Exchange Program Has UB Students Studying, Living At 35 Degrees Below Zero In Finland

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Let's face it -- to college students in snow-ridden Buffalo, a study-abroad program in Finland, not far from the Arctic Circle, does not conjure up visions of Utopia.

Nevertheless, three adventurous anthropology students from the University at Buffalo braved the Arctic terrain to study topics such as Scandinavian art and reindeer-herding practices as pioneers in a new exchange program with Finland's University of Oulu.

Under the advisement of Ezra Zubrow, UB professor of anthropology, Patrick T. Daly of Peekskill, Phillip A. Trella of Franklinville and Michael D. Frachetti of Syracuse -- all recent UB grads -- undertook an in-depth, on-site survey of Nordic culture, history and society. As part of their work in Finland, the then undergraduates also set up a joint geographic information system (GIS) research center involving UB and the University of Oulu.

Zubrow, who has lived in Finland, created the exchange program in collaboration with long-time friend Milton Nunez, professor of archaeology at the University of Oulu. The program is open to qualified UB students for a semester or a full year. This semester, a Finnish student is studying at UB and two UB students are in Finland as part of the program.

The first participants spent the Fall 1995 semester at the University of Oulu taking Scandinavian studies courses such as "Historical and Linguistic Survey of Scandinavia" and "Indigenous Cultures of the Polar Region." The courses, all transferable for UB credit, included excursions or field trips to Finnish Lapland, the Russian-Finnish border, Helsinki, Stockholm, the Arctic wilderness and Rovaniemi in the Arctic Circle.

Offered in the spring was the "Northern Cultures and Societies" segment covering the study of the indigenous people and culture in the world's northernmost areas. Courses included "Cultures of the Circumpolar Region," a Nordic version of women's studies, and "Northern Languages," focusing on the sociolinguistics of Finno-Ugric languages.

The three said that one of the best features of the program was the wide range of course offerings that allowed them to construct a plan of study around individual interests.

They agreed that the field excursions were the most memorable and exciting parts, especially those to Lapland, the northernmost part of Finland, where they studied the distinct culture of the Saami people. The Saami, also known as Lapps, have their own language and political system and are related in some ways to the Eskimo, or the Inuit of the North American Arctic. Each student spent a night with a Saami family in Norway as part of the excursion.

Students also visited a reindeer farm, a paper mill, a logging site and a peat quarry to study the region's contemporary economy.

One excursion required the students to climb a mountain to study snowfall patterns at high elevations and then to ski back down.

For Daly, an "awesome experience" was living for a week in a cabin with no power in the middle of the Arctic winter. The students had to cut through several feet of ice on a lake to obtain drinking water. The typical temperatures -- 35 degrees below zero --were "beyond anything that even people in Buffalo could imagine," he said.

However, Trella added: "I can honestly say that I was never as cold there as I have been in Buffalo. There is virtually no wind there, so the cold isn't nearly as noticeable."

The Finns combat the chill with the sauna -- a necessity in every household.

"Sauna to the Finns is close to a religious place," Trella said. "In historic times, women would give birth in the sauna believing it was the most ritually clean place available."

Other than weather, Buffalo and Oulu have little in common, according to the UB alums.

"The Finnish government is much more supportive of education than the United States government, " said Trella. "When Finnish anthropology students go to the field, they get a living stipend. When Americans go, they end up paying outrageous tuition to learn how to dig in the dirt."

Daly noted that housing at the University of Oulu, "is not designed to facilitate social interaction like it is in America." He said that every student has a private room and that there are no common lounges or kitchens to serve as focal points of social interaction. He said that although the Finns tend to be very reserved, they make extremely loyal friends.

"I could show up in Finland 20 years from now and, if I knocked on the door of one of my friends, they would give me a hug, pull me inside, pour me a cup of coffee, heat up the sauna and ask me where I wanted to sleep!" said Trella, now at the University of Virginia.

Frachetti noted another difference: "No reindeer walking the streets of New York" cities.

He also said that in northern Finland, the pace of life is slower. "Although the people are well-educated, their heritage drives them to embrace their culture by returning to traditional occupations such as craftsmen, reindeer herders, woodcarvers and hide tanners.

"The Saami continue a way of life that is very much the same as it was 100 years ago -- not in terms of their perception of modernity, like the Amish, but in their occupations and traditions," added Frachetti.

The difference in language did not prove to be a barrier for the students, since most Finns speak English, an important point since Finnish is notorious as one of the most difficult languages in the world to learn.

Frachetti, currently pursuing his doctorate in prehistoric archaeology at London's Cambridge University, said that if it were not for his trip to Finland, he never would have taken the step from being a student to being a researcher. " I learned how to structure large-scale projects and how to produce results from that structure. I attribute my success at Cambridge to what I learned in Finland," he said.

Frachetti said that he went to Finland simply because he had a "really good feeling" about it. "Honestly," he continued, "I had the choice to go to Japan on a scholarship, or to Finland without one. . . something told me to go to Finland."

Frachetti next summer will join Daly, now a doctoral candidate at Oxford University, on a field trip to Peru to do computer-aided reconstruction of a pre-Incan temple complex.