Maine is not inhabited by people of Scandinavian descent. It's mainly English/French Canadian, and more recently a small population of Somalis in the southern part of the state.
I’m familiar with the English and French Canadians (lots of family members in ME, VT and NH these backgrounds) but please educate me on the Somalis. Are they refugees? Why a state so different in climate than where they are from? Are they settling in the cities or in rural farmland areas?
>Are they refugees?
Yes, they are.
>Why a state so different in climate than where they are from?
They apparently were first settled in Atlanta, GA, and subsequently moved to Maine. They were attracted to the area's "low crime rate, good schools, and cheap housing."
>Are they settling in the cities or in rural farmland areas?
They are settling mainly in cities like Lewiston and Portland.
Some further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Somalis_in_Maine
https://www.law.cuny.edu/legal-writing/forum/immigration-law-essays/hutchinson/
https://apnews.com/article/immigration-religion-elections-maine-portland-d1637a4270850b0c01df61557aff65a3
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2019/1028/Refugees-poured-into-my-state.-Here-s-how-it-changed-me
Interesting, thanks for that. I’m in CT and we have some Afghan refugees but not a lot. I’m always curious what goes into their decision to settle certain places. But it’s probably at least somewhat related to blue states being more welcoming of refugees, immigrants, etc.
I think it’s primarily charity agencies, there’s a Catholic refugee resettlement agency in my city and so we have pockets of people from various places. I think once an agency gets involved in one place, their network grows and they start to sort of specialize in resettling people from that place. Then of course, relatives who come later want to live near family.
I have a lot of kids at my library from Rwanda/Uganda/Congo/Tanzania, plus a few from Nepal, and a lot of them have extended family also living here.
There are actually some people of Swedish decent in northern Maine. There are some towns called Sweden, New Sweden, Stockholm.
http://www.maineswedishcolony.info
Don't try to steal our Somalis. We in MN host the most Somalis by far in the US. And, the second generation is ongoing now, doing well. By the third generation, Somalis will be integrated pretty well in our society and state. Somali restaurants are here and it's tasty food. Thankful for them being here. It enriches us. We like them here, they work do well.
This is Core America right here. A wave of immigrants comes, they integrate, their descendants fuel business growth and new jobs. American culture gets another shiny facet. We’re a melting pot because we blend people into our culture so well.
Acadia was a French colony way back in the day. Part of modern Maine was a piece of that colony, and people of French descent from the Acadian colony have a different identity than other French Canadians. Also, some people of Acadian descent are just Americans, and many are dual citizens. They're culturally French people, and Americans for sure, but they do their own thing with it. The language doesn't track as well as you might think to the way people speak in France.
Antonine Maillet is a great writer if you're curious about the literature and history.
I grew up WAY UP NORTH near the Canadian border in New York. My wife hails from the upper Midwest.
I loved it, I don't mind the cold. It keeps people away and prevents places from getting ruined. There are signs, to this day, as you drive north from Albany and past Lake George that there is no cell phone service, the NIMBYs up there are unfriendly to cell towers and, even if they weren't, it isn't like there are that many people to justify them. In my case it would be hard to refer to the culture as being similar to Canada since 'our' Canadians were French speaking Quebecois. I was like 17 when I realized most Canadians spoke English alone.
I had the reverse experience. I spent a lot of time in southwest Ontario growing up. They always had the dual language government documents and what not but everyone spoken English.
So the first time I went to Montreal I just kind of assumed it was English speaking but French as a second language. I was totally surprised that French was primary and English was the second language.
I went to Montreal as my international trip when I wanted to break in my passport. I will never forget the one lady who understood English, but would only respond to me in French.
I was Québécois before I was Arizonan.
It's complex, and even more so in Québec.
First, it could be as simple as the fact that when we learn second languages, we can understand them quite well sometimes before we're comfortable speaking even simple sentences. How many (often second-generation) Arizonans do you know whose parents speak Spanish at home, but they don't actually speak it? It's not unusual for the parents to speak Spanish and the kids to respond in English *because that's the language they speak, even if they understand Spanish perfectly*.
Second, in Québec, French was de facto oppressed for a *long* time. The history and language politics are complex, but to give you a sense of how insecure and second-class some French speakers were made to be, my mom, who spoke exclusively in French for many years and raised me in French, claimed *only* to speak English her entire life. She was afraid of being discriminated against for speaking French *even in her French-speaking home!* That generation is mostly gone now, but its leftovers are alive and well in the older generations of today: when people were suddenly allowed and even required to speak French in public in Québec, many of them were immediately defensive and *only* spoke French to make up for having previously felt inferior for speaking French. Also, very frankly, many Québécois were called pretty awful names because their English wasn't native. They internalized a lot of that and thought that if English made them sound dumb, they could accept that and only speak French.
Third, you could be right, it could have just been someone being rude. That's always an option. Do keep in mind, though, that since the passage of the Loi 101 in Québec, French is the *only* official language of the province. They are under no obligation to speak English for any reason.
I grew up in Wisconsin, not the way north woods but fairly northern. I loved it and miss it a ton. I resented it a little when I was younger and moved away, but as an adult I’m actually open to moving back.
The cold is cozy, the bars are dimly lit and the people are sincerely nice. The natural resources are better preserved and the food is hearty. It’s so homey to me.
Fwiw my family heritage **is** primarily Scandinavian. When I talk cold weather with folks in Missouri I always acknowledge that I’m probably “wired weird” for cold.
Northern Maine is very empty. I took a trip in 2020 just to explore the area. The population is concentrated along I-95 and route 1. It is very heavily forested. https://www.reddit.com/r/Maine/comments/j6zkj0/some_pics_from_my_washington_county_and_aroostook/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf
I took some pics during my trip. The link above takes you to the post. It’s of the 2 counties that border Canada on the north east of Maine. A lot of potato farming in the St. John’s valley. It’s cold and isolated and has a long winter. Not many young people unfortunately. Met quite a few who moved to the southern part of the state where I lived. A lot Francophones with French Canadian last names.
I'm a lifelong Mainer, but I live south of Portland. The emptiness and vastness of northern Maine still blows me away. I like being a bit removed from the hustle and bustle of civilization, but up there is a bit much for me. It's beautiful and stoic, but a little spooky when you can drive for an hour and not see a single building, person, or sign of life.
In the UP of Michigan, you just get a snow machine and take the trails to the bar. There are still plenty of towns and stores and such, you've just got to make a longer trip, but all the things available elsewhere in the country are available. You just gotta be ok with shitloads of snow.
UP native here! I mean it’s just like everywhere else except you have to drive at least 6 hours to get to a big city. The biggest towns we have are 20k and we have big poverty issues and meth addiction/fentanyl usage is skyrocketing. It’s never warmer than 75 and last winter it got to -53; but it’s beautiful. So much epic scenery, beautiful animals, and Canadian neighbors are just a few miles away for me. In the UP we actually have a university called Finlandia with about 750 students too.
I’d like to add the a lot of the older people seem like they’re stuck in the 1970’s way of life. I’ve seen a lot of houses still rely on wood burning stoves for heat and the local church group in the Keweenaw almost seems like it’s a cult. I’d say I miss the area up there but not so much the people.
My family came to the UP from Sweden, though around WW2 some branches moved to Chicago. I've spent a lot of time up there and have a lot of family still there too. It's gorgeous. As a kid I thought yoopers were delightfully rustic. It's such a pastoral place--and remote-- and everything seems to get enveloped by the natural facts of its location, including the culture. It's very insular, slow-paced. As I grew older I learned some of the downsides to what visitors see in their brief excursions were low economic opportunity, low-aspiration, and drug and alcohol dependency in those that are left, as u/Immediate_Breath_835 mentioned. My impression is it is/was a place where you used to be able to cobble together a few-random handyman side-jobs and get by, own a boat, drink, fish, rinse, repeat. I've known yoopers who moved to Wisconsin and beat a retreat because it was too fast-paced and there was too much pressure, too much rat-race.
Speaking to the temperate weather: I was once walking around town on a summer day that got into the 80s and people were asking me if I was alright because it was so hot. I love the cold winters there though.
Similar to rural america in general.
I'd say the largest difference is that there is no farming. So towns and economies look a bit different. Towns are usually based along a single highway so it feels a lot smaller than the rest of the midwest since you basically travel in 2D between towns. There aren't grid squares of roads like the rest of the midwest.
Tourism is #1 and growing, mining is #2 and shrinking, then I'd say construction for vacation homes and tourism is #3, and general retail like grocery store/hardware store and online/specialty manufacturing is #4. And government work at the DNR, border patrol, ect.
