Two Locally Produced Documentary Films to Premiere on WNMU-TV PBS

The deep forests of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula are home to small villages of Finnish Americans—communities carved out from the forest where Finnish language, cultural worldview, and traditional arts remain crucial to social life more than a century after immigration. Descendants of Finnish immigrants still eke out modest lives on old farmsteads, working with the resources they have available to them, showing their creativity and ingenuity in simply getting by and making do, and living in ways similar to their ancestors who migrated generations ago.

Filmmaker Michael Loukinen’s ethnographic documentary explores Finnish woodcraft past and present, as he focuses on a handful of Finnish American woodcarvers today in the Upper Peninsula. In this region, older craft like log cabins, homemade skis and snowshoes, and farm tools serve as the backdrop for the enduring art of these carvers: onnenlintuja (birds of happiness), sauna spirits, jouhikkoja (three stringed lyres), slip bark whistles, Tuomaanristejä (St. Thomas’ crosses; pictured), and more. Loukinen shows how these carvers began learning their craft, why they continue to produce traditional arts, and why they work to teach Finnish woodcraft to a younger generation.

With one eye on the past and one on the future, Finnish American Chip Woodcarvers looks at how ancient beliefs are transformed into contemporary folk arts today. The act of woodworking—from learning to properly “listen” to the forest, to mastering the elegant simplicity of the puukko-knife to create these crafts—reflects and sustains these ancient values and aesthetics in the here and now. The final product reflects the beauty of the natural and the creative and even visionary nature of the artist, who sees the fantastical hidden possibilities within even an ordinary piece of wood. Watch the trailer here. 

Although a European delicacy, burbot, a freshwater cod, is regarded as junk fish by many in the U.S.   It has a slimy, eel-like appearance that many find repugnant.  It is a bottom feeder. Its behavior is also off-putting.  Fishers have described how burbot winds around one’s arm when held. Some call them “lawyers”, eelpout, and lingcod. Finns call them made (MA-day) or matikka.

Finnish Americans long believed they were the only consumers of burbot. However, a few restaurants scattered along U.S. northern lakes serve it.  An annual Eelpout Festival in Walker, MN, attracts thousands who ice fish for burbot in a party atmosphere.  Few fishers eat their catch, berating the fish, similar to the jokes about lutefisk. Burbot season is from mid-December to the end of January.  Most fishers trap burbot as they swim upstream to spawn, others jig through the ice. A trap can get so full that two men can hardly pull it out of the river

In this film, Dr. Michael Loukinen and his videographer/editor Alex Maier follow Stanley and Joyce Budreau (pictured) as they lift their homemade net full of burbot, as well as their preferred ways of preparing the fish to eat. Stanley traces the fishing tradition back three generations and says he will continue to fish for them even though younger folks discontinue the practices.

Recently, rivers have not thoroughly frozen, making it hard to use large traps.  Biologists are studying why burbot fisheries are declining. The program follows Dr. Jill Leonard, lead project researcher and Professor of Biology at NMU, and her graduate students as they raise burbot from eggs in their laboratory to study their life cycle. Watch the trailer here. 

World premieres of both films can be seen on WNMU-TV this Saturday, Dec. 5 starting at 7:30/6:30c, as part of our Go Public! 2021 fundraiser. 

Be sure to make your contribution so we here at WNMU-TV PBS can continue to bring you quality programs highlighting the diverse culture and communities of the Upper Peninsula and Northern Wisconsin. Give us a call during the broadcast to let us know you appreciate films like these. Thank you for your support!