chairman; with the quarters now presented to it, it was able to remain active even in the 1950s, still with approximately 50 members.

The Rice River athletic society also built a hall of its own, in 1910, but their building was the one purchased later by the temperance society. There was another Finnish hall in Sturgeon, later destroyed by fire, and even a private meeting room, owned by Eino Eskola.

To preserve the record of all these local activities there was also an Alango chapter of the MFAHS, started in 1947, with Matti Erkkilä as chairman. It was preceded in 1938 by a Pioneers' Day, for which a general committee had been named: Adam Kattainen, chairman, and Walter Nelimark, secretary. Other committees included historical, program and publicity groups. A brochure to commemorate the event was prepared by Andrew Aho and William Heikkinen.

Cultural efforts were also reflected in the Finnish Shrovetide celebrations, which have been previously discussed (Cf, Virginia pages.) In Alango such celebrations had been in vogue from the 1920s, and it was from here that the wider celebration presumably spread and was adopted into school programs. The Alango festivities grew to rather elaborate dimensions, including skiing and sledding events, evening programs and arts and crafts exhibits where women spun yarn on spinning wheels and wove cloth on hand looms, etc.

It is obvious that in a region so overwhelmingly Finnish their influence on community affairs was to be evident from the start. Even before the townships as such did get their start, the Finns considered mail service to be of primary importance to themselves. They did not, perhaps, expect many letters, but many of them were avid readers of newspapers and wanted to keep up with the world outside, even though they themselves lived in this isolation. The start, once more, was among neighbors to pick up the mail in turn, with the Alango mail picked up from Angora and the Wilderness Village mail from Mt. Iron. In 1912 an office set up in Wagoner, with Carl Hagglund as postmaster. Einar Wright used to bring the mail to that point from Angora until 1916, when the office was moved to John Kontio's home. At that time Henry Nelimark brought the mail a part of the way to Kontio's home, for it was not until 1919 that a normal RFD route was established.

When the township administration was established, Finns were involved in it: John Buskala, Hjalmar Hakola, John Hiltu

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