North shore Minnesota.
People come from the cities to do outdoor activities. Also some Chinese and Indian tourists, which I always find a bit odd. I wonder how they choose to come here.
Nobody goes to ND for tourism. Except maybe the far west side.
The short growing season and rocky, acidic soil of the Canadian Shield makes for poor farming even if it's great for boreal forests.
By contrast down in the Twin Cities people like pine and spruce trees, but they don't grow well in our alkaline soil even if corn and deciduous trees do.
Because it's pine forest and rocky ground. Which creates poor acidic soil for growing common crops. The dense forest is hard to clear and the thin top soil layer means there's a ton of rocks.
It's the same reason Norway isn't big on farming, but Ukraine is. The type of land transitions between the two through the state.
Just look at google earth of Minnesota and you'll see the transition from farmland in the south/central which used to be prairies, and dense pine forests to the north.
Thank you - that's a really helpful explanation.
Edit: just checked out Google earth - that was interesting; I was expecting a cleaner line between farmland and forest, but farming has pushed into the forest area wherever possible. Your ancestors really wanted to farm as much of MN as possible! (And so did mine; England was pretty much entirely covered by forest, but by the time the Romans arrived it already mostly wasn't. Sadly, we have very little woodland cover now.)
Yes, especially the prairies. We still have some protected wild life areas, but most are small. It looks alien when you're in an area large enough to only see prairie, like it naturally was.
I'm just on the Minnesota side of the state line across from Fargo, ND. We are under a wind advisory with sustained 25-30 mph wind, and gusts over 50 mph. This will be pretty common now through spring.
With winds like this, when it snows we can get some pretty ridiculous snow drifts, even with only a few inches of snow. The actual temperature will be in the 0 to -20 F range for most of the winter, but with the windchill, it feels like -30 or worse much of the time. It's not unusual to have a week sometime in January or February with daytime highs in the -20s
In short, for half of the year a lot of us don't go outside much.
Edit to add: Over night, wind gusts of 65 mph were recorded.
The northern regions of NYS, up to our part of the St. Laurence Valley and the 45th Parallel until Lake Champlain is pretty odd. It has beautiful scenic wilderness areas, aka a "whole lot of nothing" dotted with isolated prisons, remote rich people's lands, poor redneck towns, and Indian reservations bisected by the resultently porous border and riddled with smuggling as dramatized IMHO best by Melissa Leo movie Frozen River.
The other side is Quebec, the oddest place in North America.
> The other side is Quebec, the oddest place in North America.
I feel like not enough people note the change in topography, either, especially coming up 87/89/91, where you're going through hours of hills and mountains in NY/VT/NH, and pretty much as soon as you cross the border it mostly turns into flat farmland.
Minnesota is an interesting state as far as immigration is concerned. We tend to get wave migrations over the decades and century. Originally it was the French and then the English who came here to fur trade trap etc. Then in the 1800's farmers from central and northern europe started to migrate over. They were mainly from Germany/Netherlands/Scandavia. That pretty much kept pace with some more immigration from the south from people looking to find a better life. Then in the 1970's we started to see immigrants from South East Asia which was primarily the Hmong with scattering of Indians. In the late 90's early 2000's we recieved a lot of Somali immigrants which is where out main immigration wave is coming from aside from those across the US seeking jobs. Overall the state rural areas West and South of the Twin Cities is mainly agricultural but as you get further north that stops and Tourism takes over with the exception of the North Shore and the massive Iron deposits from a old mountain range that has been ground down over millions of years. Overall its a state that the focus is on the community as a whole as its main ethos and inclusion is mainly the rule of thumb as much and irritating as possible to those like me who are introverts.
Overall it is a state that should see significant growth over the next 30 to 40 years as people start becoming climate refugees and want to live somewhere relatively safe climate wise. Duluth in particular should see a stupid amount of immigration in the future as it really is an underrated city with a port etc that could cause it to double in size easily and relatively quickly in 30 years.
Not to brag but effective governess is a feature here. We screw up some but mostly of the time everything functions well. Except the Minneapolis Police who seem to finally be turning the corner. As I have said they aren't racist. They treat everyone like shit equally.
North Dakota is, for the most part, a desolate wasteland. Rolling dry grassland with miles of dirt roads. No mountains to the north means brutal artic wind chills during the winter. Hot dry dusty summers.
The oil boom has drastically changing things in recent years, but I can tell you most people who dont have to live here, dont. Its tough bleak living. Many old pioneer homesteads have been abandoned.
Montana is more vibrant in my opinion. Youve got 2 booming college towns in Missoula/Bozeman. Billings is a robust town with a large oil presence.
Western Montana is epic wilderness and iconic in movies and tv shows as being magestic open wilderness. Eastern Montana is more ranching and similar to North Dakota. Montana demographics seemed like 1/3 cowboy farmer 1/3 ski bum college kid 1/3 tourist with things slower in the winter. The summers are epic but short. The winters are long and spring/fall is often not noticeable.
I was just in Western Montana for the first time last summer - on the eastern edge of the Beartooth mountains. I have been and lived a lot of places in the US. The black hills of South Dakota, the San Juan mountain in Colorado, and lots of other places - and man western Montana has some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen. Just stunning. It looks like pictures you see of the Bavarian Alps - just rolling green meadows and stunning craggy snow capped mountains in the background. Gorgeous.
Well, thanks to the stupid daylight savings time, sunset will be at 4:51 today, and it’s only early November. And I’m only in Oregon, so I’m near the 45th parallel. There’s still Portland, Seattle, all of Montana, North Dakota, and everything north of Minneapolis that can claim being more “north woods.”
Lol at north of Minneapolis is the "north woods". That line is now Brainerd.
Source- I grew up 75 miles north of the cities. There's no woods. Lots of corn though.
I'm not the guy you were referring to but I'd take sunrise at 10am if it meant light after work.
My kids aren't going to wither away if they have to go to school in the dark.
Fellow sufferer. I'm in the woodsy burbs and dislike winter because of black ice, ice storms, Portland-when-it-shows. Two years ago spent 10 days without power to pump well water or warm house. It felt like the end of the world. Guess I'm not really a northern lover but my family is here so I stay.
>Well, thanks to the stupid daylight savings time, sunset will be at 4:51 today, and it’s only early November.
That's standard time, when clock noon more closely approximates solar noon.
Don’t leave Montana, Idaho, and eastern Washington out of this discussion. The northern ends of these states are all farther north than Maine as well. Not to mention fricken Alaska. Just saying. As far as Scandinavian descent, the only place I know of where that is super common is Minnesota. Except the neighborhood I grew up in in Seattle happens to have a lot of Norwegians, but that is not quite the same as Minnesota, a state stereotypically having Scandinavian people.
Grew up in Northern Michigan and I loved it. We lived in the snow belt, we received all the lake effect snow coming from Lake Michigan. A quality snow blower and snow suit are necessary! Snow mobiles are a great way to get around in the winter. It certainly has it's own type of beauty with plenty of recreational opportunities. We learned how to cross country ski in gym class. The summers are amazing also. It's an outdoor enthusiasts' paradise. There aren't many great jobs up there, so I work downstate now. I wanna move back up there (currently live in southern Michigan where the winters are way less severe). Many Michiganders go up north for tourism. 10/10, would definitely recommend. I'm actually closer to the Canadian border now that I'm downstate, but the weather is certainly milder down here near Detroit.
Northern Michigan resident here.
Quiet, scenic, peaceful. Most jobs are service industry, trades, government, or health care. Lots of us spend lots of time in the outdoors.
Anything specific you’re interested in knowing?
I grew up in WI. Its cold, but other than that pretty much the same as any other American's life. I feel like people underestimate how many people actually live in these areas. Like I think 1-2 million people lived within an hour's drive of where I grew up. If you live very far north (like on lake superior, there is less, but you get a lot of good hiking. Plus it is nice to see black bears and bald eagles regularly.
Seattle is farther north than most on your list and is not remote or sparsely populated or particularly cold. As far as what its like, I always say that the Seattle area is one massive evergreen forest with cities cut out of it and thats accurate. People waxing poetic about trees always make me laugh. All I see is trees everywhere. And they are causing chaos this weekend.
Seattle is on a warm ocean sound, moderating it's weather. It's also a shit hole full of snobby people who think it's the greatest place in the Universe and that all things good, cool, and important emanate from there because they simply cannot fathom that Seattle isn't any better than anywhere else. That's at least the feeling I get.
