We Wanted to Save Something While There Was Still Something Left: Restoration and Cultural Maintenance at the Oulu Cultural and Heritage Center

As you drive north on Wisconsin’s Highway 53, there is a point where you start to feel like you’re finally getting “Up North” as the fields give way to birch and aspen, jack pine and fir. Most of Wisconsin is known for its farmland, but northern Wisconsin is known for its forests. Despite this long-standing reputation, it was the promise of farming that enticed many immigrants to move up north to clear the stump-riddled land left behind by the commercial logging of the late nineteenth century. These settlers formed close-knit communities, and small-scale yeoman farming—a style of farming in