too,
like Wednesday night, or maybe
more often in the summer,
but that was our bath.
– [Scott] Yeah, usually always Wednesday.
– [Peter] Wait, you would take a shower
during the week, right?
– No, we had no showers.
– [Peter] No showers?
You guys aren’t that old.
– We would just take-
– No, he didn’t. (laughing)
– We would just take a sauna.
– [Peter] So you guys feel
connected with Finland or no?
– Very much so, yeah, because
of that tradition, yeah.
Even though like a lot of people
from here never went there,
but how people relate with
each other and communicate,
it’s kind of very similar along lines,
like it’s passed down from
generation to generation
from the Finns.
– [Scott] Hey, you wanna walk over there?
[Peter] Yeah, let’s do it.
– Yeah, come on, Randy.
I can only swear in Finn. He can talk it.
– You talk Finnish.
– Yeah, that’s ’cause I
learned it later, you know.
We all knew how to swear
when we were kids. (laughing)
And kitchen Finnish, we knew
how to say this and that.
– Oh, yeah.
– But this was the old co-op store
and the old timers would be sitting
around the doorway
drinking quarts of beer,
and when you walk in they’d
say (speaking Finnish)
’cause you’re a little blonde-headed kid.
That means like a cotton head.
That’s what they’d call us.
– Yeah. (laughing)
– And give us like a nickel
to go buy candy or something.
Everything was there, you had a butcher,
you had gas station, hardware.
– Everything.
– Everything was here
in this store.
– [Peter] Now you got a
lifted up Chevy truck.
– Yeah.
– It’s one of those times
you can just walk down
the center of the road
and all is good.
– I don’t know anymore.
– [Peter] These guys are flying through.
– Mississippi plates.
– There it is.
– The people who worked here too
were all the local neighbors, you know,
it’s like you knew everybody.
– Yeah, my mother worked
here, my dad worked here.
Then it actually went
downhill when dairy farmers,
when they quit farming around here.
– Okay.
– Copper Country Diary closed.
– So for those that don’t know,
and I just came across the word recently,
showing how naive I am.
Yooper, Upper Peninsula, Michigan.
– A Yoopier.
– Yoopier.
But I’ve also heard Yooper, right?
– Well, that’s what it became.
I mean, in the sense it was Yoopier
and then it became Yooper.
We didn’t really use that
word growing up either.
– Okay, but you guys feel
totally different than-
– I do.
– Southern Michigan, right?
– There was always the animosity
between the Lower Peninsula and Upper,
and they’re the ones first
started calling us Yoopers-
– Okay.
– And then it kind of stuck,
so we started using it, but
in the beginning it was like
a pejorative like, oh, Yooper, you know?
– [Peter] And you call them trolls, right?
– Yeah, ’cause they’re under the bridge.
– Yeah. (chuckling)
– Below the bridge.
– Yeah.
– Mackinac bridge.
– Yep.
(both laughing)
– So Yoopers and trolls.
So, what’s different up here?
You got Finnish ancestry, you
got a thicker accent, right?
– Yeah.
– Or it’s just a way of life.
– It’s the way I grew up too,
the way my dad talked, whatever, it was-
– The way of life because,
I mean, it was always kind
of like the backwoods,
the old style of life,
and then a lot of people
left like in the ’50s,
especially in ’60s when
copper mines started closing.
– Yeah.
– You know, a lot of people
went down to the cities and that,
so the ones who got left up here
were like the diehards that-
– Won’t give up.
– Scott.
– Yeah.
Tussle through all the snow,
moving snow, blowing snow,
plowing snow.
– But we had a different
pace of life, you know, we had different,
I think we had different way
of relating to each other.
You know, people were more,
I don’t know how to put it.
Like I think that because you knew people,
you knew everybody in the area,
people treated each other maybe
with a little more respect
maybe you could say.
– Yeah.
– I think.
– [Scott] I’m Copper Country,
Copper Country native.
– [Peter] You’re not a Yooper.
– No, I don’t consider myself a Yooper.
We’re gonna head to the old rock pile
and there’s a couple ruins.
We’re actually on an old,
like a rail grade from the mine right now.
– [Peter] So Scott, growing up here,
mining was already done, right?
– Yeah. We played all over
here when we were kids.
Did you know, Randy, what were
all these old trenches for?
– [Randy] It must have been
for water or something.
– They’re running all over.
We’ll go through there,
but you can see ’em.
– [Randy] The sand process
was run through water.
– And they were all handmade.
– [Randy] Extract the copper from it.
– Stamp the rock into sand
and then they would melt
the copper down into ingots
and so that’s why we got these
big smoke stacks left here.
– [Scott] So here’s one of the old stacks.
– [Peter] Oh, that’s huge.
So you’ll see these all over?
– There’s quite a few of ’em.
– The peninsula.
– [Randy] Yeah.
– There’s another good one back here,
but it’s on private property.
– [Randy] You go up to the town of Gay,
there’s a big huge one.
– Yeah.
– Still standing.
– [Peter] The town of Gay?
– Yeah, it’s called Gay, Michigan.
It’s kind of north of here
and it’s an old copper stamp mill town.
It used to be a stamp mill town
and they got a big smokestack,
and even the old fishermen
used to like use it
for taking their bearings out on the lake
’cause it’s so visible for so far.
– Fishing spots get so far,
we line it up.
– And there’s a huge area
of the sand that’s left
over from the process.
– [Scott] This one I don’t
play around too much anymore
’cause the top’s been falling off.
– So back in the day, 1800s,
this was the best place for
copper in the United States.
That changed it over to Arizona in time,
but it all started here, right?
And okay, you had Cornish.
Here, you had Eastern Europeans,
you had Italians, Irish,
and then the Finns, right?
– Yep.
– And did the Finns have
the biggest population?
