Gerry, The Bishop, Jackson Browne, and FinnGrand Fest 2010 (Parts 1-3)

Tuesday. I’m a few minutes late to meet publisher, Finnish culture aficionado, and master kantele builder, Gerry Henkel at Amazing Grace Bakery in Duluth for breakfast. I’m on my way to FinnGrand Fest in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario (“The Soo”) to spend the week selling books, primarily Suomalaiset: People of the Marsh, to Finns (yes, the ones from Finland), Finnish Americans, and Finnish Canadians. I spy Gerry across the dimly lit basement bakery, a little piece of Greenwich Village on Duluth’s waterfront, and wave.

“Hei,” Gerry says with a smile as I pile into an abused chair across an even more abused wooden table from the man.”Hello.”

We chat for a minute or two about why he’s not going to the festival and then, Gerry, who’s something of a Finnish leprechaun in terms of wit, demeanor, and stature, hands me a long cardboard box.

“What’s this?”

“It’s yours. For all you’ve done for Finnish American culture with your book. And for taking a load of the New World Finn with you to the festival. It’s a big help to me.”

Gerry has handed me a rare treasure: a handcrafted, one-of-a-kind Gerry Henkel five string kantele, the Finnish national instrument.

“I can’t.”

“But you must.”

I strum discordant steel strings, the Eastern European sound carrying me back to the countless Finnish festivals and events I’ve been at as spectator, author, guest, and speaker (including a lecture given in Turku, Finland) since Suomalaiset was released..

“I’m touched,” I say with genuine fondness for the craftsmanship embodied in the little instrument.

“But I don’t know…”

The kantele builder cuts me short.

“You can go on line and learn,” Gerry offers through a soft smile.

The waitress stops by, pours coffee for both of us, and takes my order.

After a fine meal of homemade oatmeal pancakes, I load 100 copies of Gerry’s newspaper (a wonderful piece of cultural journalism that anyone with an interest in art, poetry, music, or prose should subscribe to) into my Pacifica and roar east towards Wisconsin.

Eight hours later, I’m checking my books through Canadian customs, hoping like hell that the only items Henkel put in the cardboard box are his complimentary newspapers.

More tomorrow. I’ll keep the blogs up in sequence so you can read them one at a time or read the entire story in one sitting, your choice.

But please consider subscribing to New World Finn. No B.S., it’s a great little paper and your subscription will keep the presses running and the paper coming!

Just follow this link to find out more and read a sample PDF version of New World Finn:

http://www.kantele.com/nwfwebsite/index.html

Kiitos (thank you), Gerry.

And rauha (peace)

Marko Mungerinen

I walk along the waterfront. The festival is smack dab downtown Sault Ste. Marie, just a stone’s throw from the St. Mary’s River, where Lake Superior finds freedom. The sky is blue and wet with humidity. But it doesn’t rain.

Thursday, festival traffic picks up. I begin to sell copies of Suomalaiset. To Canadian Finns, American Finns, English Finns, Australian Finns, Finnish Finns.

Now this is more like it.

I’ve always done well at Finnish festivals. The simple fact is that, in the US, 80% of all books are bought by women. American men don’t read. And many American women don’t read. Well, Finns, even those a few generations removed from their ancestral homeland, read. And they like Suomalaiset. That’s a good thing.

But FinnGrand fest isn’t just about me selling books. It’s about a people, the Finns, getting together to celebrate their art, language, and culture. All around me, Finnish, in various dialects and versions (Finnglish being a blend of Finnish and English favored by Minnesota Iron Rangers) can be heard in animated conversations; reunions of old friends and relatives from places far distant. On the Essar arena stage, Finnish musicians perform throughout the day. Colorfully costumed dancers waltz, tango, and polka across the cool cement floor of the Essar, where, in just a few months’ time, Canadian boys will be slamming each other against hockey boards. Folk singing groups start off each day with tightly rendered versions of “Oh Canada”,”The Star Spangled Banner”, and “Maamme”, the unofficial Finnish national anthem. The songs bring chills to my spine. I am immersed in a tightly constructed, brilliantly colored wall of foreign culture and sound. And I love it.

Friday, I sell more books. I also select programs from the festival brochure to attend, including the screening of a new documentary film about Tom Sukanen, “Sisu”, which chronicles Sukanen’s dream to build a steamboat in the middle of the Saskatchewan prairie, sail it up the Saskatchewan River to Hudson Bay, and back to Finland.

My own unofficial translation of the word “sisu” is fortitude. Or stubborn resolve: The grit and strength of character displayed by the Finns in resisting the Soviets, in coming to North America and farming rocky patches of soil, in taking risks during labor uprisings during the early 20th century. I’m intrigued by this aspect of Finnishness. Always have been.

