Lakeland PBS presents Common Ground brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

Production funding of Common Ground is made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji, continuing their second century of service to the Community.

Member FDIC.

Welcome to Common Ground.

I'm Producer-Director Scott Knutson.

In the season 14 premiere, Producer-Director Randy Cadwell takes us to Sebeka where they restore their Finnish log schoolhouse.

Welcome to the dedication of the 1888 Finnish Log Schoolhouse.

District 26, Red Eye Township, it was the first school built in Red Eye Township.

It predates the school built in the City of Sebeka.

It's a legacy of our ancestors who came before us.

This is a strong Finnish and German immigrants came here and this schoolhouse built 134 years ago was built by our Finnish ancestors and it's an attribute to them because they came into a forest and carved a life out of it.

The contract was signed in December 10,1887 to build the schoolhouse.

The granddaughter of the builder, the builder being August Matilla, his granddaughter is Marlene Matilla-Stare.

Two of the Matilla boys, August, my grandfather and his brother Fred immigrated, ended up in Sebeka.

They lived together for several years and then each formed their own household.

During the time that they were living together, they had built a business making plowshares for farmers and obviously doing work with wood as well.

So, they must have done log construction which is what what would have led him to eventually make a log schoolhouse.

In 1888, they built the schoolhouse and probably in the summer of 1889 or two because then in the fall of 1889, the first classes were held in that school.

It was originally in Section 29 of Red Eye Township.

The Finnish people value education.

In fact, Finland has been the number one nation for their education system for I don't know how many years.

I heard it announced again for this year, that they're again the number one education nation.

And, all these rural schools, the Finn ones that were the instigators and busy getting the buildings up.

When the Sebeka school was built in 1889, Minnesota had a public school system for about 30 years.

The public school system was created by state law in 1858 and over the next 30 years, hundreds of schools have been built all over Minnesota, especially anywhere where there was new expansion, new settlement going on and particularly in Northwestern Minnesota, that was a really hot spot in the late 1880's for settlement.

In 1906, the schoolhouse wasn't large enough to hold anybody anymore because the farmer families were large in those days.

The children were good workers and they needed them.

After it was being used for a schoolhouse, it became the Red Eye Township hall.

I didn't even know during my growing up years that the town hall that I knew had once been a schoolhouse and I'm not even sure that we children knew that my grandfather had built it.

And in 1958, the Township Board donated it to the Finnish American Historical Society and moved it to its present site in the Sebeka City Park and it's been sitting in bad repair for many, many years.

I think it was Harlan Stare, Marlene Matilla-Stare's husband was aware of a gentleman by the name of Frank Eld and Frank is a Finnish log historian and a builder out of Idaho and he came and he said, you know, you guys have a treasure here and you might want to give it some attention.

What makes this so unique is and I travel when, I travel for 10 years every summer across the upper US and into Canada looking for Finnish buildings.

That's what I do.

I document them.

I lecture about them.

I write about them.

As I've gone around the country, it became obvious to me that there's only, to my knowledge and I've been on most places, there's only two log Finnish schoolhouses that remain in this country and this is one of them.

Not only is it important because it's done in the Finnish fashion, using the Finnish scribing and fitting of logs but it's unusual because it's a schoolhouse.

Because what happens, a schoolhouse they outgrow.

It usually, they just tear it down and build a new one.

In this case, they saved the building and when I was asked to help and consult with this, I was I was thrilled to do it because I love buildings.

I admit, I'm passionate about buildings, especially Finnish buildings and when I see this, I see the restoration, it just brings tears to my eyes.

They didn't realize how rare it was and so that just adds to its value.

What makes Finnish log construction so unique as compared to traditional log construction is when you look at these logs, this log and this log they're fitted together.

There is no chinking.

There is no caulking between those two logs because this log has been scribed to fit the profile of this log and then in the underneath of that, they concaved it, so that this log fits down on this log and it seals it and then they put moss in there and you could see that in some places inside this building, it's still there.

So, then they fit it down and then on top of that which is tough enough, they have done the double dovetail.

Now, you also know it's Finnish log construction if you see dovetails and it's a double dovetail, it means that goes this way and it goes this way, goes both directions and that again more difficult to do but the Finns always used a double dovetail if they did a dovetail.