Is that why I see Finnish
flags all over the place?
– They still are the largest
ethnic group in the area.
– They are.
– And they were then because,
partially because the mining companies
actually recruited Finns to
come here and work in the mine
because they felt like they
would survive here well,
’cause they could work the woods too.
They were used to this kind of climate
and so they recruited ’em
and so then, of course,
once some started coming,
then more started coming,
so this ended up being like the biggest,
the most populous as far
as Finnish Immigration
in North America, really.
There were some other parts of the country
where the Finns went, but
this was like the place,
and they even called it like,
they used the Finn word,
but it was called the Nest.
(speaking Finnish) The nesting place
’cause all the Finns would,
they could always find
support groups here.
People had communities here.
– Right.
– They had their own
newspapers, their churches.
I mean everything, like
it was established here.
There’s even a college,
you know, recently closed,
but there was a Suomi college.
It was called, Suomi
is Finland in Finnish.
– Yeah, then they changed it
to Finlandia University, FU.
– [Randy] Yeah, they
made it into a four-year.
(Scott laughing)
– [Peter] Yeah. (chuckling)
What did you think of
that? Did you like it?
– I liked that. They were
selling hats and everything.
– I go to FU University.
– Yeah, it was cool.
Where do you go? FU.
– [Peter] There’s a middle
finger on the T-shirt?
– They didn’t do that, but
it was cool. (laughing)
I loved it.
– It smells so good in here.
– Nice in the Cedars.
– [Peter] Look at this.
– [Randy] It used to be
the big hoist building.
Mechanism would stand on top of this.
– I found copper up there.
I’ve been up there.
Of course, as a kid you’re everywhere.
– That’s what would’ve been standing here
is one of those big tall mine buildings
that was like for the hoist.
– Yeah, with the cables
running up to the pulleys
and with an engine pulling everything up.
And this mine here where
you’re standing had a man,
it was probably a man lift.
– Okay.
– For cars,
for the men to go down,
and then this one was divided.
– [Peter] Oh, for the cars to bring-
– Yeah, for cars bringing the ore up.
– Yep.
– Rock.
And this one was…
Let me see what the hell this one is.
(Scott grunting)
(feet scuffing)
Okay, yeah, this is Franklin
Jr. Conglomerate Number Two.
It’s right on the post.
They welded it right on the post.
– [Randy] That was the
mass underground of copper,
like the load, the Franklin Conglomerate.
– [Peter] So this is a tailing pile?
– Yeah.
I partridge hunt out here.
– [Peter] Are you pretty good at it?
– Not bad.
I got a few, I usually, I’ll shoot a few.
They’ve been scarce lately.
– Did any of the money stay?
‘Cause some of these small towns
I’ve drove through,
beautiful architecture,
like the money went into the architecture,
but did it all just go out
through a few companies
and leave the area, go
to New York and Chicago?
– Pretty much, eh?
– [Randy] Yeah, I mean obviously,
during the heyday there
was a lot happening,
the money was circulating,
but as soon as the mine started failing
to pay the stockholders,
pretty soon it would be closed.
– And if anything was nice,
it was for the higher up.
Even your houses.
– They did things though.
Like they built the houses
for the miners to live in,
which were quite modern at the
time compared to, you know,
the type of farm huts that
people, huts I call it,
but like a lot of ’em
are pretty small, so-
– [Peter] Can we cruise
by some of those today?
– They’re all right there.
– They’re right there.
– Yeah.
– Even the street of Boston,
like they all look the same
’cause they were all built by the mine.
– Yeah, if we go up the street,
you’ll see they’re all shaped-
– Oh, cool.
– It’s all over
the place here.
– Mine was a manager of
the mine where I live.
That’s where my house.
– And then some of the
larger houses were, you know,
whoever was in charge of the mines.
– Yeah, like mine.
– As you went
with hierarchy, you know?
– And there was captain’s
houses and this and that,
and then a lot of the smaller
ones where my sister lives
and yeah, if you look at ’em, they’re all,
and you go inside ’em,
they’re all shaped the same.
Stairways go up in the same spot.
– But those houses that were
built like in the late 1800,
early 1900s, frame houses,
they had running water,
they had coal furnaces in the basement,
like they were very modern compared
to like the people living on the farms
who just lived in whatever kind of place-
– Yeah, and wood.
– They could put together.
If you were working for the mine
and you were, you know,
living in one of their houses
and going to their store,
you probably weren’t making
a pretty good living at that time.
(leaves rustling)
– [Scott] Float copper.
– [Randy] There, he found
some just like that.
– I mean, just out of here,
we used to go on our pedal
bikes with an ice cream bucket.
– So these were stamped out the rock.
They broke it out of the rock
and that’s what they would
collect up and smelt into ingots.
So these have been broken out of the rock,
but they missed it, you know,
somehow in the process.
– Yeah, it went through.
– [Peter] Is that worth anything?
– Well, it’s not much, it’s just copper,
like a few pennies worth.
– Be careful on this one.
I had to look because
I knew I’d find some.
– [Randy] But yeah, kids, you know,
we’d all go looking for
copper and then you could,
you know, keep it or you
could even try to sell it.
– Yeah, we used to sell it.
We were younger and get some beer.
(Peter laughing)
– [Peter] How much copper for some beer?
– I don’t know, it took
a while. (laughing)
Those are your souvenirs.
– [Peter] Oh, thank you.
That’s so cool, Scott.
– But that’s what we did.
When we were kids, I always
had a good eye for that.
(grass rustling)
– [Peter] Do you feel disconnected
from the rest of the country in a way?
In the slice?
– I do, yeah.
– [Peter] Pretty free feeling?
– Pretty much. So you
go to town. (laughing)
– [Peter] The town is how many people?
– Too many.
– [Peter] Over 10 is too many?
