Roinila, Mika

Dr. Mika Roinila is Assistant Professor of Geography at Bethel College in Mishawaka, Indiana. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Saskatchewan. He has previously taught at the State University of New York at New Paltz, West Virginia University, James Madison University, and several Canadian universities. Specializing in the Finnish ethnicity in North America, along with interests in cultural-historical geography and popular culture, Dr. Roinila is the author of Finland-Swedes in Canada (Turku, 2000), along with many scholarly journal and popular magazine articles.

The Finnish Immigrant Experience in North America, 1880-2000: Studies in Cultural Geography

2006 0-7734-5678-3
Over twenty years of research and publication of articles dealing with the Finnish ethnic group of North America is compiled here for the first time in a collection of ten chapters dealing with various topics of interest. The chapters include reprints of articles that have appeared in refereed scholarly journals as well as popular magazines in Finland, Canada and the United States. The topics range from the Finnish immigrants of Atlantic Canada and runaway sailors, to prairie farmers, commercial fishermen of Lake Superior, the Finland-Swedish ethnolinguistic minority of Canada, the Finns of Virginia and Central Appalachia, and the popularization of the Finnish sauna in the American hospitality industry. This work complements and adds to our growing knowledge and appreciation of ethnic groups within North America.