Very Finnish Problems Episode 4: When your winter stroll is ruined by an arriving icebreaker

Finnish president Urho Kekkonen went fishing in some unusual places. Author Joel Willans is joined by maritime historian Aaro Sahari to discuss icebreaker ships and their impact on Finnish 20th century industrialisation. Aaro explains how conquering nature with year-round open waterways affected Finnish national pride.

Contact: veryfinnishproblems@inktank.fi

Produced by Thomas Nybergh / Ink Tank Media

Shownotes

• Old footage with fearless strolling next to speeding icebreaker
• Aaro’s academic record
• Sahari & Matala: Small nation, big ships winter navigation and technological nationalism in a peripheral country, 1878–1978 (paywall)
• Aaro’s popularised article on icebreakers (in Finnish)
• Finnish Funding Agency TEKES makes video campaign with self-mutilating daredevils group Dudesons

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