– That’s enough, yeah.
– [Randy] They wouldn’t put up with him
in the rest of the country.
(Peter laughing)
– That’s why I gotta
stay here. (chuckling)
Here’s my winter’s fuel.
– [Peter] So this will get
you through the winter.
– [Scott] This should get
me all the way, what I got.
– So you split this up,
put it in the stove.
– Split it up and you gotta handle it.
Cut it, split it,
haul it in, burn it,
and haul the ashes out.
This is the old depot for the streetcar.
– [Peter] Okay, that was
the train depot right there.
– Yep.
This building is, you’ll
see how thick the rock is.
Now, I think that was a powder house.
– Okay.
– For the mine.
– [Peter] So they just put
all the powder in there?
– Yeah.
– All in a place.
– The explosives were in here.
Dave ain’t home, but he won’t mind.
But that was, yeah, actually the entrance
was where he put that new window.
– To the depot.
– Yeah.
– [Peter] And then where were the tracks?
– Right here, that’s part of it,
the driveway and then it right here.
And we’re just talking
taking all the copper out.
– No, these were for people.
– For people.
– It was like, I think it was from Calumet
to Hancock was 10 cents, I think.
That house was a store too at one time.
– [Peter] So it was thriving.
– [Randy] Yeah. Yep.
– [Peter] So what’s keeping
things afloat right now?
What are they doing?
– Oh, there’s a lot
of construction.
– Construction.
– And Michigan Tech.
Michigan Tech keeps Hancock
and Houghton rolling.
– That’s a good school?
– That’s a good school.
– It’s surprising a lot
of small enterprises here.
– Yeah.
– A lot of interesting stuff
like with electronics.
There’s a Calumet electronics,
they’re making stuff,
even for the defense industry.
– Yeah, for the military.
– So things are happening here.
– There are, yeah, there’s
a lot of interesting things
that if you start looking
at the list of companies
that are up here and a
lot of ’em are spinoffs
from Michigan Tech, you know.
– It’s good engineering school,
so it’s one of the best.
– [Peter] I love the
yellow line conversation
that you can have out here. (chuckling)
– Don’t do it at four o’clock.
You won’t be standing out here.
(Scott and Peter laughing)
If anybody from this area,
slow down when you come
through here, there are kids.
You don’t come through
our town 60 miles an hour.
– Like the guy with the Mississippi plate.
– Oh, yeah.
– Just flying through.
– But we got locals.
Couldn’t even see the color
of the truck the other day.
So fast.
– [Peter] What is this?
– [Scott] Pannukakku.
– What is it? Pastry?
– Finnish pancake.
– [Randy] It’s like a custard
or Finnish pudding.
– For me?
– Yeah.
– Oh, thank you.
– You gotta eat it.
– Yeah.
(Scott laughing)
And then I got Nisu.
– Nisu.
– This is a sweet bread.
Finnish sweet bread.
My daughter made this.
– [Peter] Your daughter
makes Finnish sweet bread.
– Yeah.
I know Martin will probably want some.
– Yeah, Martin is this old school,
90-year-old Finnish guy
we’re meeting up with.
– He’ll like some.
– Yeah.
– Yeah.
– Is that Finnish Coca-Cola?
– That’s my spittoon.
– Scott’s spittoon.
(all laughing)
All right.
So Randy, you’re gonna follow us.
– I think I’m gonna take off
’cause I gotta go and
see what she’s up to.
– Good meeting you.
– Hey, good meeting you too.
– Appreciate it.
– Yeah, thanks, Randy.
– Thanks again for the shirt.
– Of course, Randy.
– I’ll call you.
– See what you end up with.
– All right.
– Okie dokie.
– You’re part of it, Randy.
Is this what we’re in?
– Yep. 2003 Chevy.
(Peter laughing)
– [Peter] Scott, I’m gonna put
you to work for one second.
– Yep.
– For this.
I wanna take a bite.
– [Scott] Pannukakku.
– Pannukakku.
– [Scott] It’s like a custard.
I made that this morning.
– Mm.
Nice.
– [Scott] Yeah, it’s good.
– That is great. It’s
like, yeah, a custard.
What is it like?
It’s different than
anything I’ve ever had.
– Yeah, it’s almost like a-
– It’s like a flan.
– [Scott] Well, I could
tell you what I put in it.
There’s like five eggs.
There’s a half a cup of
sugar, that’s to a whole pan.
There’s about half a cup of flour.
2 1/2 cups of milk.
And then I sprinkle a little
bit of brown sugar on top
and I drizzle syrup through it
and you bake it for
about 25 minutes at 425.
– That is so good.
– And it’s tasty.
– It’s tasty.
– Yeah.
– Fantastic.
– [Scott] Okay. And we’re off.
(gentle acoustic guitar music)
This is Painesdale.
This is another mining town.
– [Peter] So you’re right,
all the houses are uniform.
They all have a similar look, huh?
– Yep.
– [Peter] When were
they built? Do you know?
– [Scott] Later 1800s I would say.
– [Peter] And then you got one
of these beautiful schools.
– Yep, the Jeffers Jets.
– [Peter] That’s when they
were built so well, huh?
– [Scott] Yeah and that’s
all original old sandstone.
– [Peter] Yeah, so in a
way, these are sort of like
the first housing
developments in the country.
– Yeah.
Some of the old ones with the original.
– [Peter] Right.
– [Scott] All the old
foundations like my house too,
they’re all rock.
– So the people that
lived here at that time,
I mean, they came here,
they probably never left.
They weren’t getting on airplanes.
– No.
– They weren’t traveling.
And then you have something
like this on the hill
that’s probably a manager or something.
– Yeah, it’s gotta be, yeah,
a little fancier house too, yep.
– [Peter] Like the place you’re in.
– [Scott] Another one there too.