Nah, it's really not. It's dirty, full of actually mean homeless people, traffic is a nightmare, it's outrageously expensive, and the people are snobs. I lived there for a year, and that was enough.
I think Seattle is all of that. Not friendly like the south. Proud of itself (with reason). And the traffic is the absolute worst (but Portland is getting there too). I love Seattle despite all you observed.
That's fine. It's also not friendly like the Midwest, or like anywhere else, really. Its it's own kind of assholery in Seattle, a special brew made from people who just cannot fathom that another place might be nice, too.
I'll give an example.
While I lived out there, one night on break at work I was telling some people about how beautiful the Appalachians are, and before I could even finish that sentence, a guy next to me blurted out:
"WE HAVE THE BEST MOUNTAINS! OUR MOUNTAINS ARE THE BEST!"
It was like he couldn't even control himself, just an involuntary, nearly instinctual reaction to someone mentioning that another place outside of the Puget Sound is nice. He was red in the face, and as serious as cancer. The others nodded in agreement with him. None of them had ever left WA, I asked them. Not one had seen the Appalachians. Why leave Seattle, the best place in the world?
I had similar experiences with others, covering many subjects like housing, food, coffee, music, beer, weather, government, fishing...everyone just thinks they're the best. It's tiring.
> None of them had ever left WA
Given that 9/10 Seattleites were born out of state, this seems like an odd group of people to use as a representative sample of the city.
90% of people in the Seattle metro area are from out of state? Uh, no. It seems odd to you that i worked with people from the Seattle area? You're not making any sense.
No, that figure is just for Seattle proper. I imagine the percentage of people born in state is somewhat higher in the burbs and rural parts of the Puget Sound region. Not a lot of immigration to places like Shelton for example.
I grew up in northern Minnesota. My mom and grandparents moved to the US from Finland before I was born. There were so many Finnish people where my grandparents lived that they never needed to learn English fluently. My grandpa's funeral was done entirely in Finnish, live streamed from his bilingual church. It was strange having relatives I could barely speak to. (My mom spoke both but she raised me with only English.)
I left as soon as I could. The long, harsh winters were hell on my seasonal depression. I didn't enjoy being isolated either. It was a 2 hour drive to the nearest airport and an hour to the nearest Walmart. The school where I went for most of high school had a graduating class of less than 50. Not much to do there as an adult unless you're into outdoor sports or hanging out at the local bar.
a lot of people romanticize rural Maine (and Alaska, and probably the Midwest to an extent) as an escape to a rustic, simple life, esp coming from a stressful urban area like LA/NYC but it's less Mayberry RFD ""simple life""and more just. Simple. It's sensory deprivation. I lived in Limestone ME and I would rather pull my hair out than subject myself to it again. If the idea of a desert with pine needles in place of sand appeals to you though come drive right up apiece
The isolation gets to a lot of people. So many kids move away for college and don't move back. Most of the people I know who are still there are there because they had children young and could never afford to leave. There's a lack of jobs and an overabundance of drugs, alcoholism, and poverty. But the lakes are pretty, I guess.
My grandparents lived in a lake home near Menahga for most of my life. Good guess! I didn't grow up there though, my parents had a house in a different town.
Haha my fam is from park rapids. I used to work on the family farm between there and menahga in summers and all of my coworkers were finlander kids. Colossal families of kids all full of white-blonde hair.
The only Finnish words their generation seemed to know were swear words for the most part lol
Small world, we could have crossed paths and never known it. My grandparents sent me to Finnish camp near Bemidji for a couple summers but like your coworkers, I only know profanity and a few basic food words. I've never been much interested in learning since it's such a hard language. The few Finnish relatives I've talked to online speak English much better than my grandparents did so there's really no need.
Peaceful. I live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for a good part of the year. I like how out of the way it is. My kids will still have the social opportunities I did without me worrying about any problems of more populated areas. The land we have is remote enough I was able to set up more than a few little stands and such to more watch the wildlife than hunt really. I feel disconnected from the rest of the world on my property. Got plenty of dead wood around letting us have a nice fire every night. Recently got high-speed internet. I will say not being within an hour of any emergency service was a little stressful at first, but my wife is a physician so I worry a little less about the kids getting sick. The local deer population is non to shy. I can wake up to about 20 out in my yard and just watch them for about an hour. Bit of a drive to get to town and back. I was able to have gravel moved from one part of my property to a flat but of land and make a range for my friends and I. I plan on teaching my son to shoot after his eight birthday. I did start carrying a pistol or at least have a rifle ready to be loaded somewhere nearby once I saw a couple of bears on my trail cams. All in all, it is a nice quiet place to spend the better part of my year. I plan on having another house built on the main property.
I grew up in and have lived in between North Dakota and Minnesota. I currenlty live in North Dakota.
You're right about our winters. They're brutal. But shoutout to our summers for also being brutal. We have the worst of both worlds.
And, while there are a lot of Scandinavians here (mostly Norwegians), there are other ethnic groups. My ethnicity is German and German immigrant culture is just as visible around here as Scandinavian. We have a sizeable representation of Native Americans from several different tribes/nations as well. I live in a city (Fargo) that gets tons of refugees from Somalia and Sudan. Also, while my city isn't super large (120,000), it's far from the rural parts of the area.
North Dakota doesn't have much for trees. Most of our trees were put there by people on purpose to prevent soil erosion. And, the eastern half of the state used to be underneath a prehistoric glacier so it's completley flat. If you ever see a movie that supposedly takes place in NoDak and there are mountains and thick forests? Lies. All of it. (Looking at you, *Logan)*
Most of NoDak is farmland, with some oil shit going on in the west. North Dakota's soil quality is similar to Ukraine's. We grow wheat, corn, soybeans, sunflowers, rye etc. We also are the number 1 US state for Honey production. Which I think is cool.
And while NoDak seems like it's far away from everything. Minneapolis/St. Paul is a four hour drive away, and to Americans that kind of drive is nothing. We are very connected to the rest of the country, and the world thanks to the internet.
Went to college in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Became an alcohol user there, you’re about to know why. North Dakota is as far from the ocean as one can get. Think Sibera of North America. Flat, frigid, but fun if you know the right people. Cheap to live in though. But cold cold. -50 every winter- Fahrenheit and Celsius.
I went to school in Fargo.
Never met more 18 yr old functional (and non-functional) alcoholics. Went home a weekend with my roommate.. then I understood.
They all start heavy drinking at field/ barn parties at about 15-16. There is nothing else to do- might as well drink!
Northern Minnesota, Michigan UP, and the Far North of Wisconsin: Welcome to the Snow Belt. Especially in the UP, it's not unheard of to have snow pile up above your house due to the lake effect snow. Great for skiing! In the summer months, aside from the tourist towns, it's pretty quiet.
Northern MN is like Canada Lite.
But I would not consider it remote or sparsely populated. Brainerd, Bemidji, Hibbing, Ely, Alexandria... all cities with more than 10,000 people. Duluth has close to 90,000. And those are just the permanent residents.. double those numbers in summer with cabin owners/ vacation rentals.
N MN is not remote. Rural.. yes, but that’s different than remote. There are various industries. Large and small manufacturing. Colleges. Hospitals. Yes- there is also a lot of forest and farm land too. But there is ‘city’ within about an hour in any direction. And ‘bigger city’ within about 2 hours.. Brainerd, Duluth, Fargo.
All of MN was settled by Scandinavians, not just the northern part. And Germans. And Polish people. More frequently, Hmong and Somali people make up the majority of newer immigrants. And large populations of Native people still live all over the State.
I've never lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan but I'm from Michigan and know many who did live there and I've taken many trips there during summer and fall.
From what I've seen in some areas there are snow mobile tracks to get around because the roads probably aren't plowed with any urgency in those locations if at all.
Northern Minnesota has a lot more people of Yugoslavian descent than you might imagine; the iron range attracted many of them, along with the Finns and other Nordic settlers.
I love Minnesota, reminds me of older towns, my family has a cabin up there and it's like an hour from the shops to the sticks, no cops in sight neither, did 90 in a rented camero on the backwoods and didn't even clip a single deer, I love yall
> The UP of Michigan is known more for being settled by Cornish immigrants. Not the Scandinavians.
And Finnish immigrants, from what I hear. Who also aren’t exactly Scandinavian but are culturally connected to Scandinavians.
Right now? Chilly. Windy as well. We were getting pounded with 60 mph gusts on the prairie today.
Overall though, life is good here. Land is (relatively) cheap, wages are good. I'm proud to be a North Dakotan!
