During the 1860s and 1870s, while the trend in America was to migrate from country to city, Finnish immigrants began settling the remote sections of land still open to homesteading in the northern parts of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and the Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The lure of free land was so irresistible to impoverished and landless Finnish laborers, that groups pooled their scarce resources to send someone ahead to America to assess homesteading possibilities. These “land scouts” reported back on how and where to apply for homesteads. Following this pattern, in the middle 1860s, early Finnish immigrants proceeded directly into the wilderness settlements of Franklin and Cokato. In 1870 they moved into Holmes City MN, in 1874 into New York Mills, MN and in 1890 into Pelkie, MI. Throughout the 1880s the back-to-the-land “secondary” migration continued.
 
In the 1870s, migration from Calumet to rural areas began. Land-hungry immigrants moved to remote hamlets in Minnesota and South Dakota. Between 1890 and 1930, most of the arriving Finnish immigrants settled in Michigan’s Copper Country to work in mines. Known to them as Pessapaikka (nesting place), Calumet became the hub of the Finnish American community
 
Secondary migration from the mines to pine stump-filled subsistence farms soared from 1900 to 1920. It was fueled by the turmoil of the 1906-1907 great mining strikes on the Minnesota Iron Range, and in 1913 by Michigan’s Copper Country. Thousands of disenchanted miners, many of them blacklisted for supporting the Western Federation of Miners, settled into the cutover, once-forested lands, surrounding the mining towns. This began the social movement wave of Finnish immigrants moving into an area first called King’s Landing, then KyrÖ and it eventually became known as Pelkie.
 
New farmers cleared gigantic white pine stumps from their cut over homesteads. They built saunas, barns and log homes. During the winter months farmers worked as lumberjacks and their wives and children tended the farm and cattle. April’s melting snows saw men returning to their family farms to raise crops and milk cows. Sometimes lumberjacks would help the farmers in return for food and lodging.
 
Farmers pooled their funds together to buy bulk quantities of grain and essential farming supplies. In 1918, mutual consumption practice evolved into the Farmers Co-op Trading Company, with 109 members, doing a yearly business of $37,800. A decade later, sales had doubled. The Co-op was eventually renamed the Pelkie Co-operative Store. It added a creamery and cheese factory and joined the Central Co-operative Wholesale Association. Until it closed in 1995, the Co-op provided a wide range of goods, equipment repair services, and employment for residents.
 
To transport copper ore from Mass City to a stamping plant in Keweenaw Bay, 27 miles away, the Mineral Range Railroad ran a line through Pelkie in 1900. By 1916 the stamp plant closed, so trains transported milk, cabbage, and hardwood logs from Pelkie to the mining towns.
 
Finnish American immigrants had an average of 6.5 children. Their second generation dramatically expanded the local population. In 1932, Pelkie’s eight one-room neighborhood schools closed and the Pelkie Agricultural School opened. The huge cohort of 2^nd generation offspring filled its seats. Three Lutheran churches, a private store, Co-op, post office, blacksmith shop, gas station and a socialist dance hall served the growing community.
 
Based on a sample of 359 2^nd generation Finnish Americans from Pelkie, 73 per cent married Finnish Americans and had an average of 2.5 children. Three out of four migrated toward urban employment, primarily to Detroit. Of those who left, within ten years, 42% returned (Loukinen 1982). They had a remarkably deep attachment to their home community. Their high in-group marriage patterns sustained Finnish culture in Pelkie throughout their lives.
 
Farm kids in 1936 saw their railroad tracks disappear and by the late 1950s, dairy farming started its long decline. Milking cows presented a bleak choice to the 3^rd generation immigrants’ grandchildren. This generation was well educated but almost everyone lost their Finnish language. Seventy percent left Pelkie chasing careers. Only 7% returned. Whereas, of their parents, 73 per cent married Finnish-Americans and their grandparents married close to 90 per cent. In-group marriage rate for the third generation was only 40 per cent (Loukinen, 1997). A few of the 2^nd but primarily this 3^rd generation will tell the Pelkie story.
 
Today Pelkie is an ethnically and occupationally mixed community. In the 1970s a few counter-culture families moved in to be close to the land. A few 3^rd generation Finnish American remnants were lucky enough to find a way to earn a living without moving: two raise beef cattle, one raises hogs and one dairy farmer remains. No cabbage farmers are left. Mennonite families moved in one after the other and they purchased the historic Kyro Evangelical Lutheran Church. They produce eggs, jams, jellies and beef cattle. Casino and state prison employees also bought homes but they are isolated from the larger community. Pelkie has five churches and no store, a post office with very limited hours and an auto repair shop. Junk litters some small homes on the main road. A 96 year-old, long time teacher at the Pelkie School, now in a nursing home, refuses to return because the main street area looks so junky and dilapidated that it depresses her.