– Oh, that’s a cool zone back in there.
There is a security in it, I would think,
a simplicity, but a lot of limits.
You know, you’re really
limited in your life.
(engine humming)
(door clunks)
It’s just a step back.
So yeah, see how close
the communities of houses
are to the shaft house
in summer heat or in the
205″ of average snow.
Work-to-home commute, quite close.
– [Scott] Yeah. (chuckling)
Yeah.
– And that’s how it was.
Double and triple decked man cars
helped to a dozen miners each 4’x4′,
so they just packed in, that is wild.
Imagine you leave Finland or Italy
and you just pack up.
You don’t speak the language.
– Yeah.
– And you go over for this.
– [Scott] Come here and go to work.
– I wonder how many of ’em were like,
“Oh man, I wish I didn’t do that.”
– Why did I do?
I should have stayed home.
That’s what I would’ve said.
– Versus how many were like,
“Sweet, this is amazing.”
‘Cause a lot of the Finns,
from my understanding,
came for the land.
– Yeah.
– Right?
They were given a lot of land,
which they didn’t have
back there, I guess.
– [Scott] I got an old book at home
that has deaths in Franklin Township
and I got relatives in there.
There was a lot of pneumonia.
– Right.
– And a lot
of mine accidents, crushed
by rock, crazy stuff.
– [Peter] So those guys are
just pack in and go down.
That is so wild.
– It was dangerous.
Very, very dangerous.
– In memory.
Champion mine-related deaths.
So yeah, not that long ago.
Look at that. 1900 to 1967.
– [Scott] Yeah.
– [Peter] You see Finnish names here?
Bodged.
– [Scott] That’d be something else.
– Minkilla.
– Yeah.
Minkilla, Boylanin,
Galari, Vonanin, Vosanin,
Turbial, Silabala, Sibonan.
Pika, Tulso, Takala.
They’re all Finn names.
– [Peter] Is this Martin’s house?
– [Scott] Yeah.
– [Peter] What a place.
This is beautiful.
– [Sandra] Yeah, Martin
had just taken a sauna.
– [Scott] Ah! Sauna.
– I had dog on my black pants.
I can’t wear ’em.
– Yeah.
– Yeah, I gotta have clean pants on.
– [Peter] You got dressed
up for this, Martin.
– No, no, no, I’m getting
dressed up for the dance.
– [Peter] You gotta dance later.
– Oh, yeah.
You now what? You should
really come there.
It’s our once-a-year Finn dance,
and we got three accordions
and I have no idea how
much they got planned,
but it’s one of the-
– It might be too much for you.
– Oh yeah, I think it would be.
(all laughing)
Let’s go, let’s look in here.
It’s a mess in here,
but here is my favorite.
When we were on our trip
in Finland, to Finland,
the only reason this
is hanging loose there
is she wanna put lights in there,
but this is your drinking
cup, and then when you,
everybody thought that you’re
gonna be out late at night
because you’re carrying a lyhty.
– Yeah.
– And what it was,
was full of cognac,
and you could take a little
swig every once in a while
and put the cat back on.
– Nice.
– Yeah.
– We spent 36 days on that trip.
It was all friends and relatives.
There’s my third place
in Classics Snowmobile.
So I took my Iron Track
March 19th, 2005.
– [Peter] You grew up speaking Finnish.
– Oh, yeah. I learned English
from my older brother.
He went school three years before I did,
and every day he came home from school,
he taught me the English.
– Okay.
– So yeah,
that’s the way it was them days.
Lot of water under the bridge since then.
My grandparents, both
sides came from Finland.
That’s when they came.
Albert Lourillo, John Aho,
Elios Humolompl Johnson.
This was in 2017.
That’s 125 years.
And at the same time, we had
Finland’s 100th anniversary.
Their independence.
– [Peter] Okay.
(plaque clonks)
I’ll just give you a little glimpse
if you got video on that thing.
Right there.
– [Peter] Let’s crack it open.
– There’s 12 1/2 thousand names in there.
We ain’t got time.
(Scott laughing)
12 1/2 thousand names in there.
My relatives going back to 1500s.
– [Peter] This is your family tree?
– Yep.
– Nice.
– On my father’s mother’s side.
Not on the whole, not on
father’s father’s side.
My father father’s father
was a (speaking in Finnish).
– [Peter] What’s that?
– Drunken Bay.
No, Drunken Pond. Drunken Pond.
– [Sandra] The last
name before it changed.
– Yeah. (speaking in Finnish)
And, let’s see.
If I could, here is, look at this.
– [Peter] Trimountain Mining Company.
– [Martin] Yep, that’s
where he went to work.
– [Peter] $12.60 Is that for two weeks?
– I have no idea.
And when he went to work
there, they asked him his name.
He says (speaking in Finnish).
They said, “You’re Elias Johnson.”
And that was the name change them days.
– Ah.
– 1888 when they came over
and they were the first to settle Toivola.
That’s the old Finnish ways right there.
All kinds of old people.
– [Peter] Do you still have
some of the old Finnish ways in you?
– [Martin] Oh, yeah.
Sauna twice a week,
Wednesday and Saturday.
– [Peter] You have a sauna here.
– [Martin] Oh yeah. In the basement.
There they are, right there.
That’s my mom and dad.
– 77.
– Yep.
– [Peter] How much land do
you guys have here, roughly?
– [Martin] Right here, there’s 160 acres.
– Oh, nice.
– Okay.
– [Martin] I’m ran land
rich and money poor, period.
– [Peter] Martin, you designed this?
– No, no, no, no.
There was a guy from
Finland that moved here
and he’s the one, he’s seen that house
by Dave’s gas station in Hancock.
He’s seen that house and he came here
and he built the house, you know.
– [Peter] In Finland, there’s no way
you’re owning 160 acres, I don’t think.
– No.