They had other kinds of joints like a double notched corner.

They had dovetail corners with a little extra notch on them and then variations but to be able to make this log fit on this log, make these dovetails come out make it as tight as, 133 years later look how tight these things are and that's Finnish log construction.

That's why I'm so proud of it.

Yes, it's much more difficult than standard log construction where you just put big spaces between the logs and you put chinking in there to fill it up.

This is much more difficult but it lasts a whole lot longer and here's a great example of it.

Rita and Betty, the oldest members of the society have wanted for seven years to do this.

It was almost now or never.

We've had a a dream I guess that it would show how life was back in the days gone by.

It just didn't come out of thin air but it just couldn't come together and for whatever reasons this time around it came together for them.

You might think you want to start at the base and go up but if the roof is leaking it doesn't do much good to do anything.

So, we started with the roof.

When Roy Schwartz removed the shingles from the roof, he found under the roof boards older shingles.

So, as an original wood shingles and then the ones that were on there that he took off and the ones that are on there now, the hand splits are the third roof that we know of and presumably that's it.

So, then the old concrete floor was thin and it was in very bad shape.

So, well first we'll put that concrete base.

We continued then with the renovation and found that the logs had started to rot, especially the bottom ones that were adjacent to the earth.

And logs had to be either replaced or facing put on them.

With an eye toward authenticity, Frank Eld said, okay you must replace them with the kind of wood that they presently are.

Whether it was rotten, Roy cut the log out or cut the surface off and then cut an equivalent piece of new log and planked it on there.

We are removing the mortar that's in between the logs and also behind the mortar, nails to that was used to hold the mortar in and I got to remove them so I can cut into it, cut into the logs without damaging my blades.

Well, I got this one log prepped so I can start cutting on it to remove the face of it.

This becomes really dusty so I like to use a two mask.

So, what I'm going to try to do now is cut like one inch strips so I can break them all off.

Now, I'm knocking out the loose pieces here so I can get a flat surface back to rebuild from.

Sometimes I can use a drill to chip these out too.

Okay, then I usually switch over to the chainsaw to get a little smoother back on the wall there.

What I'm trying to do now is get this surface as flat as I can.

So, when a replacement timber comes on here, it's a high percentage of wood on wood.

The surface of this new timber is, it's been hatcheted with a hatchet and then I've planed it and then I've kind of rounded the upper and bottom corners to make it look more authentic like some of these older logs are, try to get it as close as to match up as possible.

I'm going to cut a little bit more out of the end to make it fit nice.

That end looks pretty good.

I'll mark this other end and cut that off square.

It all looks pretty good.

Now I'll retake it down.

I'm going to put three or four metal pins to hold that end in place.

Put a couple more in there wherever the wood is nice and firm but I'm hoping I can get one here and I will put the fourth one I think.

Now I'm going to cut them heads off to just create a sharp point to drive the plank back onto and now I got to slide it back up to my hidden pins in there and I want to make sure it lines up nice so the pins do the best they can to keep everything in place for years to come.

Looks like it's all right there.

She's nice with all the wood that I've filled in with.

Now I can go ahead and put some screws along the top and I'll probably put four or five in this one.

Now I think I'm pretty good.

I'll take some of these 15" screws and I'll screw them down through probably about three quarters of an inch.

That will hold the bottom snug to the one below it.

That one is completed and then I'll just stack another one on top and continue on.

So, we're stacking logs one on top of each other and we want to make sure that they stay vertical.

So, August Matilla, the builder drilled a hole in the log three inches deep and then drilled a hole in the log above it three inches deep and put this in there.

So this little peg that I'm holding here is like 125 years old and it was hand hewn by August Matilla.

So, it's really a treasure and it's almost a joy to hold it and realize that this was held by the builder of that log cabin.

Here's the mokim.

It comes in like an inch diameter rope and then you can peel it apart to what sizes you need and that gets packed in after everything's done and it's going to replace the old mortar that was in there because years ago they didn't use mortar, they used different mokim and stuff to pack the cracks.

The ceiling was also wood but apparently at the time it became in the township hall, the township fathers plastered the ceiling and the walls.

I can't tell you how happy I am with it, this is a really a gift to see the ceiling in such great shape.

No watermarks, no rot.

