Gazette file photo Hancock is referred to by Finns as a nesting place in Finnish America. One reason for this was Suomi College, established in 1896, the first Finnish Lutheran seminary in the United States.

HANCOCK – For nearly three decades, Hancock’s annual Heikinpäivä festival has celebrated the midpoint of winter in the Copper Country. According to Dave Maki, of the Finnish American Heritage Center, this January the regional celebration of Finnish heritage and family fun also celebrates the start of a special year of cultural activities.

“This year’s Heikinpäivä festival, with events beginning in mid January 2026, is the first in a series of events spread throughout the year that’ll celebrate Hancock’s selection as the world’s Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture for 2026,” Maki said in a press release.

Hancock’s selection is a huge honor according to Copper Country Finns and Friends Chairman Jim Kurtti.

“It’s the first time they have selected a Finno-Ugric capital of culture outside the indigenous area of the Ugric people,” He said. “They’ve always been in Finland, Estonia or Russia, where the Ugric people live.”

The title of Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture is annually selected by a five-member independent jury on behalf of the URALIC Centre in Estonia. The jury reviews applications with strong Finno-Ugric heritage, like Finns, Estonians, Hungarians, Sámi, to promote their cultures.

Kurtti said it is the first one outside those regions to be selected as a cultural capital, and so is the first in North America.

Kurtti said Copper Country Finns and Friends was contacted with a request to apply for the title.

“When they did a search of communities in North America, not just the U.S., the one that stood out to them was Hancock,” Kurtti said. “Because they couldn’t find a comparative community that was so strongly associated with the ethnic group among the Estonians or Hungarians anywhere, or another Finnish community, the Finnish American community that was so strongly finish as Hancock, with the bilingual street signs and not the commitment to Heikinpäivä and the Finnish scene that the city has.”

Kurtti said that is significant for Hancock, because the Finno-Ugric organization is stepping out and going into something new; they are looking at the diaspora of the ethnic identity.

Kurtti said there is a Finnish expression: “Amerikan suomalaisten pesäpaikka,” which means Hancock is a nesting place in Finnish America. Hancock is a prime example, particularly when looking at Finnish miners and loggers. They moved around the area.

“They would go back to these nests and that’s where they could do things like pick up their mail and maybe they’d be a letter from Finland and they would reconnect with people,” Kurtti said, “they might find out about other work that they could do, and gather for church services.”

Hancock, by far, he said, is the most significant of nesting places in the Copper Country.