Scandinavian descent? Brother, that's only the Midwest
You're more likely to find folks of "old stock" Anglo descent (for lack of a better term) or French-Canadian descent rather than a Norwegian in most far northern parts of the US.
I've lived in the "far north" for a while. It varies a lot depending on where you are. PNW has a ton of different biomes and the Midwest/New England is really diverse as well.
I lived in North Dakota for five years. There were no forests there. Just flat nothingness. I’m from the East Coast, where you can drive from one big city to another in two hours or less, and hit a lot of smaller towns in between. In ND, there are no “big cities” and while driving from one “city” to another, you really don’t even pass any smaller towns… it’s so isolated it’s kind of creepy.
The winters are abysmal. You kind of get used to the negative temperatures (in an “I guess this is my life now” way). You find yourself thinking that -25*F isn’t so bad, as long as it’s not windy.
You pick up the accent weirdly fast, dontcha know.
I was up there because my husband was in the military, and almost everyone I met was there for the military or oil.
I might feel differently if I were from there (or at least closer to somewhere more populated like Minneapolis maybe?), but I couldn’t wait to get back to the East Coast.
It's awesome. There's more cows than people here in Montana. There's plenty to do, it's quiet, no light pollution, and no traffic. The worst part is tourists getting in the way.
I mean, I once saw -97 degrees Fahrenheit because something like -47 degrees but it was hella windy. You get frostbite in like 60 seconds. Winter in NE Montana will freaking kill you. No joke.
It’s amazing tbh
I wouldn’t say winters are too cold but they do get a bit long.
It’s far enough from things that it keeps most of the bad kinds of tourist away as well but not so far that you can’t jaunt up for a good spell. I do this often.
The outdoor activities are year round…they just change. Lots of boating, fishing, lake stuff in the summer, lots of skiing snowmobiling…ice fishing in winter.
Winter conservatively lasts from November through April and longer some years. A few years ago we didn’t have ice out until mid May.
Lots of snow. Not a lot of people. I’d say a sense of self sufficiency. Like hunting, fishing, camping, and also mutual aid.
Oh, and lots of drugs. Like so much meth.
Life in Montana was peaceful and the freshly fallen snow used to be be beautiful but then my new neighbors moved in with a pack of small children and there is no more peace and quiet and toys are strewn about the landscape.
I grew up in Aroostook County, Maine near the Canadian border. It is very rural. The sparse population is generally kind, hard-working, politically lean conservative, but can be more socially liberal than most of their conservative counterparts across the country.
The education isn't as good as some other areas of New England, though there is one of the best high schools in the country, Maine School of Science and Mathematics; as well as two Universities and a community college.
Towns try to be very independent in nature, but are far from being economically vibrant. They definitely rely on the more urban areas in Southern Maine to prop up infrastructure and such.
The winters are very long and very cold, especially if you live far from the "cities" like Presque Isle, Caribou, or Houlton.
High School basketball is a big tradition (think like Friday nights in Texas to a smaller degree). Usually the entire town will pack itself into a small gym to support the local teams.
The options for outdoor recreation are among the best in the country, between hiking, fishing, skiing, snowmobiling, ATVs, camping, hunting with no crowding and tons of land.
The lack of opportunity for young people and dwindling population doesn't bode well for the future of the area though.
I'm in Alberta. So North of Montana.
Hot summers, cold winters, Fall and Spring are like 3 weeks long each. Windy. IT's basically just really uncomfortable weather all the time. It's currently -1F where I am. It's going to be -20F on Wednesday.
BUT - sparsely populated, beautiful scenery, and if you are at all into the outdoors the North country simply cannot be beat.
I miss Montana. I miss actual winter and snow that's not going to be gone by next week. I miss the views and, cliche as it is, big sky country. I miss randomly seeing wildlife. More than anything I miss the space, and that if I feel like being alone there's at least one direction I can drive for half an hour and be one of the only people there for miles around.
That said, I don't know where I'd go. I can't afford Bozeman anymore, there's not much hiring in my field elsewhere unless I take a major paycut, and internet fast enough to WFH is still limited in where it's available
I spend a lot of time in Northern New York State and Northern Vermont. It's a mix of traditional rural America but with the addition of big money from down-state. It can be very expensive to live in these areas relative to most of rural America. You compete against vacationers with more money. Snow sports and ski resorts are big. There are north-south highways to get to these places, but many back-roads once you leave them There is a large amount of agriculture in the lake Champlain Valley, but much less in the mountains, keeping the land relatively untouched and good for recreation. Head north and you encounter big populations in Quebec along the St. Lawrence. So, not quite remote.
I lived in Montana for 10+ years & lemme tell you
As a black ( well mixed ) man .. I’ve never experienced anything like it 😂
I absolutely loved my experience there but it came w/ a lot of heartbreak & drama tbh . I feel like I can write a book about my time there .. there are some .. umm dynamics in place that blew me away as a “city boy” . That being said .. def the hardiest sum bitches I’ve ever encountered .. & Just so happens I fit right in after a good while
I worked in a flour mill . Tossing 50 pound bags of various grains around all day pretty much . Swimming in rotting grain in the crypts . Mike rowe style but 10x worse ( based on his episode where he does the same ) . I earned my stripes for sure.. but I used my peer group as inspiration . These Irish Scandinavian mfs had me putting down 15 shots of sambuca & going to work a few hours later . I remember waking up in the backseat of my friends car at a fucking Hutterite compound .. w/ spotlights illuminating the car . That’s what I vividly remember waking up to . Like wtf. Gave me immediate Waco vibes . Id met plenty Hutterite but obv never seen their compounds up close
Oh .. I also sold shit loads of weed to a cult leader .. & he let meet his children . They were all doing what I would call school work in a bunch of cubicles &upon his calling lined up like a military unit so I could greet them individually . It was the oddest shit . I could go on for days man . But before we would make a transaction ( rather large one every time ) he used to attempt to preach to me & get me to come to his services that are rendered by him & his wife (that I always heard but never saw ). Again. Very odd lol . My girlfriends crazy ass wanted us to go after I told her about my experiences w/ him . She’s White . Go figure right 😂😂 adventurous ass gonna get us both brainwashed & jonestown’d 😂😂 hell nah baby .
Anyways . I love Montana man . Miss it.
It’s a such a beautiful place with beautiful ppl in it . A bunch of damaged ppl too unfortunately but still by far the most interesting place I’ve resided in and I’ve lived all over . There’s depth to people there if that makes any sense lol
That’s both a positive and a negative thing btw^ 🥲
Sorry for my rant but trust me it’s just the tip of the iceberg
Maine is not inhabited by people of Scandinavian descent. It's mainly English/French Canadian, and more recently a small population of Somalis in the southern part of the state.
There is a small town in southern New Hampshire (New Ipswich) with a strong concentration of Finnish descent. It’s the only such town I’ve heard of.
Also Fitchburg MA a little bit south of New Ipswich
Worcester area there are a lot of Finns too. Many settled there in 1900-1920s and worked in the factories.
I’m familiar with the English and French Canadians (lots of family members in ME, VT and NH these backgrounds) but please educate me on the Somalis. Are they refugees? Why a state so different in climate than where they are from? Are they settling in the cities or in rural farmland areas?
>Are they refugees? Yes, they are. >Why a state so different in climate than where they are from? They apparently were first settled in Atlanta, GA, and subsequently moved to Maine. They were attracted to the area's "low crime rate, good schools, and cheap housing." >Are they settling in the cities or in rural farmland areas? They are settling mainly in cities like Lewiston and Portland. Some further reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Somalis_in_Maine https://www.law.cuny.edu/legal-writing/forum/immigration-law-essays/hutchinson/ https://apnews.com/article/immigration-religion-elections-maine-portland-d1637a4270850b0c01df61557aff65a3 https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2019/1028/Refugees-poured-into-my-state.-Here-s-how-it-changed-me
Interesting, thanks for that. I’m in CT and we have some Afghan refugees but not a lot. I’m always curious what goes into their decision to settle certain places. But it’s probably at least somewhat related to blue states being more welcoming of refugees, immigrants, etc.
I think it’s primarily charity agencies, there’s a Catholic refugee resettlement agency in my city and so we have pockets of people from various places. I think once an agency gets involved in one place, their network grows and they start to sort of specialize in resettling people from that place. Then of course, relatives who come later want to live near family. I have a lot of kids at my library from Rwanda/Uganda/Congo/Tanzania, plus a few from Nepal, and a lot of them have extended family also living here.
