Researcher: US Planned "New Finland" for Refugees in Alaska

Yle News ^ | 23.10.2010 | Yle

[MSF BU]

If you read this thread you’ll learn they are resettling Somalians in Alaska and Maine; somebody has a sense of humor.

[Viiksitimali]

"Is Central Alaska the most similar type of geography to Finland in the United States? I would have thought Minnesota or Northern Maine."

I think the closest are Upper Peninsula of Michigan, Minnesota , Wisconsin.

"The topography, climate and woodland of this region are so similar to those of Finland that the transplanted Finn feels quite at home.
Mining and lumbering were the first occupations of the Finn after coming to this state."
Published in Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station Quarterly Bulletin, Vol. 28, No. 2, November 1945.


Finland is much warmer than central Alaska

[MSF BU]

That is interesting information. If you read the last part of this article http://www.aei.org/article/102817 it references that specific georgraphy along with the fact that it remains the are most heavily settle by American of Finnish descent.

[Viiksitimali]

Finnish Americans in the UP are concentrated primarily in the northern central and northwestern counties, starting from Marquette County westward along the southern shore of Lake Superior. As one moves west, the proportion of Finnish Americans increases such that in Marquette County 22.1 percent are Finnish Americans, in Baraga County it is 34.6 percent, and in Keweenaw county it increases to 49.9 percent.
Source



The Delaware Finns of Colonial America

[MSF BU]

There are significant numbers in Maine and New Hampshire as well, which makes sense.