By the 1920s, Canada’s Finnish immigrant communities were well structured with networks of newspapers, mutual-aid and temperance societies, congregations, social and sports clubs, and co-operatives. Universally literate Finns were active participants in political debate and strong supporters of the Canadian union and suffrage movements. In 1921, according to Census Canada, there were 21,494 people of Finnish origin living in Canada. Newly independent Finland recognized the importance of good relations with Canada and its growing Finnish immigrant population. On January 23, 1923, Akseli Rauanheimo was appointed Finnish Consul in Canada (1923–1932) and a Finnish Consulate was opened in Montréal. This coincided with the heaviest period of Finnish immigration to Canada. After the United States passed restrictive immigration legislation in 1922, the annual numbers of Finnish immigrants to Canada soared. Between 1923 and 1930 nearly 35,000 Finnish immigrants landed in Canada. Ably assisted by his wife Betty Järnefelt-Rauanheimo, Consul Rauanheimo coped with the steady stream of immigrants who sought assistance. In 1925, the office was upgraded to a Consulate General and by the end of the decade it had obtained a vice-consul and administrative staff.
Photo sourced from: http://www.eduskunta.fi/fakta/edustaja/kuvat/911340.jpg
Akseli Rauanheimo, Finnish Consul in Canada (1923–1932): Rauanheimo was an exceptional man, affectionately called the “shepherd” of the Finnish immigrants. He successfully lobbied Canadian private companies, particularly the Canadian Pacific Railroad, and the Seamen’s Mission in Finland for funds to establish a Finnish Immigrant Home and a Seamen’s Mission in Montreal.
Montrealin Suomi-Seuran huoneisto, Suomen itsenäisyyspäivänä 1936
In April 1927, the Rev. F. Pennanen arrived from Finland to take on the duties of pastor in the Seamen’s Mission. In September 1927, the Finnish Immigrant Home accepted its first registered guests. At its busiest period the 26-room home squeezed 5-6 beds per room allowing thousands of immigrants to find refuge in the temporary “home” that also served as a soup kitchen, employment office, and a place where newly arrived or itinerant immigrants could pick up their mail. The establishment of two government supported expatriate organizations in Finland in 1927 signaled yet again the desire by Finland for active contact and cultural exchange with Finnish immigrants abroad. After a difficult start, The Finland Society took over the mission of bridge building between Canada and Finland by organizing cultural tours, providing reliable and positive information about Finland, and by welcoming ex-patriots back to their homeland. For those emigrating from Finland to Canada, Rauanheimo’s informative book, Kanadan-Kirja (The Canada Book) (WSOY, 1930) was an invaluable guide. Betty Järnefelt-Rauanheimo also published a book of short stories, Vierailla Veräjillä (At Strange Gates) (WSOY, 1928). The stories portrayed real immigrant experiences and depicted the emotional cost of immigration.
Photo sourced from: http://www.antikvaari.fi/imagesproduct/ ... rja910.jpg
Akseli Rauanheimo’s book “Kanadan-Kirja” (The Canada Book) (WSOY, 1930) was an invaluable guide to Canada for would-be Finnish immigrants
Although the total number of persons leaving Finland after the war drastically declined from pre-war levels, most of them were destined for Canada, because the United States had placed a severe quota on Finnish immigrants entering that country. As a result, Canada was inundated by a second great wave of immigration from Finland that was wholly comparable to the first. Seared by memories of the recent turmoil in the Old Country, the newcomers reinforced and enlarged the splits between the "Red" and "White" factions in Canada. The intense rivalries issuing from this dichotomization of the community greatly accelerated the growth and diversification of Finnish organizational structures and activities during the inter-war period.
Once buttressed by the battle-hardened veterans of the Red Guard newly arrived from Finland, the majority of socialist Finns were propelled into the "Communist" camp. Under the leadership of A. T. Hill, the PSOC was transformed into the Finnish Socialist Section of the Workers' Party of Canada (FSS/WPC; in Finnish: Canadan Työläispuolueen Suomalainen Sosialistijärjestö) in 1922. Because "Communist" organizations were still forbidden to operate openly at that time, the Workers' Party of Canada then served as the "A" party or above-ground "mass" organization for the underground Communist Party of Canada (CPC) - code-named the "Z" party-that had been founded in Guelph, Ontario, in the previous year. The FSOC, in becoming an integral component of the Worker's Party, subjected itself to that party's discipline, policies and objectives as enunciated by the leadership of the "Z" party.
