Culture

It is conventional wisdom among non-Estonians that when Estonians get together they like to sing. Historically, the tradition formed the basis of formal choir singing. Music, drama, and literature in general, and choir singing in particular, were hallmarks of the nineteenth-century national awakening. Every small community established its own choir. In the national song festivals hundreds of choirs and orchestras joined into one mighty ensemble.

The early 1950s saw between thirty and forty Estonian mixed, male and female choirs established in Canada. These choirs appeared before non-Estonian audiences as often as Estonian ones. In the 1960s many of the smaller choirs disappeared; singing became a sporadic activity, usually revived only before the main festivals. Today, viable choirs are limited to Hamilton, Montreal, Toronto, and Vancouver; although their singing has improved technically, their members are ageing.

Estonian theatre in Canada is rooted in the traditions of the home country, where amateur theatre was as popular as professional and was pursued actively even in small, rural communities. Even rehearsals emphasize community involvement, and performances – particularly amateur ones – take place at local social events. Public appreciation becomes a form of community award.

The first Estonian play in Canada was performed at the 1907 Summer Festival in Barons in southern Alberta, a community with fewer than twenty families. During the 1920s and 1930s plays were frequently put on at ethnic festivals in southern Alberta, Montreal, and Toronto. During the 1950s almost every Estonian Association had a theatre troupe that presented several plays a year. The Estonian National Theatre in Canada (founded in Toronto in 1951) put on three to six plays annually, for audiences ranging from 600 to 800. Open-air performances at Seedrioru festivals have had larger audiences, with a record of about 8,000 in 1972.

For many years, Toronto was an Estonian publishing centre. The publishing house Orto moved to the city from Sweden in 1951 with its owner. It had subscribers across the world and regularly published a book per month – originals, reprints, and translations from many languages. It had a team of critics, editors, and translators in several countries and offered annual literary prizes for creative writing. Its journals and dictionaries made it familiar to every Estonian home. Orto closed down in 1973.

The community still has a weekly, Meie Elu/Our Life (Toronto, 1950– ), and the twice-weekly Vaba Eestlane (Free Estonian; Toronto, 1952– ). Triinu (Stockholm and Toronto, 1951–97), a monthly for women, was prepared in Sweden and Canada.

Although Estonians in Medicine Valley, Alberta, built the first school in that region – the English-language “Estonian School,” as it became known – in 1909, many Estonian-language schools began in churches on Sundays. About mid-century, however, Estonian Associations founded independent Saturday schools, usually in churches or community halls, to teach language, literature, geography, and history. Toronto’s school has three levels – kindergarten (founded in 1964), elementary (1949), and secondary (1964) – and additional courses in Estonian for adults (1966), including some young parents of non-Estonian origin married to Estonians. Textbooks and other study aids for such schools have been continuously revised either in Toronto or in Sweden. Teachers have been unpaid, and administrative expenses covered mostly by the local Estonian Association or congregation, with a small fee being levied on parents. Recently, government support has been available.

Enrolments have declined since the 1960s, and the smaller schools have disappeared. Even Toronto’s school is encountering problems; graduates of the elementary program entering the secondary stream are judged ill-prepared to learn the complexities of the language. The staff now consists solely of recent immigrants with teacher training; second-generation Estonian Canadians are deemed unable to teach correct Estonian.

The 1950s saw a dramatic change in the organization of summer camps, which had been a discouraging experience for the smaller communities, with their limited resources. In 1953 the women’s section of Toronto’s Estonian Association (later the Independent Toronto Estonian Women’s Association), which operated a summer camp north of Toronto, bought land about seventy kilometres north of Toronto, near the village of Udora, subdivided part of the land, sold 150 lots for summer cottages to Estonians in Toronto, and named the campground Jõekääru (River Bend). In 1955 Estonian Associations at Hamilton, Kitchener, London, and St Catharines jointly purchased a neglected farm of about 25 hectares on the Grand River near Elora. Summer festivals at the Seedrioru campgrounds raised money for buildings and operating costs, and association members donated labour. Events at Jõekääru and Seedrioru include inter-ethnic sports and training seminars for folk-dance coaches.

Folk dancing disappeared in Estonia as a social activity long ago, but in the twentieth century interest slowly developed in folk art, including ethnic costumes, music, ancient customs, folk dancing, native architecture, and handicrafts, all fostered by civic organizations and government. Archival material spawned a modern revival of folk dance, and by the late 1930s national festivals featured mass performances, with participants from all over the country. In Canada Estonian folk dance had social, ethnic, and recreational functions. Complex Estonian dances tend to move slowly, with medleys of themes, nuances, rhythms, and movements. Hence, despite their rich content, only a few compete for attention in multi-ethnic audiences.

Since 1949, 5,000 boys and girls have participated in Estonian scouting and guiding in Canada. The community has regarded these activities as another means of cultural retention. Estonian youngsters have joined in jamborees with Estonian scouts and guides from Sweden, the United States, and other countries.

When they arrived in Canada most of the original Estonian immigrants were still active in sports – many of them as coaches or instructors. They joined YMCAs YWCAs, which promoted sports popular in Europe. The Estonian men’s volleyball team, representing Toronto’s Central YMCA, held the Canadian championship from 1953 to 1959. The women’s team represented the Montreal YWCA and was national champion in 1954 and 1955. In the 1960s Estonian-Canadian gymnasts made modern rhythmic gymnastics (MRG) a nationally recognized and promoted sport in Canada, and they are now among the top competitors in the field. Kalev of Toronto (1951), a collection of individual groups, is the only one of the numerous sports clubs started by Estonians in Canada still active. The Kalev Ski Club was the first cross-country ski club in Toronto. Younger Estonians in Canada have been active in Alpine skiing, promoted by ski clubs and by Estonians who started early ski resorts in central Ontario. In the 1994 Winter Olympics, Connor O’Brian, one of the original “crazy Canucks” and now a dual citizen, represented Estonia.

In 1960 the women gymnasts of Kalev established Kalev-Estienne. The group performed in public, primarily to Estonian audiences. In 1967 it gave over fifty performances of MRG coast to coast, and its best gymnasts performed before the Queen Mother in Toronto and the Queen in Ottawa. An increasing number of non-Estonian gymnasts joined Kalev-Estienne. Club gymnasts demonstrated MRG at the Olympic Games in Mexico City in 1968 and participated at the Gymnastrada held in 1969 at Basel, Switzerland, where the team placed among the top ten. MRG and the Musical Ride of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police were feature attractions at the Canada Day celebrations at the Osaka World’s Fair in Japan in 1970.