From: The Encyclopedia of Canada's Peoples/Estonians/Karl Aun
More than 200 Estonian organizations have been active in Canada. Only the Estonian Association in Montreal (founded in 1933) has existed uninterruptedly from the pre-war period. The Estonian Federation (Toronto, 1949) and the Estonian Central Council (Toronto, 1951) have claimed to represent Estonians in Canada, but neither has effective control over other organizations. The local Estonian Association and the Estonian Lutheran congregation are typical organizations in Estonian communities of 100 or more. In larger communities, organizations may include choirs and special-interest and social clubs. Group activities are frequent and elaborate. The only effective regional organization – Seedrioru (Cedar Valley), founded in 1955 – is a joint enterprise of the Estonian Associations of Hamilton, Kitchener, London, and St Catharines. Toronto has the largest organizations, the most frequent ethnocultural events, and the greatest range of activities. Every Canada-wide Estonian federation has its headquarters in the city.
The leaders and organizations of the 1948–55 vintage have aged, and many such organizations have failed to recruit enough younger people. Most Estonian organizations in Canada have links with pan-Canadian or other ethnic groups. Estonian Lutheran congregations, for example, belong to the Estonian Lutheran Synod in Canada, which is a branch of the Estonian Lutheran Church in Exile, headquartered in Stockholm, and to Canadian branches of the Lutheran Church in America or the Missouri Synod. Similarly, local Estonian Boy Scout troops belong to local Canadian Boy Scout organizations and to the Estonian Boy Scouts in Canada, based in Toronto. Moreover, both Lutherans and Boy Scouts pursue informal but close cooperation with their counterparts among other ethnic groups. For example, an Estonian and a Latvian congregation in Toronto jointly own St Andrew’s Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church.
Estonian organizations in Canada have strong links with complementary Estonian bodies elsewhere. Indeed, some value contact and cooperation with the same type of Estonian groups in other countries, especially in the United States, more than any relationship with organizations in Canada. These global organizations, large or small, invariably hold their conferences, seminars, and meetings in connection with the quadrennial Estonian World Festival. In the summer of 1980, for example, during the festival in Sweden, various federations held more than forty such gatherings, with each attracting participants from six or seven countries. Some federations also publish magazines, bulletins, or yearbooks. Editorial boards rotate from country to country or consist of co-editors of different nations. Among such global links, academic organizations, alumni, and student clubs have a unique place. About twenty such bodies were transplanted to the West by the refugees of World War II. All have chapters in several countries. The largest Estonian student organization (Eesti Üliõpilasteselts, Tartu), for instance, in 1980 had 726 members located in twelve chapters in six countries.
There are also less formal links among Estonian communities in different countries. Metsaülikool (University of the Forest), an annual one-week seminar held since 1967 in Ontario’s Muskoka region and run by a group of young Estonian intellectuals in Toronto, attracts students and lecturers from Canada and the United States, Europe, occasionally Australia, and, since the late 1980s, Estonia.
During the 1950s each of sixteen Estonian Associations in Canada had a choir, a folk-dance group, a Boy Scout troop, a drama club, and other activity clubs. During the 1970s, however, activities declined noticeably, especially in smaller communities. At the beginning of the 1980s most communities still ran supplementary schools and supported Boy Scout and Girl Guide troops, but communally produced plays and choral singing gave way to imported Estonian-Canadian and Estonian-American soloists. In larger communities the old choirs continued, and even new ones sporadically appeared.
Paid-up membership in Estonian voluntary associations fluctuates widely, but it has always been more stable, and larger proportionally, in smaller communities. For example, during the 1970s Toronto’s Estonian Association had between 300 and 600 members (from among approximately 9,000 local Estonians), whereas Kitchener’s remained stable at about 100 (out of 200– 250).
