Marimekko turns 75 this year. But the category it belongs to — “Scandinavian design” as North Americans understand it — was largely assembled here: by a touring exhibition that crossed more than twenty US and Canadian cities from 1954, a Cambridge shop, and eight dresses bought during the 1960 presidential campaign. The objects came from the North. The story about them was written in North America.

The legal foundation for moving European data to the United States has now collapsed twice and is being contested again — and AI has quietly turned stored personal data from a liability into fuel. A practical, non-alarmist guide to what actually reduces your exposure, which alternatives are genuinely good, and what Estonia's X-Road already figured out.

Thirty-five years ago this month, a student in Helsinki posted a note about a hobby operating system. Today Linux runs the servers, the supercomputers, the phones and the AI — and in 2026, for the first time, it is a realistic option for an ordinary laptop. A look at why now, how to try it, and why Linus Torvalds may be the most consequential Finn of the last century.

Sixty-five years after his death, Eero Saarinen's clients have mostly vanished — TWA, Bell Labs, the mid-century General Motors — and yet his buildings keep finding new lives. The critics who said the Finnish-American architect had no style were right. They were wrong about what it meant.

More than a century after a Scandinavian exhibition in Buffalo influenced the artists who would form Canada’s Group of Seven, the Buffalo AKG is building a 60-year Nordic art initiative—and preparing one of Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson’s most ambitious American exhibitions.

In Eau Claire, WI, North America’s most welcoming Nordic traditions. A new documentary follows the players, rivalries, and friendships gathered around the wooden king.

From June 17 to 21, 2026, Hancock, Michigan will host Juhannus Suurjuhlat, a five-day midsummer festival at the center of the city’s designation as the 2026 Finno-Ugric Capital of Culture. With lectures, workshops, live music, a Tori Market, sauna events, a Juhannus kokko bonfire, and a Midsummer Pole Raising Ceremony, the festival connects Finnish American heritage in the Copper Country with a wider Finno-Ugric cultural world.

From Estonian Jaanipäev bonfires to Latvian Jāņi songs, Lithuanian Joninės wreaths, Finnish Juhannus saunas, Danish Sankt Hans gatherings, Norwegian bonfires, and Swedish Midsommar maypoles, midsummer remains one of the clearest places to see Nordic and Baltic community life in motion across the United States.

Anchored in the American Swedish Historical Museum’s 2026 exhibition From Taste to Tech: 100 Years of Nordic Innovation & Impact, this feature explores how Nordic design, games, safety, food, film, and pop culture become recognizable forms of heritage for diaspora communities in North America.

For Nordic and Baltic communities in the United States and Canada, Pride Month is not only about parades in distant capitals. It is a timely invitation to ask whether the heritage halls, language schools, choirs, camps, churches, museums, and cultural centers that preserve identity are also making room for LGBTQ+ people who have always been part of them.