– That’s impossible.
– No, no, that’s impossible.
– I would think, right?
– Yeah.
– Maybe some Finnish person
watching can correct me on that.
– And no, the deal in Finland was
that the oldest boy gets the farm.
– Yeah.
– That’s why
everybody else moved, and my dad,
no, my grandfather
was the youngest of the first wife.
He was on an auction block.
– Auction block?
– Yeah.
– What’s that?
– Well, when you were poor,
you couldn’t afford to raise your kids.
The state would auction your kids off
for the lowest bidder that
the state would have to pay
to take care of ’em financially.
– In Finland?
– In Finland, yeah.
– Wow.
– Yeah.
– [Peter] So it was really
rough there in Finland.
– Oh yeah, yeah, it was starvation.
It was starvation.
It’s just like the Irish.
Irish and English, the same got both-
– [Peter] And the Italians
were just too broke.
That’s why they, they weren’t starving.
– No, no, no.
– They had fish.
– Yeah, yeah, right.
– But they were just broke.
– Yep.
– They would always put the Italians
and the Finns together
on the shittiest job
there was in the mine and
that was loading that rock
and breaking that rock up
because they couldn’t
understand each other
and they had to work.
That’s where their money was.
They got paid by the
pound or by the car load
of ore that they hauled out.
– Okay.
– Okay?
And then that a**hole that was, excuse me,
that a**hole that was
counting all the car loads.
– Right.
– There was no scales.
Oh, that must weigh
about a ton and a half.
That must weigh about so much, you know,
so there was no scales,
but he judged how much rock they took out
and that’s how they got paid.
So it was really worse them
days than it was today.
At least you got unions to try
and hold everything on a even keel.
– Did they get paid in scrip, do you know?
– Oh yeah, yeah, I think they,
the first ones that came,
they got paid to the company store.
– Yeah.
– Yeah.
– So they got company money,
could only spend at the store.
– Yep, yep, yep.
– And if they lost their job,
then the wife had to
move out of the housing
in like seven days or something.
– Oh yeah, yep, yep, yep.
And if they had kids,
if the family had kids,
the kids could go to work
for the mining company,
then the wife could stay
in the company house.
If you had enough kids
to support the wife,
old enough and all that.
You know, 12 years old and
you gotta run in a mine
to be a, what the heck was that?
Drill hop.
– Yeah.
– Yeah, that was rough.
– There ain’t very many
older people around
that can tell anything anymore.
My dad even, he would
be like 103 right now.
– [Peter] Okay.
– But you know, World War II, he was in.
– Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
– He passed away in ’99
and all the older people around me
and relatives are all gone.
– Yep, yep.
– [Peter] What do you got
here, Martin, this old Dodge?
– That’s an old Dodge.
I bought a ’39 I think.
I don’t know for sure exactly.
My original intent was to
take the cab off of this truck
and put it on a ’77 Chevy suburban frame.
And then I got an old
Model T dump truck box
over there in the brush.
– [Peter] You gonna bring
it back to life, Martin?
– [Martin] No, I ain’t.
I was gonna, but I ain’t got time anymore.
Oh, okay, if we walk this
way, I’ll show you my,
our rhubarb patch, which is too big,
but it’s the biggest,
bestest patch in Toivola.
– You love your rhubarb?
– Oh yeah, oh yeah.
– The pies?
– Oh yeah, pies and cakes and you name it.
– [Scott] My wife made syrup last year.
– Oh.
– Oh, was that good.
– Outta what?
– Rhubarb.
– Hey, don’t tell anybody,
but Sandra makes a liqueur outta rhubarb.
Rhubarb, raspberry, lemon.
I don’t know how many different.
– I bet.
– Yeah.
Yeah, that is one.
– Yeah, that’s a beautiful one.
– One healthy, healthy rhubarb patch.
Now when you’re here,
show the people that got
sheath that’s off of the roof.
I can’t get anybody to go up there
and my wife won’t let me climb a ladder,
put a new sheath on.
– Okay, do you need some help here?
Let’s shout out to the
local community, right?
Anyone wanna help Martin out?
(Martin laughing)
Put a comment down below, right?
– I went in from,
I don’t know what the
hell I was doing outside,
and there was a bunch
of people in the kitchen
and I says that,
“Sandra, are we too old
to have kids anymore?
She says, “What are you talking about?”
I said, “I can’t do this alone anymore.”
I said, “If we would’ve had our kids
when we were 60 years old,
now we’d have helpers.”
– Yeah.
– Oh.
– But to have them when we were 30,
20 years old, they’re gone.
– That’s what I’m thinking.
I’m 47, no kids so far.
– You better get busy.
– But I’m taking your advice.
– There you go.
– You were just telling me,
do it when you’re older.
(all laughing)
(birds chirping)
(Martin and Scott chatting in background)
So cool up here, guys.
And when you think of Michigan,
I don’t think most people think of this,
at least I never did.
I thought Detroit, Great Lakes,
but really knew nothing about the state,
and then you go Upper Peninsula,
totally different than Lower Michigan.
And then you get up
here, Keweenaw Peninsula,
which is another level of detachment.
Just listen to these sounds.
It’s so peaceful here.
(birds chirping)
– There’s a lot of hay to
cut out there. (laughing)
Give him a sigh and a, great.
– Get out there and just have at it.
– [Peter] Do you have any Finnish
you guys can speak, a little bit?
– No really. I’m not good.
– Okay.
(Scott speaking in Finnish)
– Yeah, that’s it.
(Scott speaking in Finnish)
(Martin laughing)
– That’s him. (speaking in Finnish)
– [Peter] I guess someone will translate
that in the comments.
(Scott laughing)
– Yeah, we’ll see you at the dance.
– We’ll see you at the dance.
– Yeah.
– We’ll come by.
– Yeah.
