With the early arrival of winter this week, I was going to reflect on how I got dressed for winter as a kid. I grew up in a small town smack dab in the middle of the U.P. in the 1960s. When I was a kid, in the town of Rock, there were basically three types of people … Finns, French-Canadians and a mix of the two. My mother was the result of a Salmi boy marrying a Trombley girl.

Native Yoopers reading this knew my topic by the headline – three words that may seem disjointed to some but were key elements in the outdoor wardrobe of a kid from Rock.

My friend Art Hughes, a journalist with Minnesota Public Radio out of Rochester, was amused by these words when they came up in a conversation one time. And asked what they mean.

Translated, swampers, choppers and chooks (I’ve also seem it spelled “chuks”) means boots, mittens and hats. But where I’m from, the definitions aren’t so broad.

Swampers weren’t just any boot, but a heavy, leather upper part, rubber sole (maybe that’s where the Beatles got the idea for an album) and a felt lining, most often made by Sorel, LaCrosse or a similar outdoorsy company.

I didn’t get real swampers until I was in high school and started hunting. Most of my youth was spent trying to slip on what we called “goulashes.”

These were rubber boots with three or four weird-looking fasteners.

They slipped over your shoes and were hard to get on unless you used a bread wrapper as a liner.(We did a lot of re-purposing back then, which I’ll devote a future column to. I’m sure you’ll find my recollections of Cool-Whip salad bowls and jelly jar tumblers particularly fascinating).

Choppers weren’t just any mittens. They were a two-part system consisting of a wool inner liner with a deer skin outer shell. They didn’t offer any dexterity whatsoever. I mean you’d have to taken them off to make a decent snowball. But boy were they warm.

I’m sure there are books written about a Yooper’s affection for chooks. If not there should be, But I’m not going to write one. These are snug wool hats. Canadians call them “toques” and my dad referred to them as “watchmen’s caps.” Where I came from everybody’s chooks were home made. They didn’t sell clothes at the two stores in my home town and I’m not sure they carried chooks at the Fair Store in Escanaba. So you relied on somebody to knit you one. My mom was great at this, but my grandmother, not so much. My grandmother did so many things. She was an expert butcher, bartender, cook. baker, etc.

She was especially adept at canning. And as a women who came of age in the Great Depression, she could make great products out of nearly anything. I used to impress friends in college with her watermelon rind pickles and dandelion and choke cherry jellies. But, God rest her soul, the woman couldn’t knit a chook if you pointed a gun at her. I remember this black and red striped chook she made me one year. It was not so much your traditional chook as it was a stocking cap. At least that’s what is was supposed to be. In reality it looked more like an inverted Champaign glass … I still have nightmares.

The point is, swampers, choppers and chooks weren’t weird words to us. They were part of our everyday vocabulary. These were just a few of the words we used in my world. As I said, the Finnish culture was pretty strong in Rock, and many of the words I heard, and used as a kid were either authentic Finn or of Finnish origin. For example, we never had “slippers.” Instead we had “tossuts,” which were wool and hand made as well. (These my grandmother could knit. Hers were the best.) And on sauna night you never left the house without your “Sauna Pussi,” the bag, or pouch that contained your towel, clean clothes and toiletries. Funny thing is that for all the Finnish words that were part of our daily lives: makkara and mojakka, etc., there were some words that are quite common in the Copper Country and other Finnish enclaves that I didn’t learn until I moved here 25 years ago.

For example, I’ve eaten nissu my entire life, but never heard the word until I was in my 30s. We called it “biscuit” or maybe Finnish Biscuit.

There was a time, maybe in college, when I was embarrassed by the way I talked and the words that were so strange to my friends. But as I age, and as the generation before me slowly disappears, those words are a source of pride, reminding me I come from a special place with very special people.

Editor’s note: Mark Wilcox is the Managing Editor at The Daily Mining Gazette.