Finnish American Chip Woodcarvers – Official Trailer

The deep northern 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. In this beautiful and rugged north country, the extraordinary, ordinary descendants of Finnish immigrants still eke out modest lives to this day 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 not dissimilar from their ancestors who migrated three or four 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. 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. Finnish American woodcarving embodies the nature of the woodcarvers’ relationships to the forest, to the tools of their trade, and with their artistry and craftsmanship. 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.

-Written by folklorist, Tim Frandy

This film was released in 2019 and is 56 minutes long. 

Add the DVD to your cart here or watch it online. Online viewing options are below.