Solid board to board, A1 perfect.

And the joy of seeing when you pull that thing down that, oh my God there is a ceiling there.

For NHS we're actually volunteering to pull nails on an old historical Sebeka building.

They're doing a big renovation project on it so they asked if we would come as NHS members to pull nails.

Because that is what NHS is all about, is community service, helping others and having the leadership to get out there and do something that might not be easy but they make it fun.

I mean they're having a good time in there.

Oh my gosh, the head of the nail just broke off.

I thought I did that once too.

You know, they're so good, I'm just like guys Friday afternoon if it works with your schedules, we're going to be going to the park to take out nails and they all come back with okay yep we'll be there.

What do we need?

I'm interested to see like what kind of renovations they make and the difference will be between the original historical piece and then the new more modern piece that they try to keep this history but still make it new.

I think it's very important that they see this and realize what the Historic Society is doing and how they're trying to keep a lot of these things intact for the next generations and their kids.

The floor was wood and there was some question about, you know, is that shiplap?

Is it tongue and groove?

No one seemed to know.

Well, hundred and some years ago, there were quite a few white pine and probably some Red Pine, maybe some Jack Pine.

Jack Pine, because it's a little harder wood was used and it was common.

It still is quite common.

They have some like floater logs before they put the wood floor onto the wood floor so it would last longer.

It was kind of a combined effort.

I guess I talked with Roy when he was here.

Roy Schwartz who did the log work and he thought it should be built up too to the foundation level.

So, that the floor could run over to the logs and a trim board could be put around it, if that's what they want to do.

At least you could go over to the logs.

The way it was with the foundation sticking in and out of the logs, it just leaves a kind of an ugly gap there otherwise.

And then the windows were leaking.

The window's glass was broken.

These logs, you know, go in and out and so it's difficult, where do you set the window?

You know, it's hard to get everything level and plumb.

You can't really, so I just had to set them best I could against the logs and you can't push them tight or it'll wreck the window and you know actually break the windows.

Trying to put some different doors in.

One local resident had these five panel doors.

They're in fairly good shape.

I had to make some frames because they didn't have any frames.

Frank Eld suggested that we cap the foundation and so the capping is to keep to snow out.

We put an aging compound on it to tone down the newness and help to bind the new and the old together.

They were such an important part of their community.

They were an important meeting place in a community center.

They would hold plays in the schools and town meetings in the schools.

So, these one-room school houses had a very important functional and symbolic meaning in their community.

Could you imagine sitting in a one-room schoolhouse with a wood stove and a high ceiling and sitting there with your overshoes on and your coat on until 10 or 11 o'clock in the morning when it finally warms up and then there's no hot lunch?

So, you take your baked potatoes or whatever you put them up on top of that stove and then you have your hot lunch.

There are some very generous people in Sebeka and they have provided the bulk of the funding for this project and we did send out, I don't know, hundreds of letters and grant requests.

Providence kind of led this.

It was just chance meetings, that's what brought it all together.

Since I was born and raised in this area and my grandfather actually was instrumental in getting this park established here years ago in Sebeka.

It's kind of nice to have a share in some of the history I guess.

It's been fun and we're glad to see it done.

We would have hated to lose that historical artifact.

I think it'd be good for the town people would be interested in stopping in and looking at it and who knows what the future could bring.

What we're doing is trying to build on our past, let these kids and adults know that this is something we're saving because we need to save as much as we can of the past and build on it for the kids for the future.

It preserves our heritage, our Finnish heritage of Finnish log construction and that's important because they don't do this anymore.

That's like a stone building in Pennsylvania.

They don't build those anymore.

When they tear one down it's gone.

The same thing here.

When this is gone, if it rots and they don't do the roof.

It's rotted, it's gone.

It's not going to come back.

To preserve this, this is our heritage is really important.

I think it's remarkable that it has survived probably speaks to the value of his work and I think it's wonderful that the town has decided it should be saved.

It feels good that we saved it.

It feels good to pass it on to the next generation and tell them love it as much as we do.

Thank you for watching.

Join us again on Common Ground.

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Production funding of Common Ground was made possible in part by First National Bank Bemidji.

Continuing their second century of service to the community.

Member FDIC.

Common Ground is brought to you by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money by the vote of the people November 4, 2008.

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