Drive along South Prospect Street in Millers Falls and you might catch a glimpse of some antlers hanging from a red garage set back from the roadway. They belonged to a female reindeer and were a gift from rural herders during a 2003 trip to Finland. But, believe it or not, they are arguably not the most Finnish thing you’ll find on the property.

Elaine Moe owns Finnique, a cottage industry she operates out of a workshop in which she produces Finnish and Scandinavian birch bark items.

“This is not something you can learn in a month or a year,” she said. “It takes decades.”

Elaine, the grandchild of Finnish immigrants, started weaving more than 40 years ago and began dabbling in birch bark basketry about 15 years ago. Birch trees are abundant in Finland and Scandinavia (Finland is a Nordic country) as well as Alaska, Canada and the northern portion of the continental United States. Some of Elaine’s creations have found convenient spots inside the small red Cape Cod-style house she shares with her husband, Paul, and the tools of her trade line the floor, tables, drawers and shelves of her craft room.

“Got to be very careful,” Paul said, joking that he has to avoid being “a bull in a bark shop.”

Elaine’s products vary in style from traditional to contemporary and include baskets, necklaces, bottles (with wooden caps carved by Paul) and baby rattles. She officially formed Finnique – a portmanteau of Finnish and unique – in March.

“It is unique, because every tree is different. Every single tree is different,” she explained, adding that some of her pieces can resemble one another but no two will be identical.

Elaine began weaving as a University of Massachusetts Amherst student and learned ash basket weaving. She eventually worked for her alma mater for many years and it wasn’t until she was about 50 that she revisited the craft, though she lacked the physical strength and energy to pound ash logs. She soon learned that master basket weaver Vladimir Yarish, who became her mentor, would visit a small studio in New Hampshire to teach birch bark basketry, the type her ancestors likely practiced.

“And I loved it. And I was like, ‘This is it,’” she recalled. “This was my thing. Like, my hands just knew. It was like coming home. This is me.”

She furthered her basketry education at the North House Folk School in Minnesota, where she studied under weaver John Zasada, and at the John C. Campbell Folk School in North Carolina. She continued to attend workshops held by Yarish around the Northeast when he visited the United States from Russia to teach every couple of years prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, and learned a great deal from Zasada.

“So, between the two of them I’ve learned about trees, I’ve learned about bark, I’ve learned about the forest, I’ve learned about how to weave this stuff. I’ve learned about, traditionally, where it comes from,” she said in her workspace.

Two summers ago she received a Finlandia Foundation national grant to study the craft in Finland and stayed with mother-and-daughter basket weavers Eeva Rutanen and Jaana Öljymäki. She also worked with another Finnish woman and her husband. Because the couple spoke no English, that woman’s Helsinki-based cousin served as an interpreter and — in a wild coincidence — turned out to be Elaine’s distant relative.

“How cool is that?” she said.

In 2017, the 100th anniversary of Finland’s independence from Russia, she was invited as a folk artist to FinnFest, a national gathering held in Minnesota, which is home to many Americans of Nordic and Scandinavian descent. About a year after that she set up as a folk art demonstrator at the Lowell Folk Festival, which attracts about 150,000 attendees annually. She has also attended FinnFunn, a Finnish heritage and cultural event held in New England.

She recently had a booth at the North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival in Orange.

“We had a great time and I hope to do it again,” Elaine said.

She has taught workshops at the Finnish Center at Saima Park in Fitchburg and taught birch bark basketry to members of the Finnish American Heritage Society in Canterbury, Connecticut, as part of the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program.

“I’ve learned from some people and some books. I’ve learned a lot on my own. I’ve done a lot of experimenting,” she said standing next to birch bark being weighed down by red bricks placed under newspaper. The bark needs to be weighed down or tied securely to prevent it from curling up.

“And when it comes off the tree it just bursts off the tree — very cool,” Elaine explained, adding that it is harvested in sheets.

She said Franklin County is too far south in the Northern Hemisphere to produce weavable bark. She used to purchase bark from Minnesota, Vermont, New Hampshire and upstate New York but it now comes directly from Finland.

Elaine also said that, contrary to what many people think, harvesting bark from live trees does not necessarily kill them.

“If you take not too much at one time, the tree has the chance to recover and regrow its bark. It takes a long time, like 10 or so years,” she said. “If you don’t know what you’re doing and you take bark off a tree, yes, you can kill it. But if you do know what you’re doing, you can harvest and it will survive. It will be OK.”

Elaine, whose maiden name was Wartiainen, mentioned she learned no birch bark weaving from her family, even though all of her grandparents were Finnish immigrants. Her maternal grandmother’s farmhouse had been used as a field hospital during the Winter War, a three-month conflict between Finland and the invading Soviet Union at the outbreak of World War II. That grandmother lived with her family when she was young and did not speak English. Elaine’s father was a dairy farmer, her mother worked an office job, and her two older sisters were in school – leaving her and her grandmother at home every day. As a result, Elaine was bilingual (and known to sing in Finnish in her sleep) until age 7.

Elaine’s maternal grandfather was an indentured servant for a landowner from the ages of 6 to 16. He eventually to moved to the United States, never returning to Finland and seldom talking about this homeland.

Elaine maintains no website or social media pages, and said she never will.

“I do this because I love it, and I want to keep it that way,” she said. “Everything I’ve done has paid for itself. I’ve been really steadfast about that. None of this is coming from a household budget. And I’ve made some money doing it.”

Elaine, who has lived in Millers Falls since November 2009, can be reached at ejsisu@msn.com.