In The Sauna at Twelve-Foot, Marlene Mattila Stoehr's poetry and prose pieces capture Minnesota following the peak of Finnish immigration into the state, with evocative descriptions of the close-knit immigrant community of Sebeka, Minnesota. In a landscape of alfalfa fields, blueberry woods, and corn stubble, a parade of neighbors assembles each Saturday evening to "take sauna.

" They gather on the banks of the Red Eye River, at the deep spot known simply as Twelve-Foot. In wintertime, children race down frozen cow-manure piles on hand-carved wooden skis.

A party-line telephone rings to deliver news of a hard loss. The collection includes the author's Finnish ancestral emigration stories and is an important contribution to Minnesota's women's and immigrant history.

In a desperate search for food during devastating famine, a family skied 400 miles along frozen rivers to reach the Arctic Ocean. Other stories tell of emigration from Finnish-speaking communities in Norway to Michigan's Upper Peninsula, and attempts to unravel mystery surrounding the death of a great-grandparent in Michigan's 1895 Osceola mine fire.

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