Forest Finns

Forest Finns (Finnish: metsäsuomalaiset, Norwegian bokmål: skogfinner, Norwegian nynorsk: skogfinnar, Swedish: skogsfinnar) were Finnish migrants from Savonia and Northern Tavastia in Finland who settled in forest areas of Sweden proper and Norway during the late 16th and early-to-mid-17th centuries, and traditionally pursued slash-and-burn agriculture, a method used for turning forests into farmlands. By the late 18th century, the Forest Finns had become largely assimilated into the Swedish and Norwegian cultures, and their language, a variety of Savonian Finnish (Värmland Savonian dialect), is today extinct, although it survived among a tiny minority until the 20th century. Descendants of the Forest Finns still live in Sweden and Norway.