(engine humming)
– What’d you say? You’re
learning stuff yourself?
– Oh yeah, I mean, you know, a little more
that I didn’t get before
when I was younger, you know?
– [Peter] Yeah, right.
When you’re younger, you just
don’t care about this stuff.
– No, that’s the thing.
The old timers like, “I don’t
know what is over there,”
but all these, I like stories and history.
– Yeah, and you know, in 20 years,
he’s not gonna be telling
these stories, right?
– And I’m into history.
I didn’t like history in school.
When I got off school, I was more,
I’m more interested now in all history.
– Same.
– But I met Martin before
I think maybe once in a passing somewhere.
– Yep.
– But now
when I got to meet him,
very nice, nice visit.
– [Peter] So your dad was in World War II.
– Yeah, World War II.
39 months he was gone.
With your boot camp and whatever,
and then he went overseas.
He was in on the invasion of Sicily.
He was in Africa, he was
in France, he was in Italy.
And then he got, he always loved the kids.
When he was in Germany,
he was feeding kids
like cocoa and your candy bars.
And he actually got court-martialed for it
I think two times.
I know he had PTSD, there’s
no doubt about that.
Rough time with wife.
He came back and he said he’s
never going anywhere again.
Been far enough. (laughing)
Never again.
But yeah, he was a good guy.
(engine humming)
This is our deer hunting camp.
Me and my buddy Kevin
and Patrick and Roth.
Every year we come out here,
November, the hunting time.
– This is a big deal.
– Yeah.
– [Peter] Part of living up here, right?
– Yeah, every year I’ve
been coming here since ’97.
– [Peter] So do most people
have something like this?
– Yeah, all over here.
– [Peter] So they just have
a piece of land, a camp,
and they come out and hunt deer.
– Yep. All over the UP, all over.
– [Peter] Okay.
– [Scott] Family and friends.
– [Peter] And this just
sort of like a getaway
from work and normal life type stuff.
– If you wanna relax, you know.
And this place was nothing but bare studs
when they bought it and then
we worked on it over the years.
I didn’t do all the work,
everybody worked on it.
The getaway for a couple weeks. (laughing)
– [Peter] Wives or no wives?
– No wives.
The guys.
This is a good year here.
We had a lot of nice
bucks hanging that year.
– [Peter] You skin these
and eat the meat throughout the year?
– [Scott] Oh, yeah.
– [Peter] Okay, so you
skin it, freeze it and-
– Yeah, that’s me and Al.
Al’s gone. He ended up with cancer too.
He’s gone.
And Danny passed away too.
– [Peter] So you four, you’re
just good old broskies,
been around forever.
– Yep.
Jimmy’s gone too.
– Geez.
– That’s the day I caught that fish.
– [Peter] The one that was in your house.
– Yeah. (laughing)
– [Peter] Oh, cool.
So you got a full kitchen going on here.
– Yeah, it’s comfy.
– [Peter] And then it’s your
buddy Rogan who owns this.
– Yep.
– [Peter] Don’t piss Rogan off, huh?
– [Scott] Yeah. (laughing)
– [Peter] And that’s
the fish on your wall.
– [Scott] That was right
on that deck out here.
Picture, yeah.
– [Peter] Wow.
– [Scott] See, we played here one year.
Me and my friend, Don.
– Never a cover charge.
– Yep.
– [Peter] “What happens at
deer camp stays at deer camp.”
And then the bunks.
– Yep, bunk room.
This is all, from right here,
some pop, this is Aspen.
– Oh, nice.
– That we had cut
and built this, so that
was from right here.
– [Peter] And you put four grown men
in bunk beds just like childhood.
– [Scott] That’s it.
– [Peter] Telling stories.
– Having fun, laughing.
Sometimes little under the weather,
most of the time (laughing) by evening.
Now check out the sauna.
Kylmä. Sauna is kylmä.
Cold.
Sauna is kumma, hot.
We never flip it around. (chuckling)
(door clanking)
– [Peter] Ah, this is great.
– But it’s nice when you’re down here
to be able to take a bath, you know?
– Yeah.
– Because we’ve been,
when we first came here,
we’re borrowing a sauna up the road.
We had to heat our water on the stove
and there was cracks all over,
but, oh, it sure felt good to take a bath.
And then we built this, so.
– Oh, this is great.
– Quite a while ago.
Yeah, hot water. Stove
heats the hot water.
– [Peter] Yeah. Put on the stones.
– [Scott] Yeah, the people always wonder,
how can you put a rubber
hose on such a hot stove?
Well water, the water’s not
that hot, they won’t burn.
– [Peter] And you guys all cram in here?
– No, we usually one at a time.
We take our own in between.
– [Peter] Are the young
guys getting into this,
or is this sort of like an
older generational thing?
– No, we got the two younger ones.
– [Peter] Is that an outhouse over there?
– [Scott] Yeah.
– [Peter] So no indoor toilet.
– [Scott] Nope, you gotta
hit the shitter outside.
(Scott laughing)
It should be a two-holer
’cause sometimes somebody’s
in there too long.
(Peter chuckling)
– [Peter] Oh, you got just a
deep, thick forest back here.
So the deer love it here.
– [Scott] Oh yeah, like it.
– [Peter] Maybe it’s not
so interesting to you,
but it’s super interesting to me.
This is really cool.
– Looks good.
– So you guys
are only out here a couple
weeks a year, or how much?
– Yeah, but we come
down in the summer too.
If these walls could talk,
who knows what they’d say.
Oh.
No, a lot of fun, I mean
just, oh God, over the years.
Aye yai yai.
Yeah, a lot of fun here.
Wake up with your head in
a dog dish or something.
(both laughing)
Drinking water,
you can come and pick
it up here for the cab.
Somebody got a bucket,
got one waiting there.