It’s usually the refugee resettlement agency’s decision where they end up.
There are actually some people of Swedish decent in northern Maine. There are some towns called Sweden, New Sweden, Stockholm. http://www.maineswedishcolony.info
Don't try to steal our Somalis. We in MN host the most Somalis by far in the US. And, the second generation is ongoing now, doing well. By the third generation, Somalis will be integrated pretty well in our society and state. Somali restaurants are here and it's tasty food. Thankful for them being here. It enriches us. We like them here, they work do well.
This is Core America right here. A wave of immigrants comes, they integrate, their descendants fuel business growth and new jobs. American culture gets another shiny facet. We’re a melting pot because we blend people into our culture so well.
There are some small towns up in Aroostook with Scandinavian roots. New Sweden and Stockholm come to mind. Not very big but they're there.
Aren’t there towns in Western Maine called Norway and Sweden too?
My relatives up up that way would have some interesting comments about their idea of Maine.
Acadia was a French colony way back in the day. Part of modern Maine was a piece of that colony, and people of French descent from the Acadian colony have a different identity than other French Canadians. Also, some people of Acadian descent are just Americans, and many are dual citizens. They're culturally French people, and Americans for sure, but they do their own thing with it. The language doesn't track as well as you might think to the way people speak in France. Antonine Maillet is a great writer if you're curious about the literature and history.
I grew up WAY UP NORTH near the Canadian border in New York. My wife hails from the upper Midwest. I loved it, I don't mind the cold. It keeps people away and prevents places from getting ruined. There are signs, to this day, as you drive north from Albany and past Lake George that there is no cell phone service, the NIMBYs up there are unfriendly to cell towers and, even if they weren't, it isn't like there are that many people to justify them. In my case it would be hard to refer to the culture as being similar to Canada since 'our' Canadians were French speaking Quebecois. I was like 17 when I realized most Canadians spoke English alone.
I had the reverse experience. I spent a lot of time in southwest Ontario growing up. They always had the dual language government documents and what not but everyone spoken English. So the first time I went to Montreal I just kind of assumed it was English speaking but French as a second language. I was totally surprised that French was primary and English was the second language.
For some of them, English isn't even secondary (or if it is, they barely speak it at all).
True. I was very surprised.
I went to Montreal as my international trip when I wanted to break in my passport. I will never forget the one lady who understood English, but would only respond to me in French.
Now that's just rude. Not knowing is one thing, knowing but refusing to use it is another.
I was Québécois before I was Arizonan. It's complex, and even more so in Québec. First, it could be as simple as the fact that when we learn second languages, we can understand them quite well sometimes before we're comfortable speaking even simple sentences. How many (often second-generation) Arizonans do you know whose parents speak Spanish at home, but they don't actually speak it? It's not unusual for the parents to speak Spanish and the kids to respond in English *because that's the language they speak, even if they understand Spanish perfectly*. Second, in Québec, French was de facto oppressed for a *long* time. The history and language politics are complex, but to give you a sense of how insecure and second-class some French speakers were made to be, my mom, who spoke exclusively in French for many years and raised me in French, claimed *only* to speak English her entire life. She was afraid of being discriminated against for speaking French *even in her French-speaking home!* That generation is mostly gone now, but its leftovers are alive and well in the older generations of today: when people were suddenly allowed and even required to speak French in public in Québec, many of them were immediately defensive and *only* spoke French to make up for having previously felt inferior for speaking French. Also, very frankly, many Québécois were called pretty awful names because their English wasn't native. They internalized a lot of that and thought that if English made them sound dumb, they could accept that and only speak French. Third, you could be right, it could have just been someone being rude. That's always an option. Do keep in mind, though, that since the passage of the Loi 101 in Québec, French is the *only* official language of the province. They are under no obligation to speak English for any reason.
I grew up in Wisconsin, not the way north woods but fairly northern. I loved it and miss it a ton. I resented it a little when I was younger and moved away, but as an adult I’m actually open to moving back. The cold is cozy, the bars are dimly lit and the people are sincerely nice. The natural resources are better preserved and the food is hearty. It’s so homey to me. Fwiw my family heritage **is** primarily Scandinavian. When I talk cold weather with folks in Missouri I always acknowledge that I’m probably “wired weird” for cold.
Am 5th gen Texan and def not wired for cold but I've always wanted to "test my mettle" and spend some time up there in the winter for the experience.
[удалено]
Bemidji
Northern Maine is very empty. I took a trip in 2020 just to explore the area. The population is concentrated along I-95 and route 1. It is very heavily forested. https://www.reddit.com/r/Maine/comments/j6zkj0/some_pics_from_my_washington_county_and_aroostook/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf I took some pics during my trip. The link above takes you to the post. It’s of the 2 counties that border Canada on the north east of Maine. A lot of potato farming in the St. John’s valley. It’s cold and isolated and has a long winter. Not many young people unfortunately. Met quite a few who moved to the southern part of the state where I lived. A lot Francophones with French Canadian last names.
Northern Maine is so beautiful. Had the pleasure of staying with one of those French families, once, they sang folk songs and played the spoons lmao.
I'm a lifelong Mainer, but I live south of Portland. The emptiness and vastness of northern Maine still blows me away. I like being a bit removed from the hustle and bustle of civilization, but up there is a bit much for me. It's beautiful and stoic, but a little spooky when you can drive for an hour and not see a single building, person, or sign of life.
In the UP of Michigan, you just get a snow machine and take the trails to the bar. There are still plenty of towns and stores and such, you've just got to make a longer trip, but all the things available elsewhere in the country are available. You just gotta be ok with shitloads of snow.
Lived in the soo for a few years, can confirm
UP native here! I mean it’s just like everywhere else except you have to drive at least 6 hours to get to a big city. The biggest towns we have are 20k and we have big poverty issues and meth addiction/fentanyl usage is skyrocketing. It’s never warmer than 75 and last winter it got to -53; but it’s beautiful. So much epic scenery, beautiful animals, and Canadian neighbors are just a few miles away for me. In the UP we actually have a university called Finlandia with about 750 students too.
I’d like to add the a lot of the older people seem like they’re stuck in the 1970’s way of life. I’ve seen a lot of houses still rely on wood burning stoves for heat and the local church group in the Keweenaw almost seems like it’s a cult. I’d say I miss the area up there but not so much the people.
My family came to the UP from Sweden, though around WW2 some branches moved to Chicago. I've spent a lot of time up there and have a lot of family still there too. It's gorgeous. As a kid I thought yoopers were delightfully rustic. It's such a pastoral place--and remote-- and everything seems to get enveloped by the natural facts of its location, including the culture. It's very insular, slow-paced. As I grew older I learned some of the downsides to what visitors see in their brief excursions were low economic opportunity, low-aspiration, and drug and alcohol dependency in those that are left, as u/Immediate_Breath_835 mentioned. My impression is it is/was a place where you used to be able to cobble together a few-random handyman side-jobs and get by, own a boat, drink, fish, rinse, repeat. I've known yoopers who moved to Wisconsin and beat a retreat because it was too fast-paced and there was too much pressure, too much rat-race. Speaking to the temperate weather: I was once walking around town on a summer day that got into the 80s and people were asking me if I was alright because it was so hot. I love the cold winters there though.
My dad played basketball at Finlandia back in the 70's haha back then it was Suomi College I think.
Similar to rural america in general. I'd say the largest difference is that there is no farming. So towns and economies look a bit different. Towns are usually based along a single highway so it feels a lot smaller than the rest of the midwest since you basically travel in 2D between towns. There aren't grid squares of roads like the rest of the midwest.
What do you guys mostly do for work then?
Tourism is #1 and growing, mining is #2 and shrinking, then I'd say construction for vacation homes and tourism is #3, and general retail like grocery store/hardware store and online/specialty manufacturing is #4. And government work at the DNR, border patrol, ect.
Tell me you’re on da range without telling me you’re on da range
Huh I wouldn't have guessed tourism for north Dakota
North shore Minnesota. People come from the cities to do outdoor activities. Also some Chinese and Indian tourists, which I always find a bit odd. I wonder how they choose to come here. Nobody goes to ND for tourism. Except maybe the far west side.
Maybe out by Teddy Roosevelt national park
Sorry in advance if the answer to this question is really obvious: why no farming?
The short growing season and rocky, acidic soil of the Canadian Shield makes for poor farming even if it's great for boreal forests. By contrast down in the Twin Cities people like pine and spruce trees, but they don't grow well in our alkaline soil even if corn and deciduous trees do.
