[[Tenebrous Dragon|Home]] / [[Τα ταξίδια|Travel]] / [[2025-10 Finland MN|2025 Finland, MN]] # 2025 Finland, MN > [!trip] > ![[2025-10 Finland MN cover.jpg]] > - **When** Sunday 5 to Thursday 9 October 2025 > - **Where** [[Φινλάντ, MN|Finland]], [[Μινεσότα|Minnesota]] > - **Why** My birthday > - **How** Driving [[Bolty]], my [[Chevrolet Bolt|Chevy Bolt]], with charging stops in Duluth and Pine City both ways > - **Stayed** A cabin near Finland, booked through Airbnb > - **With** My spouse > - **Carried** Probably the [[Kanken loadout|Kanken]] %% Specific and sensitive trip details available in [[Trip reference numbers#Finland 2025]] %% A birthday trip to a secluded cabin in the North Woods. October in Minnesota, which meant peak fall color, frost overnight, and no one else around. That was the point. Or rather, it was supposed to be. It was already very cold, and that made my time there less pleasant than it could have been. Seasonal affective hit earlier than I expected. The nearest weather station, about 4 km away at Wolf Ridge, recorded a high of 24°C on the 5th and 12 to 15°C after that, with mornings falling from 4°C on the 6th to -0.6°C on the 8th and -1.1°C on the 9th.[^fin-weather] It still felt much colder than that. ## Days ### Sunday 5 October **Drive up** We left in the morning and got there in the early afternoon. It took about five to six hours, including the charging stops. The host's directions warned about a gate and a damaged bridge, but there was no gate and the bridge was mostly repaired. We had brought a bunch of groceries from home, and some wine. ### Monday 6 October **Staying local** We stayed local and walked around a lot, and napped a lot, to be honest. I also played a lot of Greek music on [[Apple Music]] while we were at the cabin. Finland is small, with 215 residents at the 2020 census and a start as a Finnish settlement, and its co-op opened in 1913 and is still Minnesota's longest continuously operating store.[^fin-finland] We tried to supplement the groceries from the [[Finland co-op|Finland Co-op]] and a supermarket in Silver Bay, the biggest town in the area at few residents,[^fin-silverbay] but they are your typical rural stores. ### Tuesday 7 October **Sugarloaf Cove, then dinner** It was my birthday. We went to [[Sugarloaf Cove]] in the afternoon, a nature center on Lake Superior about 117 km northeast of Duluth with a cobblestone beach and 1.1 billion year old lava flows,[^fin-sugarloaf] and then we made a delicious dinner of κοτόπουλο με πατάτες and had μπακλαβάς. ### Wednesday 8 October **More of the same** We stayed local again, with more walks and more naps. ### Thursday 9 October **Home** We checked out and drove home, charging at the same two stops. I did not make it to aikido that evening. ## Where I stayed > [!stay] A cabin near Finland > The cabin was nice and quiet, with a gas stove, a full kitchen and an infrared sauna. I tried the sauna a few times, and I think it overheated every time. The water is from a well, so you conserve it, and there is no dumpster, so garbage goes to the Finland Co-op. They do not provide bedding or towels. > > I would stay again. ## Lessons > [!lessons] > 1. **Turn around occasionally** > Make sure your spouse is still behind you and has not stopped to photograph something five metres back without mentioning it. > 2. **October is the start of SAD season for me** > It did not help this trip at all, so next time I should pick another time of year, or be better prepared. > 3. **Visit Sugarloaf Cove and make a picnic of it** > Sunbathing on the rocks is underrated. > 4. **Give yourself time to sit by the Baptism River** > The Baptism River babbling in the background is genuinely nice, so just sit and listen. > 5. **Rent a vehicle next time** > The lack of EV charging on the North Shore is a real problem. > 6. **Plan better** > We didn't, and it still worked out, but it could have been more. [^fin-weather]: Iowa Environmental Mesonet, [daily COOP observations](https://mesonet.agron.iastate.edu/request/daily.php) for Wolf Ridge Environmental Learning Center (WLFM5), about 4 km from Finland, 5 to 10 October 2025, converted from °F. Illgen City 2 N (ILGM5), about 8 km away, agrees within a few degrees, and the Silver Bay station reported nothing for those days. The site lists each reading under the morning it was taken, so the highs are for the afternoon before the listed date and the lows are for the morning of it, which I confirmed by checking them against modelled data. [^fin-finland]: Wikipedia, [Finland, Minnesota](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finland,_Minnesota). [^fin-silverbay]: Wikipedia, [Silver Bay, Minnesota](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_Bay,_Minnesota). [^fin-sugarloaf]: Sugarloaf, The North Shore Stewardship Association, [About Sugarloaf](https://sugarloafnorthshore.org/about-sugarloaf/). The 73 miles northeast of Duluth on the page is converted to kilometres here.