– [Peter] Oh, yeah.
I’m gonna fill my bottle up, can I?
– [Scott] Oh yeah, that’s good water.
– [Peter] This is cool,
whoever welded this.
– [Scott] Yeah, that’s neat.
They just put that on
there last year, I think,
or the year before.
(water splashing)
Good water.
– Oh, yeah.
That’s nice.
– Yeah.
– What’s this here?
– That’s the old school.
I’m gonna pull up.
– All right.
– [Scott] Just in case somebody pulls up.
(engine humming)
– So cool, Scott was saying how,
well, he gets his deer meat from hunting.
He gets his eggs from his neighbor.
His vegetables from his neighbor.
Other meat from a guy
around here who sells meat.
Do I got that right, Scott?
Most of your major staples
for food come locally.
– Yeah. Yes.
– That is awesome.
– Yeah, like my beef,
like I said, out here,
if you shoot deer, it’s all local.
Here we go. I’ve never
been in here either.
– [Peter] Oh, interesting.
It’s like the kids just left, you know?
Like 60 years ago.
– Peter, you’ve been a bad boy.
(both laughing)
– Back in those days, you
would’ve hit me, right?
– Yeah, I would’ve hit ya,
I would’ve had a ruler.
(Scott imitating whip cracking)
– Slam on the fingers.
– Across the fingers.
– [Peter] “People and Progress.”
– [Scott] That’s a lot of old books.
– [Peter] “Number Three Stories.”
“The Moderns.”
School opened September 1924, closed 1956.
– [Scott] Wow.
(gentle upbeat music)
– Today’s been a bit of
a step back in time, huh?
– [Scott] Yeah. (laughing)
– Checking out copper history.
– Yeah.
– Stories from Martin.
– [Scott] No doubt.
– [Peter] It’s been great.
(upbeat music continues)
(dog barking)
– Terry was coming home on
that upper field up there.
He counted 73.
(Scott whistling)
– 73 deer?
– Uh-huh.
– Yeah.
– Wow.
– [Peter] We almost hit about three.
– Yeah. Well, one was close
to the bumper. (laughing)
– [Peter] So this is family land.
– [LuAnn] Yes, my husband’s family.
– [Peter] Husband’s family.
– [LuAnn] It’s his grandparents
that homesteaded here.
1892, I believe you had
to farm it for 10 years
and then you got the deed.
– Right, 160 acres, the Homestead Act.
And that was US Government’s way
of incentivizing people to move West.
And then the Europeans caught wind of that
and they’re like, “I want some of that.”
– You are correct.
– Right.
– And this was all Uncle Hugo’s property.
Uncle Hugo was the bachelor
that got left here at the Homestead
and he deeded it to my
husband before passing,
and then I inherited it.
Terry helps me out with a big job
taking care of all of this.
– Who’s your husband?
– Glen Heranan.
– Ah, I know Glen.
– Did you?
– Yeah, and Neil.
– Neil.
– [Peter] Everyone knows
everyone up here, huh?
– Yes, they do.
As long as that I’m on this earth,
I will see that these
buildings stay restored.
– [Terry] And open to
the public, you got this?
– [Peter] Oh, you want people coming here?
– Yes.
– Hugo kept it,
and there’s a guest book
in there that we ask
that you go check it out in the museum.
When we got here, it was like waste deep
in dust and feed bags,
but we busted through
it all and cleaned it up
and kind of restored it.
Made him a sign.
– What’s the first
signature in the book here?
Everybody had to sign the book.
Oh, Terry, it’s falling apart.
There’s people from all over.
It started in ’79. People from-
– [Terry] Let’s see what this one’s got.
Oh, this is just starting, eh?
– [LuAnn] Yeah, this doesn’t-
– [Peter] So you started in ’79 here.
– [LuAnn] My Uncle Hugo
did, so we’re continuing it,
and we certainly would appreciate
if you guys would sign it.
– [Peter] Yeah, let’s do it,
but you have to hold the camera.
– Okay.
– There you go.
– Signing a guest book.
– It’s official.
– Peter sign it.
– And I’m destroying it all.
Thorn beds.
(all laughing)
– [Terry] He had a good
imagination. That’s called a…
– [LuAnn] Petrified snake.
– [Terry] Petrified snake.
There’s a tooth from the mouth
of the Misery River over there.
(all laughing)
– [LuAnn] He was quite witty.
– [Terry] But we cleaned
it up and put his stuff
back in nice and neat so that people
could come and enjoy it.
This is the blacksmith’s shop.
See how nice-
– Those are called
dovetail ends.
That’s very common of Finns,
and not everybody does it that way.
– [Peter] Dovetail ends.
– [LuAnn] How they’re sticking out.
– Notched together.
– Notched together
like Lincoln Logs.
– They’re not flat.
– [Peter] Oh, yeah.
That’s gonna stand another 100, 200 years.
– [Scott] Nobody has enough
time to do that nowadays.
They’d rather put a big
bolt in somewhere, you know.
– [Peter] We got like
a little dowel in here
holding it all together.
And that amount of work is just…
– [Terry] Cut the tree down.
– Cut the tree.
– Yeah.
– [Peter] Not gonna be done these days.
– And all done by hand.
Those are all hand drilled.
No power tools.
– No.
– The drills are in there still.
– With your wooden spindle.
– Uncle Hugo’s invention room,
so if the farm needed something,
Uncle Hugo would come in here and make it.
Let your eyes get adjusted for a minute.
Watch your step.
Now here’s Uncle Hugo’s make-it machine.
(container clunks)
He’d fire that bugger
up and it ran the saw,
the grinder, the lathe.
– [Scott] Oh yeah, little lathe.
– The buffing wheels, the drill bit.
So when this thing was buzzing,
Glen and his brother
would be come out here,
watch him make parts.