By happenstance, I meet Tom’s granddaughter and sell her a copy of Suomalaiset. We talk about history and writing and the truth, and she convinces me to attend the screening.

I walk to a sidewalk cafe a few blocks from the movie house where I happen upon a couple working the booth next to mine in the tori (marketplace). They’re from Thunder Bay. We met during the festival. They invite me to share their table. We talk, eat good food, and down cold beer against the humid warmth of early evening. I thank them for their kindness and we go our separate ways until the morning.

Entering the darkened theater, I search for an empty seat. The audience is in place, waiting for the film to begin, sipping wine, beer and coffee at tables throughout the main floor of the theater. I find a spot, situate my mug of coffee, and sit next to an elderly gentleman.

“I’m Mark, from Duluth,” I say, reaching to shake the man’s hand.

“”Roy, from Erie, Pennsylvania. This is my daughter and my wife,” he replies with a firm handshake.

As the evening progresses, I learn Roy’s life story. He’s a native of Ironwood, Michigan. Went to Michigan Tech. Graduated with an engineering degree. Moved around a bit. Then the conversation gets interesting.

“I was the belly gunner on a B-24 Liberator,” Roy quietly reveals. “When I finished 50 missions, they sent me home. did it in less than nine months.”

Understand. The belly gunner in a B-24 was strapped in, upside down, operating twin 50 caliber machine guns, in a Plexiglas bubble hanging from the underside of the lumbering bomber. If the plane’s landing gear became disabled and the gunner couldn’t get out, his bubble became the de facto landing gear.

B-24 Maxwell Liberator Bomber (Wikipedia)

We watch the film. I point out that the sequence depicting Biwabik, Minnesota is in error: that there are no vast open fields of wheat in NE Minnesota. At the movie’s conclusion, we listen as Sukanen’s granddaughter points out inaccuracies in the film. I say my goodbyes to Roy and his family and head back to the lonely confines of my cabin.

Saturday, traffic at the Essar is brisk. An elderly gentleman and his wife approach my table. He confidently selects a copy of my Finn book and hands it to me with a twenty. I make change, sign the book, exchange brief pleasantries, and they move on. I realize, too late, that I just sold a book to Roy without personalizing the inscription.

Mark, you idiot, I lament. You owe the man more than some mundane, off-the-cuff signature.

I leave my table. I scurry around the Essar in search of Roy from Erie and his wife. I don’t find them.

You freakin’ insensitive, egomaniacal dolt.

I take a deep breath and return to waiting on customers. An hour or so later, the real Roy appears with his wife and buys a book. I’d made a mistake. It wasn’t Roy who bought a book earlier. I quickly mend the perceived wrong:

To Roy: An American hero. Thanks for your service to your country.

And all is right with the world.

Rauha.

Marko

Gerry, The Bishop, Jackson Browne, and FinnGrand Fest 2010 (Conclusion)

It finally happens. Lightning crashes. The skies open. The thick web of humid air releases its bounty and I listen to rain pelt the metal roof of the little KOA Kamping Kabin that’s been my home for nearly a week while I attend FinnGrand Fest in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

In the morning, as I shuffle off to the shower in my jammies, flip flops, and T-shirt, a change of clothes and my toiletry bag in hand, the dew is thick on the newly mown grass. The moisture’s cold on my bare toes as I labor to put one foot ahead of another. I’m tired. Dog tired. Selling books to Finns is not as easy as it sounds.My morning routine has been to make this long and peaceful trek to the shower building, returning refreshed, clean, and newly dressed to make my lunch for the day (peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, an apple, some Ritz Bits, a granola bar, and two bottles of water). Once lunch is tucked away in my carrying bag, I eat a couple of breakfast bars, down a jug of cold water, and ponder the day. If there’s a bit of extra time before nine o’clock, the usual start of the tori (market), I’ll read a bit from one of the books I brought along, or the book I bought here, at the festival, from Finnish crime novelist Jarko Sipila. (You can read reviews of what I was reading under “Mark’s Reviews” above, on the dashboard.)

Saturday, business, which, on any normal Saturday of any normal festival, is usually the blockbuster day for sales, is about equal to Friday. The customers are steady. They stop, browse, chat, and occasionally buy. Suomalaiset is an easy sell. Pigs has some adherents. Doc the Bunny ends up in a few shopping bags. But my biography of my environmentalist, Liberal, uncle, Mr. Environment? It continues to be a difficult sell. Shouldn’t be. The book, according to reviewers is well written. But, after all, I am in Canada, far removed from Willard’s native Minnesota. Still, you’d think his connection to cleaning up the Great Lakes would draw more interest. It doesn’t.

