The Image of the Finns

In spite of the influence of both Russia and Sweden over the centuries, Finland and the Finns have their own distinctive character.
The sparse population—5,200,000 people sprinkled over 338,000 square kilometers (130,500 square miles) of land, which is in large part wilderness—is rugged and fiercely individualistic.

Like the neighboring Scandinavians, during the winter months, the Finns receive less than 6 hours of daylight in Helsinki and none at all in the northernmost part of Finland! They too must contend with months of bitter cold—and yet their sense of humor is as warm as the sauna.

The Finns are not given to the saneness of the Danes, nor the hilarity of the Norwegians, but their quietly ironic view of life and their deadpan humor have stood them well against the vicissitudes of history and climate.

What seems to make the Finns most characteristically Finnish is their successful management of life in a land at once beautiful and hostile.
The Finns appear to embrace the challenges of nature, heading out to their summer cottages at the gleam of a sunny ray, or into the icy lake for a swim after the sauna. Perhaps it is the uniquely Finnish combination of feistiness and heartiness that sends them outside into the cold and dark to prove that neither the Swedes, nor the Russians, nor Nature itself can ever get the best of them.