– Oh, yeah.
– And when the boys would get too close,
they’d tell me Uncle Hugo
would step on their toes,
get ’em away from all the moving parts.
Yep, this is the make-it
machine, yeah. (laughing)
Can you look at all the
arbors all connected together
from one main motor.
(Terry imitating machine buzzing)
Dust would be flying.
And I’m telling you, the farm
never throws anything away.
There’s no such thing as garbage.
– Nope.
– Oh.
(LuAnn chuckling)
Yeah, I like the multipurpose machine.
– Boy, that is really muti.
(Scott vocalizing)
– [Terry] They built
one section at a time.
– [LuAnn] As they got more animals
and they could afford it.
Dovetail up there.
– Right up to that point.
– [Peter] Oh yeah. Look at that.
– [Terry] Somebody died.
– Yeah.
– And someone else-
– They went the easier way.
– Yeah.
– [Peter] Somebody died and
they just started doing it
like that, is that what you said?
– [Terry] That’s what it looks like to me.
Somebody took over.
– [Scott] Yeah, somebody took over.
– Maybe the Finnish
craftsmanship sort of went away
the next generation.
– That’s what I said like
this is probably Hugo’s dad,
and that’s probably Hugo.
– [Peter] Hugo taking the shortcut.
– [Terry] That’s what I’d say.
– [Peter] Yeah, you can see that.
Look at that. That is so cool.
– [Scott] That’s another work of art.
– How you get those-
– They all fit.
– Get them to fit like that.
– Yep.
– We can go in there.
It’s an old farmhouse.
– [Terry] Belongings and he’d been dead
23 years when we started
building the house.
– Yeah, this is the only,
we haven’t gotten to this room here,
but there was 12 children
raised in this house.
– 12 kids?
– Mm-hmm.
Wanna play a tune? (chuckling)
– [Peter] Do you play?
– [LuAnn] No, I had never let that go.
– [Peter] And you got the
old Harris typewriter.
– [LuAnn] Mm-hmm.
This was my mother-in-law.
She was the youngest girl,
and this is the oldest girl, both gone.
Trina and Aily.
Now all of these clothes
were made out of the flower sacks here
and my mother-in-law was real
embarrassed of those shoes
because they were homemade shoes.
(Scott laughing)
– [Peter] Oh cool, so
the lake’s down here.
– Can feel it.
– Yeah, can feel it, right?
It’s like a 10 degree, 15
degree drop from the interior.
– It makes a difference.
– Yeah, from Johnson’s
to down here.
– Down here you can.
– [Peter] Yeah, this is cold right now.
Oh, look at this, and it’s like the ocean.
It just goes on forever.
– [LuAnn] Pretty vast.
Oh, they’re looking for four-leaf clovers.
– Did you find any?
– Yep.
– [Peter] You got one?
– Only one.
– [Peter] Can I see it?
– Found 12.
– Let me see it.
Is that super?
I’ve never found one in my whole life.
– Really?
– Yeah.
– [Visitor] Here, you want it?
– [Peter] I’ll take it. I mean, you sure?
– [Visitor] You gotta
dry it like this though.
– [Peter] Thank you.
So isn’t that super rare?
I guess not up here.
I don’t know.
They say it is, but then
I found 12 last weekend,
so I’m not sure.
– [Peter] Look at this approach
he’s got going over here.
It’s like a soft scanning of the grass.
– You just gotta look for something
that looks a little different.
– Okay.
Look at this, you guys,
this is so beautiful.
Lake Superior, the greatest of the greats.
(water sloshing)
All of the water from
the other Great Lakes
can fit into Superior.
And Superior, from my
understanding, is the coldest.
Nice, empty beach.
(water splashing)
Oh, that’s cold. Maybe 58 degrees.
Well, it’s freezing down here.
– It’s just nice.
– Yeah.
(Scott laughing)
– [LuAnn] We wanna give Peter a souvenir.
– [Peter] Cool. Thank you.
– A shirt from Misery Bay.
– This is great. Thank you.
– You’re very welcome.
– You want people to come out here.
There’s a way to do it,
it’s through the university.
The university runs a
tour from time to time.
– Social Sciences Department-
– Okay.
– Runs a vernacular
architecture cruise
through the Copper Country
that people can get involved with.
– Okay.
– So they can contact that.
We’ll send the link to
you so that you can share
that with them.
– Okay.
Link in the description.
And you want people to join
that tour and come out here.
– Sure, sure, come and join the tour
and come and see the
museum, Uncle Hugo’s Museum.
– Uncle Hugo’s Museum. Calumet Homestead.
– All right, thank you two.
We gotta get to see Martin dance.
– Yeah.
(all chattering)
Gotta watch Martin boogie down.
– Boogie down, yeah.
(Scott laughing)
– [Scott] Live music.
(Scott whistling)
(people chattering)
(upbeat music)
(people clapping)
(people chattering)
– Okay, this outfit started
in latter part of 1800s
because the mining companies
didn’t have insurance for their workers.
– Oh, okay.
– So the Eagles
are people helping people people.
– [Peter] Okay.
– And-
– They offered
the health insurance.
– Yeah, they offered the health insurance
and the hospitalization and
all that for 50 cents a week
or a month or whatever it was,
but it started in Seattle
and we are 1,122 areas in United States,
and now there’s over 3,000.
– [Peter] Oh, great.
– Yeah, it’s quite a deal.
(lively accordion music)
(lively accordion music continues)
(people chattering)
(lively accordion music continues)
(lively accordion music continues)
(lively accordion music continues)
– All right, Scott, awesome stuff.
– You bet.
– Thanks for coming along
on that journey, guys.
Until next one.
– Yeah, that was a lot of fun.
– That was fun.
– Thanks for coming.
– No, thank you.
(lively accordion music)
(lively accordion music continues)