The Noah of the Plains: Tom Sukanen

·23 min·2 clips

A solitary man pulls a hand-built ship across the Saskatchewan prairie, determined to sail it to Finland.

This episode tells the story of Tom Sukkanen, a Finnish immigrant who built a ship on his Saskatchewan farm during the Great Depression to sail back to Finland. Despite personal tragedies and local ridicule, he spent years constructing the vessel, only to have his dream destroyed when he was institutionalized and the ship vandalized. His legacy lives on through films and a museum preserving his ship.

As heard by us

A stark prairie ship story that ties mechanical skill to Depression-era hardship and a return to Finland.

Tom Sukanen's story opens with a ship built on a Saskatchewan farm and meant for open water, and that image does most of the work here. It gives the episode a strange, memorable shape right away, while the account of Great Depression hardship in Saskatchewan, drought,…

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Why you'd press play

Press play for a ship built on a farm and a life pulled by home.

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