News of jobs in the iron mines of the Penokee Range and ample land to homestead drew Finnish immigrants here as early as 1887, and by 1900 native born Finns were the largest ethnic group seeking a new life on the Range. Rather than settling around the mining locations or in populated communities, they preferred rural areas reminiscent of their old country homeland, where they could own land, maintain their language and traditions, and create their new Finland. Bolstered by love, faith, hope, and sisu, the Finnish character of strength and perseverance, they brought into the waste land first a one room dwelling, then a sauna, a barn, and a small clearing for hay and potatoes. In 1970 a log building was constructed as a cultural center by the National Finnish American Festival, Inc., descendants of those hardy settlers, to preserve the area’s Finnish heritage. Its spirit is kept alive by traditional dancers and a choral group performing on traditional Finnish celebration days. The building features distinctive Finnish fish tail log construction, and its timbers were once part of the huge Ashland ore docks, where the iron ore the Finnish immigrants toiled to mine from the Penokee Range was loaded into ore boats for eastern steel mills.