Nordic students, teachers enjoy warm welcome here

The local tourist season isn’t quite Finn-ished yet.

La Conner played host to four teachers and 16 high school students from Finland last week, all of whom enjoyed a whirlwind four-day stop that included cruises, shopping trips, restaurant dining, pumpkin field tours, and Friday Night football.

And, by all accounts, the visit came off perfectly.

Even Puget Sound’s early October weather cooperated.

How their trip to La Conner came to pass is almost as complex as the Finnish language itself, which is more akin to Estonian and Hungarian than to the Scandinavian dialects spoken in neighboring Nordic countries.

Suffice it to say, though, that Kelly Silva, a member of the La Conner High library staff, and other locals with Finnish ties played integral roles in making the visit happen.

It wasn’t long before Finnish guests and hosts alike discovered that cultural differences aside, they were pretty much on the same page.

Starting with language.

While most Finns — even teens — have a working knowledge of Swedish, they are also taught English from an early age.

“I have to say,” La Conner host parent Tammy Henriksen-McKenzie said Monday, “that their English is a lot better than my Finnish.”

The international language of food was a constant, though the Finnish students took note of larger portions served at U.S. restaurants than is the case back home.

Much larger portions, it turns out.

The average American, for instance, consumes some 3,500 calories each day.

Not so, the Finns.

“The kids didn’t eat a lot for breakfast,” Henriksen-McKenzie noted. “Maybe a slice of bread and some butter, but that was about it.”

La Conner residents have seen that before. The community hosted Jacko Perrtu, a Finnish high school student, for a full year in the late 1970s. He ran long distance events for La Conner High and embraced a dietary discipline that became the stuff of legends.

American football intrigued the Finnish teens, many of whom grew up dribbling soccer balls in the summer while donning skis each winter.

But watching players get mauled on the gridiron sometimes paled to actually getting “malled” while shopping.

Henriksen-McKenzie said Hannah, the Finnish student her family hosted, was absolutely ecstatic when she found a prized Hilfiger purse on sale.

La Conner students enjoyed hearing Norse tales and legends and had a chance to dispel a common myth of their own — that it always rains in the Pacific Northwest.

“We took them on a cruise through Deception Pass, and the kids absolutely loved it,” said Henriksen-McKenzie. “The weather couldn’t have been better.”

Same with the Finnish visit, other than it passed all too quickly. Their La Conner hosts are hoping to return the favor in a year’s time, Henriksen-McKenzie said.

“Some of the kids,” she said, “are talking about wanting to go to Finland, maybe as part of an exchange program.”