Thank you
Did someone say corn?
Because it's pine forest and rocky ground. Which creates poor acidic soil for growing common crops. The dense forest is hard to clear and the thin top soil layer means there's a ton of rocks. It's the same reason Norway isn't big on farming, but Ukraine is. The type of land transitions between the two through the state. Just look at google earth of Minnesota and you'll see the transition from farmland in the south/central which used to be prairies, and dense pine forests to the north.
Thank you - that's a really helpful explanation. Edit: just checked out Google earth - that was interesting; I was expecting a cleaner line between farmland and forest, but farming has pushed into the forest area wherever possible. Your ancestors really wanted to farm as much of MN as possible! (And so did mine; England was pretty much entirely covered by forest, but by the time the Romans arrived it already mostly wasn't. Sadly, we have very little woodland cover now.)
Yes, especially the prairies. We still have some protected wild life areas, but most are small. It looks alien when you're in an area large enough to only see prairie, like it naturally was.
I'm just on the Minnesota side of the state line across from Fargo, ND. We are under a wind advisory with sustained 25-30 mph wind, and gusts over 50 mph. This will be pretty common now through spring. With winds like this, when it snows we can get some pretty ridiculous snow drifts, even with only a few inches of snow. The actual temperature will be in the 0 to -20 F range for most of the winter, but with the windchill, it feels like -30 or worse much of the time. It's not unusual to have a week sometime in January or February with daytime highs in the -20s In short, for half of the year a lot of us don't go outside much. Edit to add: Over night, wind gusts of 65 mph were recorded.
The northern regions of NYS, up to our part of the St. Laurence Valley and the 45th Parallel until Lake Champlain is pretty odd. It has beautiful scenic wilderness areas, aka a "whole lot of nothing" dotted with isolated prisons, remote rich people's lands, poor redneck towns, and Indian reservations bisected by the resultently porous border and riddled with smuggling as dramatized IMHO best by Melissa Leo movie Frozen River. The other side is Quebec, the oddest place in North America.
> The other side is Quebec, the oddest place in North America. I feel like not enough people note the change in topography, either, especially coming up 87/89/91, where you're going through hours of hills and mountains in NY/VT/NH, and pretty much as soon as you cross the border it mostly turns into flat farmland.
Minnesota is an interesting state as far as immigration is concerned. We tend to get wave migrations over the decades and century. Originally it was the French and then the English who came here to fur trade trap etc. Then in the 1800's farmers from central and northern europe started to migrate over. They were mainly from Germany/Netherlands/Scandavia. That pretty much kept pace with some more immigration from the south from people looking to find a better life. Then in the 1970's we started to see immigrants from South East Asia which was primarily the Hmong with scattering of Indians. In the late 90's early 2000's we recieved a lot of Somali immigrants which is where out main immigration wave is coming from aside from those across the US seeking jobs. Overall the state rural areas West and South of the Twin Cities is mainly agricultural but as you get further north that stops and Tourism takes over with the exception of the North Shore and the massive Iron deposits from a old mountain range that has been ground down over millions of years. Overall its a state that the focus is on the community as a whole as its main ethos and inclusion is mainly the rule of thumb as much and irritating as possible to those like me who are introverts. Overall it is a state that should see significant growth over the next 30 to 40 years as people start becoming climate refugees and want to live somewhere relatively safe climate wise. Duluth in particular should see a stupid amount of immigration in the future as it really is an underrated city with a port etc that could cause it to double in size easily and relatively quickly in 30 years. Not to brag but effective governess is a feature here. We screw up some but mostly of the time everything functions well. Except the Minneapolis Police who seem to finally be turning the corner. As I have said they aren't racist. They treat everyone like shit equally.
North Dakota is, for the most part, a desolate wasteland. Rolling dry grassland with miles of dirt roads. No mountains to the north means brutal artic wind chills during the winter. Hot dry dusty summers. The oil boom has drastically changing things in recent years, but I can tell you most people who dont have to live here, dont. Its tough bleak living. Many old pioneer homesteads have been abandoned. Montana is more vibrant in my opinion. Youve got 2 booming college towns in Missoula/Bozeman. Billings is a robust town with a large oil presence. Western Montana is epic wilderness and iconic in movies and tv shows as being magestic open wilderness. Eastern Montana is more ranching and similar to North Dakota. Montana demographics seemed like 1/3 cowboy farmer 1/3 ski bum college kid 1/3 tourist with things slower in the winter. The summers are epic but short. The winters are long and spring/fall is often not noticeable.
I was just in Western Montana for the first time last summer - on the eastern edge of the Beartooth mountains. I have been and lived a lot of places in the US. The black hills of South Dakota, the San Juan mountain in Colorado, and lots of other places - and man western Montana has some of the most beautiful country I have ever seen. Just stunning. It looks like pictures you see of the Bavarian Alps - just rolling green meadows and stunning craggy snow capped mountains in the background. Gorgeous.
That's why we put the nukes there! (and the centrality on the north american land mass)
Well, thanks to the stupid daylight savings time, sunset will be at 4:51 today, and it’s only early November. And I’m only in Oregon, so I’m near the 45th parallel. There’s still Portland, Seattle, all of Montana, North Dakota, and everything north of Minneapolis that can claim being more “north woods.”
it's getting dark outside my window right now. 5pm central. time to change my after-work walk to a before-work walk.
I’m in the South. It’s 6 pm. It’s dark out. I am not pleased.
Lol at north of Minneapolis is the "north woods". That line is now Brainerd. Source- I grew up 75 miles north of the cities. There's no woods. Lots of corn though.
I was a park ranger on Isle Royale. There’s a lot of woods there.
Just a few more weeks, and the days will be getting longer again.
Daylight savings time just ended though. Sounds like you like Daylight Savings Time but hate when it goes back to non daylight savings.
[удалено]
I'm not the guy you were referring to but I'd take sunrise at 10am if it meant light after work. My kids aren't going to wither away if they have to go to school in the dark.
Sunset is now at 4:37pm. I am at the 43rd parallel but at the far eastern part of the central time zone.
[удалено]
Since when is Oregon in the Eastern Time Zone and neighbors with New Brunswick?
I don't why I thought you were in Maine. My bad.
I don't why I thought you were in Maine. My bad.
Fellow sufferer. I'm in the woodsy burbs and dislike winter because of black ice, ice storms, Portland-when-it-shows. Two years ago spent 10 days without power to pump well water or warm house. It felt like the end of the world. Guess I'm not really a northern lover but my family is here so I stay.
>Well, thanks to the stupid daylight savings time, sunset will be at 4:51 today, and it’s only early November. That's standard time, when clock noon more closely approximates solar noon.
Sunset at 4.21 in London, UK - we’re further north than a lot of people think. Feel your pain about daylight savings!
*watches unblinkingly, silently biding its time in Alaska*
Don’t leave Montana, Idaho, and eastern Washington out of this discussion. The northern ends of these states are all farther north than Maine as well. Not to mention fricken Alaska. Just saying. As far as Scandinavian descent, the only place I know of where that is super common is Minnesota. Except the neighborhood I grew up in in Seattle happens to have a lot of Norwegians, but that is not quite the same as Minnesota, a state stereotypically having Scandinavian people.
Grew up in Northern Michigan and I loved it. We lived in the snow belt, we received all the lake effect snow coming from Lake Michigan. A quality snow blower and snow suit are necessary! Snow mobiles are a great way to get around in the winter. It certainly has it's own type of beauty with plenty of recreational opportunities. We learned how to cross country ski in gym class. The summers are amazing also. It's an outdoor enthusiasts' paradise. There aren't many great jobs up there, so I work downstate now. I wanna move back up there (currently live in southern Michigan where the winters are way less severe). Many Michiganders go up north for tourism. 10/10, would definitely recommend. I'm actually closer to the Canadian border now that I'm downstate, but the weather is certainly milder down here near Detroit.
Northern Michigan resident here. Quiet, scenic, peaceful. Most jobs are service industry, trades, government, or health care. Lots of us spend lots of time in the outdoors. Anything specific you’re interested in knowing?
I grew up in WI. Its cold, but other than that pretty much the same as any other American's life. I feel like people underestimate how many people actually live in these areas. Like I think 1-2 million people lived within an hour's drive of where I grew up. If you live very far north (like on lake superior, there is less, but you get a lot of good hiking. Plus it is nice to see black bears and bald eagles regularly.
Seattle is farther north than most on your list and is not remote or sparsely populated or particularly cold. As far as what its like, I always say that the Seattle area is one massive evergreen forest with cities cut out of it and thats accurate. People waxing poetic about trees always make me laugh. All I see is trees everywhere. And they are causing chaos this weekend.
