Carolyn Williams was like many of us that live here UP North, she'd passed by the sign that directs you to the Hanka Homestead Finnish Museum, but had never actually gone there for a tour, until recently when she stopped there for a look-see.

The grounds are filled with buildings, furnishings, farming equipment and implements, along with plenty of history about the way of life, back in the early 1900's. The Hanka Homestead was restored by volunteers and opened to the public in 1985. It is one of the few historical sites in Michigan that has been restored on its original location, using original artifacts.

When asking Carolyn about using her photos for today, she aptly described the experience of visiting this historic homestead: "It was a wonderful experience, stepping back in time like that. Such a cool place! Makes you think about how "soft" technology has made us as the decades pass. Those folks worked hard to be self-sufficient on the homestead."

Historic. Thanks 4 sharing.

Wonderful example of how folks lived in that day. Thanks for the tour! Wonder how many tech-tied millennials would survive under these conditions.

Loved it!! So interesting. Thanks for sharing!!

Oh I love it! I must get to see the Hanka Homestead one of these years.

The Hanka Homestead pictures remind me so much of many of the farms in and around Bruce Crossing that I saw as a youngster visiting my granddad's dairy farmı (est. ≈1920-1925) in the mid-1940s and beyond.

I see much of the same hardscrabble lifestyle of the Hanka Homestead era (hunting, trapping, making wood, making hand-crafted scribe-fit log buildings, and just surviving by ingenuity, etc.) in some of the Alaska based programming on some cable channels, like:

• Life Below Zero (National Geographic Channel)
• The Last Alaskans (Animal Planet )
• Alaskan Bush People (The Discovery Channel)

---

Quote:

"It was a wonderful experience, stepping back in time like that. Such a cool place! Makes you think about how "soft" technology has made us as the decades pass. Those folks worked hard to be self-sufficient on the homestead."

---

That is a very important part of the history of life in the UP and I am glad that it is being maintained and available for the public to see. They are great looking buildings. Thanks so much for sharing them.

GO!! It is amazing....AHHHHHHMAZING to see!~ It's
one of the "Hidden Gems" U.P. here! Fabulous tour~
I did it by mistake one time...a friend and I were
cruising the back roads and drove up in
there...there was a tour guide that gave us the
grand tour, and it truly is a GRAND tour...and to
think how folks lived back then....WOW!

Great tour, Carolyn, thank you! Can anyone tell me what the purpose of the chicken wire above the sauna rocks is?

Now that's going off the grid! The structures remind me of Cades Cove, TN, which was settled in the 1800s...a great motorcycle ride, as well.

Dunerat....perhaps they "smoked" meats, or dried
something??

Or.....SAUNA MAKKARA...Check the Vollwerth's
site..they still make Sauna Makkara!

Thank you, Carolyn. I visited there a few years ago. Looks like
they've been working hard on the site.