Further Reading

A short overview of the history of Finland is available in both English and French by Matti Klinge, A Brief History of Finland (Helsinki, 1983). A more comprehensive account is Eino Jutikkala and Kauko Pirinen, A History of Finland (New York, 1974). For an introduction to the first period of emigration, see Reino Kero, Migration from Finland to North America in the Years between the United States Civil War and the First World War (Turku, Finland, 1974); for return migration see Keijo Virtanen, Settlement and Return: Finnish Emigrants (1860–1930) in the International Overseas Return Migration Movement (Turku, Finland, 1979).

To date, there is no comprehensive history of Finnish immigrants in Canada. The Canadian Historical Association’s series on Canada’s ethnic groups published in English as well as in French Varpu Lindström’s The Finns in Canada (Ottawa, 1985). The history of Finnish immigrant women in Canada is covered in Varpu Lindström’s Defiant Sisters: A Social History of Finnish Immigrant Women in Canada, 2nd ed. (Toronto, 1992), published by the Multicultural History Society of Ontario whose occasional paper series also published her The Finnish Immigrant Community of Toronto, 1887–1913 (1979), and devoted vol.3 no.2 (1983) of its bulletin Polyphony to “Finns in Ontario.” There are also two collections that contain scholarly articles on Finns in Canada: Michael G. Karni, ed., Finnish Diaspora 1 (Toronto, 1981), and Varpu Lindström, Oiva Saarinen, and Börje Vähämäki, eds., Melting into Great Waters: Papers from Finnforum V, a special issue of the Journal of Finnish Studies, vol.1, no.3 (1997).

Finnish-Canadian political radicalism has been explored in several articles, including Edward W. Laine, “Finnish-Canadian Radicalism and Canadian Politics: The First Forty Years, 1900–1940,” and Varpu Lindström-Best, “The Socialist Party of Canada and the Finnish Connection, 1905–1911,” both in Jorgen Dahlie and Tissa Fernando, eds., Ethnicity, Power and Politics in Canada (Toronto, 1981), 94–112 and 113–22. On the same theme, see Satu Repo’s “Rosvall and Voutilainen: Two Union Men Who Never Died,” Labour/Le travailleur, no.8/9 (1981–82), 79–102, and Allen Seager’s “Migration and Proletarianization: Aspects of the Finnish Immigrant Experience in Western Canadian Coal Mining, 1880–1940,” Siirtolaisuus/Migration, no.2 (1983), 7–15. The utopian socialist community in British Columbia has been examined extensively by J. Donald Wilson in “Matti Kurikka: Finnish Canadian Intellectual,” BC Studies, no.20 (1973–74), 50–65,“The Socialist Legacy on Malcolm Island after the Collapse of the Utopian Settlement of Sointula,” Journal of Finnish Studies, vol.1, no.3 (1997), 155–64, and “A Synoptic View of Aika, Canada’s first Finnish Language Newspaper,” Amphora, no.29 (1980), 9–14. Most recently the topic was explored in Paula Wild’s Sointula: Island Utopia (Madeira Park, B.C., 1995).

J. Donald Wilson also has edited a special issue of the Lakehead University Review (1976) called “The Finnish Experience,” which is devoted to Finns in the Thunder Bay region. On radical Finnish women see Varpu Lindström, “Finnish Socialist Women in Canada, 1890– 1930,” in Linda Kealey and Joan Sangster, eds., Beyond the Vote: Canadian Women and Politics (Toronto, 1989), 196–216, and her “‘I Won’t Be a Slave!’: Finnish Domestics in Canada, 1911–1930,” in Jean Burnet, ed., Looking into My Sister’s Eyes: An Exploration in Women’s History (Toronto, 1986). The Finnish Organization of Canada has also published a shortened English version of its history by William Eklund, Builders of Canada: History of the Finnish Organization of Canada 1911–1971 (Toronto, 1987). On the press see Arja Pilli, The Finnish-Language Press in Canada, 1901–1939: A Study in the History of Ethnic Journalism (Turku, 1982), and Börje Vähämäki, “Liekki’s First Years,” Kaiku – Echo, vol.3, nos.9–12 (1993).