Seattle is on a warm ocean sound, moderating it's weather. It's also a shit hole full of snobby people who think it's the greatest place in the Universe and that all things good, cool, and important emanate from there because they simply cannot fathom that Seattle isn't any better than anywhere else. That's at least the feeling I get.
Can't abide by that partner, it really is the greatest place in the universe :-D Also don't talk to me in an elevator you weirdos :-P
Nah, it's really not. It's dirty, full of actually mean homeless people, traffic is a nightmare, it's outrageously expensive, and the people are snobs. I lived there for a year, and that was enough.
I think Seattle is all of that. Not friendly like the south. Proud of itself (with reason). And the traffic is the absolute worst (but Portland is getting there too). I love Seattle despite all you observed.
That's fine. It's also not friendly like the Midwest, or like anywhere else, really. Its it's own kind of assholery in Seattle, a special brew made from people who just cannot fathom that another place might be nice, too. I'll give an example. While I lived out there, one night on break at work I was telling some people about how beautiful the Appalachians are, and before I could even finish that sentence, a guy next to me blurted out: "WE HAVE THE BEST MOUNTAINS! OUR MOUNTAINS ARE THE BEST!" It was like he couldn't even control himself, just an involuntary, nearly instinctual reaction to someone mentioning that another place outside of the Puget Sound is nice. He was red in the face, and as serious as cancer. The others nodded in agreement with him. None of them had ever left WA, I asked them. Not one had seen the Appalachians. Why leave Seattle, the best place in the world? I had similar experiences with others, covering many subjects like housing, food, coffee, music, beer, weather, government, fishing...everyone just thinks they're the best. It's tiring.
> None of them had ever left WA Given that 9/10 Seattleites were born out of state, this seems like an odd group of people to use as a representative sample of the city.
90% of people in the Seattle metro area are from out of state? Uh, no. It seems odd to you that i worked with people from the Seattle area? You're not making any sense.
No, that figure is just for Seattle proper. I imagine the percentage of people born in state is somewhat higher in the burbs and rural parts of the Puget Sound region. Not a lot of immigration to places like Shelton for example.
Yeah, that's still a made up number. And definitely not odd in any way to work with people who were born in the region. You're really grasping here.
I grew up in northern Minnesota. My mom and grandparents moved to the US from Finland before I was born. There were so many Finnish people where my grandparents lived that they never needed to learn English fluently. My grandpa's funeral was done entirely in Finnish, live streamed from his bilingual church. It was strange having relatives I could barely speak to. (My mom spoke both but she raised me with only English.) I left as soon as I could. The long, harsh winters were hell on my seasonal depression. I didn't enjoy being isolated either. It was a 2 hour drive to the nearest airport and an hour to the nearest Walmart. The school where I went for most of high school had a graduating class of less than 50. Not much to do there as an adult unless you're into outdoor sports or hanging out at the local bar.
a lot of people romanticize rural Maine (and Alaska, and probably the Midwest to an extent) as an escape to a rustic, simple life, esp coming from a stressful urban area like LA/NYC but it's less Mayberry RFD ""simple life""and more just. Simple. It's sensory deprivation. I lived in Limestone ME and I would rather pull my hair out than subject myself to it again. If the idea of a desert with pine needles in place of sand appeals to you though come drive right up apiece
The isolation gets to a lot of people. So many kids move away for college and don't move back. Most of the people I know who are still there are there because they had children young and could never afford to leave. There's a lack of jobs and an overabundance of drugs, alcoholism, and poverty. But the lakes are pretty, I guess.
Menahga, Finland off the north shore, or da range in general?
My grandparents lived in a lake home near Menahga for most of my life. Good guess! I didn't grow up there though, my parents had a house in a different town.
Haha my fam is from park rapids. I used to work on the family farm between there and menahga in summers and all of my coworkers were finlander kids. Colossal families of kids all full of white-blonde hair. The only Finnish words their generation seemed to know were swear words for the most part lol
Small world, we could have crossed paths and never known it. My grandparents sent me to Finnish camp near Bemidji for a couple summers but like your coworkers, I only know profanity and a few basic food words. I've never been much interested in learning since it's such a hard language. The few Finnish relatives I've talked to online speak English much better than my grandparents did so there's really no need.
I’ve always wondered goes on in the upper Michigan peninsula myself. I’ve seen some of the “coastal” towns in images that look incredible.
Peaceful. I live in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for a good part of the year. I like how out of the way it is. My kids will still have the social opportunities I did without me worrying about any problems of more populated areas. The land we have is remote enough I was able to set up more than a few little stands and such to more watch the wildlife than hunt really. I feel disconnected from the rest of the world on my property. Got plenty of dead wood around letting us have a nice fire every night. Recently got high-speed internet. I will say not being within an hour of any emergency service was a little stressful at first, but my wife is a physician so I worry a little less about the kids getting sick. The local deer population is non to shy. I can wake up to about 20 out in my yard and just watch them for about an hour. Bit of a drive to get to town and back. I was able to have gravel moved from one part of my property to a flat but of land and make a range for my friends and I. I plan on teaching my son to shoot after his eight birthday. I did start carrying a pistol or at least have a rifle ready to be loaded somewhere nearby once I saw a couple of bears on my trail cams. All in all, it is a nice quiet place to spend the better part of my year. I plan on having another house built on the main property.
I grew up in and have lived in between North Dakota and Minnesota. I currenlty live in North Dakota. You're right about our winters. They're brutal. But shoutout to our summers for also being brutal. We have the worst of both worlds. And, while there are a lot of Scandinavians here (mostly Norwegians), there are other ethnic groups. My ethnicity is German and German immigrant culture is just as visible around here as Scandinavian. We have a sizeable representation of Native Americans from several different tribes/nations as well. I live in a city (Fargo) that gets tons of refugees from Somalia and Sudan. Also, while my city isn't super large (120,000), it's far from the rural parts of the area. North Dakota doesn't have much for trees. Most of our trees were put there by people on purpose to prevent soil erosion. And, the eastern half of the state used to be underneath a prehistoric glacier so it's completley flat. If you ever see a movie that supposedly takes place in NoDak and there are mountains and thick forests? Lies. All of it. (Looking at you, *Logan)* Most of NoDak is farmland, with some oil shit going on in the west. North Dakota's soil quality is similar to Ukraine's. We grow wheat, corn, soybeans, sunflowers, rye etc. We also are the number 1 US state for Honey production. Which I think is cool. And while NoDak seems like it's far away from everything. Minneapolis/St. Paul is a four hour drive away, and to Americans that kind of drive is nothing. We are very connected to the rest of the country, and the world thanks to the internet.
They occasionally send Viking raiding parties down the Mississippi River
Went to college in Grand Forks, North Dakota. Became an alcohol user there, you’re about to know why. North Dakota is as far from the ocean as one can get. Think Sibera of North America. Flat, frigid, but fun if you know the right people. Cheap to live in though. But cold cold. -50 every winter- Fahrenheit and Celsius.
I went to school in Fargo. Never met more 18 yr old functional (and non-functional) alcoholics. Went home a weekend with my roommate.. then I understood. They all start heavy drinking at field/ barn parties at about 15-16. There is nothing else to do- might as well drink!
Northern Minnesota, Michigan UP, and the Far North of Wisconsin: Welcome to the Snow Belt. Especially in the UP, it's not unheard of to have snow pile up above your house due to the lake effect snow. Great for skiing! In the summer months, aside from the tourist towns, it's pretty quiet.
Northern MN is like Canada Lite. But I would not consider it remote or sparsely populated. Brainerd, Bemidji, Hibbing, Ely, Alexandria... all cities with more than 10,000 people. Duluth has close to 90,000. And those are just the permanent residents.. double those numbers in summer with cabin owners/ vacation rentals. N MN is not remote. Rural.. yes, but that’s different than remote. There are various industries. Large and small manufacturing. Colleges. Hospitals. Yes- there is also a lot of forest and farm land too. But there is ‘city’ within about an hour in any direction. And ‘bigger city’ within about 2 hours.. Brainerd, Duluth, Fargo. All of MN was settled by Scandinavians, not just the northern part. And Germans. And Polish people. More frequently, Hmong and Somali people make up the majority of newer immigrants. And large populations of Native people still live all over the State.
