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Chapter V: Finnish Cultural Contributions to the Sudbury Area
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CHAPTER V Finnish Cultural Contributions to the SudburyArea clear indicator of the "associative spirit" within the Finnish com munity was the creation of a strong subculture linked to the physical, artistic and intellectual wellbeing of the immigrant group. This subculture served as a haven against a hostile new environment, and eased the painful transition of being uprooted from the old homeland. The most notable manifestation of this creative spirit could be found in the promotion of sports, the summer festival tradition and the performing arts. While the organizational aspects of this cultural enthusiasm evolved largelywithin the framework of the Great Divide, some characteristics, such as the sauna and symbolic ethnicity, remained rooted at the personal and family level. Bol stered by the presence of halls and a highly developed infrastructure, the subculture remained durable up to World War II. After the 1960s, the orga nized sports tradition declined rapidly. With the aging of the Finnish immi grant population, the remaining elements of the cultural fabric underwent change, and attention began to be directed to new interests, such as fraternal lodges, service clubs, seniors' facilities and language retention through the heritagelanguage school movement. The latter was important as it reflected growing concerns regarding the survival of the Finnish language among the nonimmigrant population. Sports One of the most enduring traits associated with the Finns in Canada was their passion for amateur sport. According to one sports historian, "the Finnish Canadians were the best organized and most athletically gifted of the worker sports participants in Canada."1 Michael Ondaatje's sketch of the athletic exuberance of the Finnish Canadians in his novel In theSkin of a Notes to Chapter V are on pp. 296298. 221 A 222 Between a Rock and a Hard Place Lion also describes their reallife passion for the outofdoors, their endless energy and their ability to transform almost any setting into an arena of ath letic drama.2 This passion was largely a carryover from the old country. Started as gymnastics and athletic clubs for the middle and upper class in Finland, the philosophy of physical wellbeing spread to the workers' movement, which sought a commitment to a new lifestyle based on a holis tic approach towards work, education, culture and sports. By 1906 sporting groups had been formed at Thunder Bay,Toronto and Copper Cliff Inter est in longdistance running, wrestling and gymnastics among the Finns was spurred by the great success of Finnish athletes during and after the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. During the 1920s, the Finns could boast that they "ran their way onto the map of the world."3 Equally important was the support given by European bodies, such as the Workers' Sports League (7T/L) in Finland, the Workers' Olympics sponsored by the SocialistWork ers' Sports International and the Young Communist International (YCI). The first and second wave of immigrants who came to Sudbury brought with them this lifestyle concept and the satisfaction of Olympic success. After these athletic clubs began to accept nonFinnish speaking mem bers in the 1920s, the clubs, more than any other form of culturalactivity, served as an effective means of assimilating Finns into the Canadian mainstream.4 The sporting tradition was carried over by the third wave of migration in the 1950s; by then, however, the Finnish contribution to orga nized sports waned, due to the development of secondary schools, a shift of interest among the youth to North American sports, such as football, basketball and hockey, and the triumph of capitalist sport as exemplified by the rise of the National Hockey League. Athletic Clubs Finnish sporting activities began under the umbrella of the athletic clubs that were tied to the numerous halls. The majority of these halls were founded by the Finnish Organization of Canada, which proclaimed the need for a strong moral and material commitment to sports as a necessary adjunct to socialism. Later, other clubs developed that were neutral or allied with the national societies. It is important to note, however, that regardless of their political leanings, the sporting clubs maintained a high degree of administrative and "mental" independence from the two central organiza tions, FOC and COLFC. This was especially true for the FOCoriented clubs. Voima, linked at first to the Finnish National Society of Sudbury, acquired independent status in 1940. While the Sampo Athletic Club was formed in 1951 as part of the FNSS, its everyday activitieswere neverthe less run separately from...