Several regional and geographical studies as well as some good-quality local histories exist in English. For example, see Oiva W. Saarinen, “Finns in Northeastern Ontario with Special Reference to the Sudbury Area,” Laurentian University Review, vol.15, no.1 (1982), 41–54, and his “Perspectives on Finnish Settlement in Canada,” Siirtolaisuus/Migration, no.3 (1995) 16–22; Mark Rasmussen, “Finnish Settlement in Rural Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada,” in Siirtolaisuus/Migration, no.4 (1982), 3– 15; Mika Roinila, “The Finns of Atlantic Canada,” in FUSAC 91: Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Finno-Ugric Studies Association of Canada, 75–86; and Osmo Lahti, “Early Finnish Canadian Miners in North Wellington, Nanaimo, Extension, and Ladysmith, British Columbia,” in FUSAC 88 (New York, 1984), 67–76. For local histories see Nancy Mattson Schelstraete, ed., Life in the New Finland Woods (Rocanville, Sask., 1982), A Chronicle of Finnish Settlement in Thunder Bay (Thunder Bay, Ont., 1976), and Marc Metsaranta, ed., Project Bay Street: Activities of Finnish-Canadians in Thunder Bay Before 1915 (Thunder Bay, 1989).

On Finnish-Canadian culture see Börje Vähämäki, “Cultural Values and Identity in Early Finnish Canadian Literature,” and Teppo Sintonen’s “Social Interaction and Language Retention among Canadian Finns,” in FUSAC 91, 87–94. On Finnish-Canadian newspapers, see Arja Pilli’s published dissertation, The Finnish Language Press in Canada, 1901–1939 (Turku, 1982). The Finnish workers’ sports movement has its own history in Jim Tester, ed., Sports Pioneers: A History of the Finnish-Canadian Amateur Sports Federation 1906–1986 (Sudbury, Ont., 1986). An interesting anthropological study is Charles M. Sutyla’s The Finnish Sauna in Manitoba (Ottawa, 1977). On the Finnish-Canadian school system, see Anneli Ylänkö, “The Role of Heritage Schools in Ethnic Maintenance and Development,” Journal of Finnish Studies, vol.1, no.3 (1997), 72–78.

Some recent biographical and literary texts include Nelma Sillanpää, Under the Northern Lights: My Memories of Life in the Finnish Community of Northern Ontario (Ottawa, 1994), edited by Edward W. Laine, which has a good description of life in Northern Ontario. Similarly, Aili Grönlund Schneider, The Finnish Baker’s Daughters (Toronto, 1986), is a semi-biographical account of Finnish family life in Timmins, Ontario.

There are many important unpublished scholarly theses in both English and Finnish. As well, scholarly works on Finnish immigration published in Finnish is extensive. Of these, Jouni Korkiasaari’s Suomalaiset maailmalla (Turku, 1989) deserves mention, in particular for its excellent statistical information on Finnish emigration.

Both Finnish and Canadian archives have extensive collections on Finnish Canadians. For the National Archives of Canada collections, see: Edward W. Laine, Archival Sources for the Study of Finnish Canadians (Ottawa, 1989), and his detailed guide On the Archival Heritage of the Finnish Canadian Working-Class Movement (Turku, 1987). Also of importance are the Finnish collections described in Gabriele Scardellato, ed., A Guide to the Collections of the Multicultural History Society of Ontario (Toronto, 1992), 114–52.

The Archives of Ontario in Toronto has the extensive Finnish Canadian Historical Society Collection, and the Thunder Bay Finnish Canadian Historical Society collections are in the Lakehead University Archives. Both are rich sources of information complete with finding aids. In Finland, the Migration Institute and the University of Turku Archives, both in Turku, Finland, have private collections, government documents, and valuable statistical information. The University of Helsinki Library has the most complete collection of Finnish Canadian newspapers.