A small minority of Finnish labour radicals, who had become enthusiastic supporters of the One Big Union (OBU) and Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) during the wartime hiatus of the FSOC, refused to submit to "Communist" control. Instead, they stubbornly clove to the IWW and its "revolutionary" principles. Even after the IWW folded, that organization's
Finnish section continued to operate independently for several decades under its former name-the Canadan Teollisuusunionistinen Kannatusliitto (CTK Liitto; Support League of Canadian Industrial Unionists). In time, however, the radicalism of its adherents tended to moderate, and the locally based "socialist clubs" of the CTK Liitto gradually evolved into "social clubs."
Meanwhile, the FSS/WPC, in seeking to distance itself from rival socialist groups like the CTK Liitto, expunged the word "Socialist" from its own name in 1924. Thereafter, it officially became known as the Finnish Section of the Workers' Party of Canada (FS/WPC; in Finnish: Canadan Työläispuolueen Suomalainen Järjestö). Then, in 1924, the FS/WPC adopted a new identity as the Finnish Section of the Communist Party of Canada (FS/CPC; in Finnish: Canadan Kommunistipuolueen Suomalainen Järjestö). With the "bolshevization" of the Party in 1925, all of its foreign-language sections were dissolved. In response to this, the FS/CPC transferred its social, cultural and educational operations to the Finnish Organization of Canada (FOC; in Finnish: Canadan Suomalainen Järjestö), Inc., a corporate body that originally had been established under federal charter in 1923 to serve as the legal owner of record of the FSOC's considerable assets. However, on becoming the central cultural institution of the Finnish-Canadian working-class movement, the FOC quickly grew to include nearly a hundred locals spread across the country from Quebec to British Columbia.
Suomalaisen sosialistijärjestön urheilujuhlat. Cobalt, Ontario. 1916
Among its many social, cultural and educational undertakings, the FOC established a play rental agency, the Canadan Suomalaisten Järjestön Näytelmävarasto (FOC Play Inventory), in the mid-1920s and later sponsored play-writing contests to encourage the flowering of Finnish-Canadian theatre. In 1934, the FOC nurtured the development of the Youth Clubs of the Finnish Organization (YCFO; in Finnish: SJ Nuorisoklupit). The following year it saw to the incorporation of Vapaus Publishing Company Limited, first, for assuming responsibility for the FOC's own "in-house" publishing arm and newspaper, Vapaus, and secondly, for initiating new ventures such as the publication of Liekki (The Flame), a literary weekly. Throughout the late 1920s and the 1930s, the FOC also actively supported the involvement of its membership in the activities of such organizations as the Canadan Suomalaisten Työläisten Urheiluliitto (Finnish Canadian Workers' Sports Association) and its successors, the Workers' Co-operative of New Ontario Limited and the Lumber [and Agricultural] Workers' Industrial Union of Canada, as well as other organizations associated with the radical left in Canada.
The heavy influx of new arrivals from Finland (which ended in 1930 with the worsening of the Great Depression) also included a large contingent of former adherents of the White Guard, most of whom were absorbed into the conservative faction of the Finnish-Canadian community. The presence of these new "White" Finns sparked a revival of religious interest and activity in the community that manifested itself in the establishment of new congregations belonging to the Suomalainen Evankelis-Luterilainen Kirkko (Finnish Evangelical Lutheran Church), that is, the denomination that represented Finland's state church in Canada. The "White" newcomers also spearheaded the founding of locally based Suomalaiset Kansallisseurat (Finnish National Societies) during the late 1920s. By the early 1930s, these nationalistic societies managed to unite themselves under the umbrella of the Central Organization of the Loyal Finns in Canada (later renamed the Loyal Finns in Canada; in Finnish: Kanadan Kansallismielisten Suomalaisten Keskusliitto [originally, Keskusjärjestö], and subsequently, Lojaalien Suomalaisten Keskusliitto) as their means for combatting the influence of the "Red" FOC and securing employment exclusively for their "reliable, `White' membership" in times of severe economic depression, unemployment and radical agitation across Canada during the "Hungry Thirties."
