The Blaine County Journal News-Opinion - We've Got The County Covered

Well, first let me apologize for a big "whoops." Over time writing about St. Urho I somehow morphed in to an incorrect spelling of the made-up name of the patron saint of the Finnish vineyard workers. The correct spelling, as no alert reader ever noted, is Urho which means "brave" in Finnish. Despite that personal misspelling in print, I enjoyed the first local celebration of St. Urho's Day and thought the lunch and surrounding visiting went very well.

I first wrote about St. Urho in 2020. St. Urho was created by Finnish Americans in Minnesota back in the mid-1950's. When taunted about not having a patron saint to celebrate in March, Richard Mattson and a group of fellow Finns in Virginia, Minnesota began to create the legend of St. Urho.

With the help of a professor at Bemidji State University it took a couple of years but finally the group settled on these major elements of St. Urho's story: Urho was a rural priest in Finland; he ran the grasshoppers out of the vineyards in Finland and saved the grapes (and wine) and March 16 was set as the day to celebrate St. Urho. March 16 is significant in that it gives the Finns a one day head start over the Irish in starting their annual celebration. The holiday is not well known in Finland and not widely celebrated there.

The start of St. Urho Day in Chinook

I'm on the board of directors at the Chinook Senior Center. We were looking for something to get some excitement going around mid-week winter lunch times and I suggested a St. Urho celebration. No one knew of the famous Finn but they quickly got enthusiastic about a reason to have some fun as winter, hopefully, begins its exit.

Center cooks agreed to a modified traditional St. Urho's Day lunch. Instead of the customary fish head soup, they served fish chowder or a choice of a 'modified fish head soup'-tomato soup with Goldfish (the crackers kids like so well) providing the heads. Hard tack, another usual part of St. Urho's meal, was replaced with rye bread (thanks, cooks) and board member Lorraine Mulonet provided "grasshopper pie" for dessert, a real treat. After it was clear there would be no fish head soup on the menu, a number of curious folks signed up for the celebratory lunch.

St. Urho's meal and visit on March 16

The weather was mild and the wind less than 50 mph so I decided to walk around downtown in my St. Urho costume and share some St. Urho fun and info. Wouldn't you know it, I ran in to someone famous-Jake, at State Farm? Jake didn't say one way or the other if he knew of St. Urho but he did take time to pose with me in my St. Urho costume. Note the cardboard grasshopper impaled on pitchfork scepter St. Urho carried, a tribute to his running the dreaded pests out of Finland.

I also met briefly with the students at Funshine Preschool at Wallner Hall. One of the kids told their afternoon babysitter, "A guy in a purple dress carrying a cane and wearing a crown came to our school." The babysitter said, "After playing 20 questions I finally figured out it was St. Urho. The child finally remembered there was a grasshopper on the cane." Asking the child who St. Urho is, the babysitter got a shrug.

Back at the Center St. Urho was introduced, yelled in Finnish his standard "Grasshoppers, Go Away!" and answered a few questions about his history and saving the jobs of the vineyard workers back in Finland. With two soup choices diners could satisfy their own palates. There were a lot of comments from guests at the Center noting, "I don't usually like 'wet' cooked fish but that chowder was very good." And of course, who doesn't enjoy grasshopper pie? It was a fun event and we all learned a bit about the famous Finn. Maybe St. Urho's Day will gain traction in Chinook and become an annual event... only time will tell.