A lack of funding and sponsors has caused the cancellation of a high-profile cultural event for the Sault’s Finnish community.
Shirley Mantyla, a local board member of the Finnish Canadian Cultural Federation, said the 2017 Finn Fest has been cancelled.
“We had a really excellent core group — a fantastic group of volunteers — planning it. The wind blew out of our sails and we officially told the Finnish Canadian Cultural Federation we couldn’t host it,” said Mantyla.
”We couldn’t get enough funds up front to host it, so it was best to cancel,” she said.
The cancellation is especially disappointing, said Mantyla, because 2017 is both Canada’s 150th birthday, as well as Finland’s 100th.
“It would have been awesome,” she said.
Finn Fest is held annually, cycling between communities with higher-than-usual Finnish population, like Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay and Vancouver.
The city last hosted the festival in 2010, in partnership with Sault Ste. Marie, Mich.
The 2010 event featured a gala dinner, dances, a film festival, as well as a Finnish reggae act and a wife-carrying competition.
Aside from a lack of funding, Mantyla said the core group of attendees and volunteers are aging.
“Most of the community is now located at the Ontario Finnish Resthome. They were the immigrants who came over in the 1950s, my parents did as well,” she said.
The challenge, she said, is keeping the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren interested in the Finnish traditions.
“We are just tossing ideas on how we can maintain people’s culture in the community,” said Mantyla.
Tourism Sault Ste. Marie committed funds toward the event, said Mantyla, but the organizers didn’t have the same luck with other potential funders.
“We applied for grants. Ontario Lottery Corporation turned us down, the Finnish government turned us down,” said Mantyla.
Costs like insurance, sound equipment and rentals add up, said Mantyla.
She hopes to find another way to mark Finland’s 100th anniversary within the community, potentially during this year’s Passport to Unity event.