The number of Swedish-speaking Finns in Canada also increased as the result of the great tide of inter-war immigration from Finland, particularly on the West Coast where Swedish-speakers tended to gravitate. Like many of their Finnish-speaking compatriots who arrived here at that time, these newcomers also displayed a heightened sense of Finnish nationalism. The effect of that patriotic fervour was shown in the dramatic spread into Canada from the United States of the Order of Runeberg, a Swedo-Finnish organization that soon was able to boast of thriving member lodges in Vancouver and many other parts of British Columbia. Indeed, the intensity of Finnish nationalism felt by both Finnish-speaking and Swedish-speaking "White" Finns was such that the two groups were sometimes persuaded to forget their age-old linguistic antagonisms in favour of sponsoring a variety of co-operative endeavours as a viable alternative to the attractions of the FOC, as they did, for example, with their fielding of a joint athletic club in Vancouver.
Finland's "White" government also sought to nurture the rising spirit of Finnish patriotism and conservatism sweeping through the Finnish-Canadian community during the inter-war years. Its base of operations in Canada was the consulate that it had established in Montreal during the early 1920s and upgraded to the status of consulate general in 1925. Akseli K.L. Rauanheimo, who served first as consul and then as consul general until his death in the early 1930s, became the chief instrument in achieving his government's aims. For example, he championed the establishment of the Montrealin Pyhän Mikaelin Suomalainen Luterilainen Seurakunta (St. Michael's Finnish Lutheran Congregation of Montreal) and Montrealin Suomalainen Seura (Finnish Society of Montreal). He also enlisted the aid of the Suomen Merimieslähetysseura (Finnish Seamen's Mission Society) in Helsinki, which complied by sending Pastor Frithjof J. Pennanen to Canada in 1927 with a mandate to establish and maintain a Suomalainen Siirtolaiskoti (Finnish Immigrant Home) in Montreal. Because Montreal was the major port of entry and stopover for incoming Finnish immigrants, these institutions effectively served as purveyors of official Finland's religious and political ideologies to the new arrivals who, once resuming their journeys to other parts of the country, would then propagate these views across Canada.
The political authority of the FOC was challenged from another quarter as well. A small group of social democrats led by Reinhold Pehkonen and Bruno Tenhunen broke away from the FOC and Vapaus in 1931, eventually establishing their own publishing house with its newspaper Vapaa Sana (Free Press). The leadership of that group also tried to associate itself with the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), a new Canadian political party that was based on social-democratic principles. They, especially through their control of Vapaa Sana, succeeded in establishing themselves as the primary opposition to the FOC in the community by the outbreak of World War II.
Joukkueita marssimassa juhlakulkueessa
Finnish Immigrants to Canada in the 1920’s – a couple of examples
The Olkinuora Family
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The Olkinuora family arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax November 24, 1928. On leaving the SS Polonia and seeing Pier 21, their tiny daughter began crying and sobbing, "Ei tama olle Helsinki." - "This is not Helsinki." They had made arrangements to live and work in a lumber camp. Mr. Olkinuora would work as a lumber-jack and his wife would cook for all of the men. They knew that it would be a difficult life but hopefully it would only be temporary. There would also be friends, most Finns who came to Canada from the same communities in Finland remained friends and visited in each other's homes. The family had a friend who was already working at the lumber camp so at least there was that to take comfort in.
Wilhelmina Mirja
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In 1929, Wilhelmina Mirja was eighteen years old and convinced that there was a world beyond her native Finland. She arrived at Halifax’s Pier 21 without knowing a soul but there was a small welcoming party of Finnish Haligonians to greet her. A handsome young member of the welcoming party carried her bag. Little did Wilhelmina know but her plans to board a train for Toronto were about to change. Within an hour, she had been hired to work in a Halifax bakery and her lodgings at a boarding house had been paid for a month. Three months later she would marry the handsome young man and later she herself would volunteer to welcome Finnish immigrants and to help them settle in Halifax
Next: the Great Depression....
Axetti!