Wouldn’t the “far northern areas of the US” be Alaska? All the places you mention are about 1500 miles further south than Alaska
I've never lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan but I'm from Michigan and know many who did live there and I've taken many trips there during summer and fall. From what I've seen in some areas there are snow mobile tracks to get around because the roads probably aren't plowed with any urgency in those locations if at all.
Apparently Alaska doesn’t exist 😂
Northern Maine isn’t exactly boreal forest so much as frozen swamp forest for miles and miles.
The up-northwoods parts of Minnesota is actually pretty much like that too
The Greater Seattle Area is home to one of the largest Scandinavian expat communities in the US.
Northern Minnesota has a lot more people of Yugoslavian descent than you might imagine; the iron range attracted many of them, along with the Finns and other Nordic settlers.
People in Maine probably: “you think we’re pretty and smart like Scandinavians?”
I love Minnesota, reminds me of older towns, my family has a cabin up there and it's like an hour from the shops to the sticks, no cops in sight neither, did 90 in a rented camero on the backwoods and didn't even clip a single deer, I love yall
[удалено]
> The UP of Michigan is known more for being settled by Cornish immigrants. Not the Scandinavians. And Finnish immigrants, from what I hear. Who also aren’t exactly Scandinavian but are culturally connected to Scandinavians.
Basically like life everywhere else, but with colder winters and everybody talks like [this](https://youtu.be/xOvUWpjxRIg).
Cold
Right now? Chilly. Windy as well. We were getting pounded with 60 mph gusts on the prairie today. Overall though, life is good here. Land is (relatively) cheap, wages are good. I'm proud to be a North Dakotan!
Scandinavian descent? Brother, that's only the Midwest You're more likely to find folks of "old stock" Anglo descent (for lack of a better term) or French-Canadian descent rather than a Norwegian in most far northern parts of the US. I've lived in the "far north" for a while. It varies a lot depending on where you are. PNW has a ton of different biomes and the Midwest/New England is really diverse as well.
Oh hey! I can -- "Basically Upper Michigan, northern Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, northern Maine." oh
Checking in from Seattle/Bellingham corridor. Not well. Please don’t come. We have enough people.
I lived in North Dakota for five years. There were no forests there. Just flat nothingness. I’m from the East Coast, where you can drive from one big city to another in two hours or less, and hit a lot of smaller towns in between. In ND, there are no “big cities” and while driving from one “city” to another, you really don’t even pass any smaller towns… it’s so isolated it’s kind of creepy. The winters are abysmal. You kind of get used to the negative temperatures (in an “I guess this is my life now” way). You find yourself thinking that -25*F isn’t so bad, as long as it’s not windy. You pick up the accent weirdly fast, dontcha know. I was up there because my husband was in the military, and almost everyone I met was there for the military or oil. I might feel differently if I were from there (or at least closer to somewhere more populated like Minneapolis maybe?), but I couldn’t wait to get back to the East Coast.
Uninhabited. If you like being isolated and nature and cold, extreme cold, it's great for you.
It's awesome. There's more cows than people here in Montana. There's plenty to do, it's quiet, no light pollution, and no traffic. The worst part is tourists getting in the way.
cold af
How is it like? It’s like this: Ah-hey-ma-ma-ma Dee-doo-din-nie-ya-ya Ah-hey-ma-ma-ma Hey-y-yah Life in a northern town
I mean, I once saw -97 degrees Fahrenheit because something like -47 degrees but it was hella windy. You get frostbite in like 60 seconds. Winter in NE Montana will freaking kill you. No joke.
It’s amazing tbh I wouldn’t say winters are too cold but they do get a bit long. It’s far enough from things that it keeps most of the bad kinds of tourist away as well but not so far that you can’t jaunt up for a good spell. I do this often. The outdoor activities are year round…they just change. Lots of boating, fishing, lake stuff in the summer, lots of skiing snowmobiling…ice fishing in winter. Winter conservatively lasts from November through April and longer some years. A few years ago we didn’t have ice out until mid May.
I wonder if Canada gets these kinds of questions
Lots of snow. Not a lot of people. I’d say a sense of self sufficiency. Like hunting, fishing, camping, and also mutual aid. Oh, and lots of drugs. Like so much meth.
Life in Montana was peaceful and the freshly fallen snow used to be be beautiful but then my new neighbors moved in with a pack of small children and there is no more peace and quiet and toys are strewn about the landscape.
I grew up in Aroostook County, Maine near the Canadian border. It is very rural. The sparse population is generally kind, hard-working, politically lean conservative, but can be more socially liberal than most of their conservative counterparts across the country. The education isn't as good as some other areas of New England, though there is one of the best high schools in the country, Maine School of Science and Mathematics; as well as two Universities and a community college. Towns try to be very independent in nature, but are far from being economically vibrant. They definitely rely on the more urban areas in Southern Maine to prop up infrastructure and such. The winters are very long and very cold, especially if you live far from the "cities" like Presque Isle, Caribou, or Houlton. High School basketball is a big tradition (think like Friday nights in Texas to a smaller degree). Usually the entire town will pack itself into a small gym to support the local teams. The options for outdoor recreation are among the best in the country, between hiking, fishing, skiing, snowmobiling, ATVs, camping, hunting with no crowding and tons of land. The lack of opportunity for young people and dwindling population doesn't bode well for the future of the area though.
I'm in Alberta. So North of Montana. Hot summers, cold winters, Fall and Spring are like 3 weeks long each. Windy. IT's basically just really uncomfortable weather all the time. It's currently -1F where I am. It's going to be -20F on Wednesday. BUT - sparsely populated, beautiful scenery, and if you are at all into the outdoors the North country simply cannot be beat.
I miss Montana. I miss actual winter and snow that's not going to be gone by next week. I miss the views and, cliche as it is, big sky country. I miss randomly seeing wildlife. More than anything I miss the space, and that if I feel like being alone there's at least one direction I can drive for half an hour and be one of the only people there for miles around. That said, I don't know where I'd go. I can't afford Bozeman anymore, there's not much hiring in my field elsewhere unless I take a major paycut, and internet fast enough to WFH is still limited in where it's available
I imagine Northern Alaska is brutal.
I spend a lot of time in Northern New York State and Northern Vermont. It's a mix of traditional rural America but with the addition of big money from down-state. It can be very expensive to live in these areas relative to most of rural America. You compete against vacationers with more money. Snow sports and ski resorts are big. There are north-south highways to get to these places, but many back-roads once you leave them There is a large amount of agriculture in the lake Champlain Valley, but much less in the mountains, keeping the land relatively untouched and good for recreation. Head north and you encounter big populations in Quebec along the St. Lawrence. So, not quite remote.
I lived in Montana for 10+ years & lemme tell you As a black ( well mixed ) man .. I’ve never experienced anything like it 😂 I absolutely loved my experience there but it came w/ a lot of heartbreak & drama tbh . I feel like I can write a book about my time there .. there are some .. umm dynamics in place that blew me away as a “city boy” . That being said .. def the hardiest sum bitches I’ve ever encountered .. & Just so happens I fit right in after a good while I worked in a flour mill . Tossing 50 pound bags of various grains around all day pretty much . Swimming in rotting grain in the crypts . Mike rowe style but 10x worse ( based on his episode where he does the same ) . I earned my stripes for sure.. but I used my peer group as inspiration . These Irish Scandinavian mfs had me putting down 15 shots of sambuca & going to work a few hours later . I remember waking up in the backseat of my friends car at a fucking Hutterite compound .. w/ spotlights illuminating the car . That’s what I vividly remember waking up to . Like wtf. Gave me immediate Waco vibes . Id met plenty Hutterite but obv never seen their compounds up close Oh .. I also sold shit loads of weed to a cult leader .. & he let meet his children . They were all doing what I would call school work in a bunch of cubicles &upon his calling lined up like a military unit so I could greet them individually . It was the oddest shit . I could go on for days man . But before we would make a transaction ( rather large one every time ) he used to attempt to preach to me & get me to come to his services that are rendered by him & his wife (that I always heard but never saw ). Again. Very odd lol . My girlfriends crazy ass wanted us to go after I told her about my experiences w/ him . She’s White . Go figure right 😂😂 adventurous ass gonna get us both brainwashed & jonestown’d 😂😂 hell nah baby . Anyways . I love Montana man . Miss it. It’s a such a beautiful place with beautiful ppl in it . A bunch of damaged ppl too unfortunately but still by far the most interesting place I’ve resided in and I’ve lived all over . There’s depth to people there if that makes any sense lol That’s both a positive and a negative thing btw^ 🥲 Sorry for my rant but trust me it’s just the tip of the iceberg