I begin to notice a steady stream of older women, sprinkled with a few older men, who amble by, all wearing name tags that say they’re from “Forbes, MN”.

That’s odd. I didn’t realize Forbes was that big.

It isn’t. The charter bus company that brought a load of seventy older Finns from Minnesota’s Iron Ranges is from Forbes and, by error, the home base of the bus company became home to all of its passengers. I share a few good laughs with some of the Forbians about the fact that there are more folks from Forbes at Finn Fest than have ever likely lived there.

Later, I spend an hour in a Delta Hotel conference room talking to a group of thirty or so festival attendees about using history and research in writing. The time flies by. I answer a few questions. And then it’s back to my booth to close up for the day.

“You’re coming to hear us sing, aren’t you?” Borge, a retired professor of Finnish studies who, along with his wife, owns a small press, asks.

Borge catches me as I am walking by his booth.

“Didn’t know you could sing,” I reply. “When’s the concert?”

“Right after the tori closes. At a church a few blocks away.”

I nod and continue on. But, with nothing else on my agenda, listening to Finnish folk songs in an old downtown church doesn’t sound too bad. I buy a ticket. I’m not disappointed. The hour I spend beneath the dome of the old church’s sanctuary in a wooden pew is filled with the soaring sounds of voice, strings, accordion, guitar, woodwinds, and thumping bass. It’s ten dollars well spent.

The local mall is near the Essar Center. I make the short trip to the shopping center to pick up a Subway sandwich for dinner and do some shopping for my wife and twelve-year-old son. I find some earrings for Rene’ and a neat replica Soo Greyhounds hockey jersey for Jack. Then it’s time to make my way back to the Grand Theater for another film.

I watch the movie, a rough cut of an educational piece intended to explain the origins of the Finnish epic poem, The Kalevala, to children. The two sisters who spearheaded the project prelude the film with some very fine piano and violin music. That, unfortunately, is the highlight of the evening. I watch the film, but in the end, I have no better understanding of the story of The Kalevala than when it began. What the heck is a sampo? Why all the thunder and crashing seas? Who the hell is Vainamionen anyway?

Sunday morning and it all begins anew in my Kamping Kabin for the last time. I pack my belongings into my singular suitcase, check under the beds for migrant clothing, and load the Pacifica for the ride into town. The tori doesn’t start until noon so I have several hours to kill. The festival is supposed to wrap up by four. I want to be on the International Bridge, on my way home, by no later than two.

I consider attending an Anglican church service. After all, I’m an Episcopalian, the American sister church to the Anglican faith. Instead, I opt to wander into the Essar and, under dimmed lights, read a bit more about Estonia, the topic I’m considering for a new novel.

Estonians and Finns: Where in the hell does that come from?

Then I remember that there’s an ecumenical worship service in the arena from ten until noon. I put my book down and make my way to the opposite side of the cavernous space, find a seat amongst the Finns, and listen to a Pentecostal pastor and the Evangelical Lutheran Bishop of Helsinki preach the Gospel. The music, provided by a mass choir of mixed gender and a stunning youth orchestra from East Helsinki, soars to the rafters of the big barn. Kristel Niemi, a twenty-something folkie from Toronto, blows the roof off the place with her rendition  of “The Lord’s Prayer” as the service comes to an end.

Sunday sees the last copy of Suomalaiset I have with me (or in stock) tucked into a customer’s bag. It’s time to head for home. I pack my books and accessories into the Pacifica, say my goodbyes, and drive onto the International Bridge linking Canada to the States. As I wait in the single lane of the bridge high above the St. Mary’s River in stifling heat, the air conditioner working overtime, the engine running (and the disaster in the Gulf spinning in my mind), a laker makes its way through the American locks towards Lake Superior.

Amazing.

“Did you know you have to pay a surcharge anytime you return from a commercial trip outside the States?” the U.S. Boarder agent asks.

Of course I didn’t know that.

“How much?”

“”Ten seventy five.”

I hand the man the money.

Free of the gridlock of the border, I wind out the van’s V-6 and roar onto Highway 28. I pull out a CD my son Chris bought me for Father’s Day. As Michigan breezes past, Jackson Browne (never sounding better to this tired American) and his longtime bandmate, David Lindley break into an acoustic version of Browne’s classic recorded live in Spain.

I’ve been runnin’ down the road tryin’ to loosen my load

I got seven women on my mind…

Passing through bucolic Munising, Michigan, the calm waters of the big lake spreading out like a blue pasture over my right shoulder, stark white terns turning in an equally blue sky, I smile.

I am running on empty, I think. But I’m on my way home.

Rauha.

Marko Mungerinen