Viljo Rosvall and Janne Voutilainen were two Finnish-Canadian

Finnish-Canadian

Finnish Canadians are Canadians of Finnish ancestry. According to the 2001 census number over 114,000 Canadians claim Finnish ancestry. Finns started coming to Canada in the early 1880s, and in much larger numbers in the early 20th century and well into the mid-20th century...

 unionists from Thunder Bay

Thunder Bay

-In Canada:Thunder Bay is the name of three places in the province of Ontario, Canada along Lake Superior:*Thunder Bay District, Ontario, a district in Northwestern Ontario*Thunder Bay, a city in Thunder Bay District*Thunder Bay, Unorganized, Ontario...

, Ontario

Ontario

Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....

 and members of the Lumber Workers Industrial Union of Canada

Lumber Workers Industrial Union of Canada

The Lumber Workers Industrial Union of Canada was a trade union of lumberjacks in Canada. LWIUC was founded in Sault Ste. Marie 1924 by Finnish communists, who were disatisfied with the Lumber Workers Industrial Union of the Industrial Workers of the World and the OBU. The two founding national...

 who mysteriously disappeared on November 18, 1929. The two were on their way to a bushcamp near Onion Lake to recruit sympathetic bushworkers for a large strike which was gaining momentum west of Thunder Bay in Shabaqua

Shabaqua, Ontario

Shabaqua, also known as Shabaqua Corner, is a community in the Canadian province of Ontario, located in the Thunder Bay District 56 kilometres west of Thunder Bay. The community is located at the junction of Highway 17 and the westernmost leg of Highway 11....

 and Shebandowan

Shebandowan, Ontario

Shebandowan is an unincorporated community in the Canadian province of Ontario, located on Highway 11 in the Thunder Bay District.The community is administered by a local services board, and is counted as part of Thunder Bay, Unorganized in Canadian census data....

.

Discovery of the bodies and funeral

The bodies of Rosvall and Voutilainen were found by a union search party, which included Aate Pitkanen, at Onion Lake the following spring. The men's funeral on April 28, 1930 was the largest ever held in Thunder Bay. Adding to the legendary status of the event, a solar eclipse

Solar eclipse

As seen from the Earth, a solar eclipse occurs when the Moon passes between the Sun and the Earth, and the Moon fully or partially blocks the Sun as viewed from a location on Earth. This can happen only during a new moon, when the Sun and the Moon are in conjunction as seen from Earth. At least...

 darkened the sky as the funeral procession marched to Riverside Cemetery. The funeral events were regarded as the symbolic beginning of the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

 for local residents.

Cause of death

The official cause of death was ruled to be accidental drownings, however, the Finnish community in Thunder Bay suspected that the two were murdered by thugs employed by the bushcamp boss. Evidence that the two men had struggled before their deaths as well as the questionable matter that two experienced bushworkers had drowned in shallow water added to the feeling that foul play was involved. Furthermore, some community members claimed that they had gained knowledge that the hired thugs were in Finland, where they had been shipped after the murder.

Legacy

The case of Rosvall and Voutilainen continues to be controversial. An Ontario Historical Plaque was erected by the province to commemorate Rosvall and Voutilainen's role in Ontario's heritage. The plaque was erected in the memory of the two men in Centennial Park, just outside of the city, and approximately 20 kilometres from where the bodies were found. It is said that the plaque was erected outside of the city because it still aroused such strong feelings. The original site for the plaque was to be in front of the Lakehead Labour Centre. The plaque reads

On November 18, 1929, Finnish-Canadians Viljo Rosvall and Janne Voutilainen left the Port Arthur area for Onion Lake, 20 kilometres upstream from here to recruit bushworkers for a strike. Their bodies were found at Onion Lake the following spring. Local unionists and many Finnish-Canadians suspected foul play, but coroner's juries ruled the deaths accidental drownings. The two men's funeral on April 28, 1930, is remembered as the largest ever held in Port Arthur. As thousands of mourners marched to Riverside Cemetery, an eclipse of the sun darkened the sky. The mystery surrounding the deaths of Rosvall and Voutilainen endures, sustaining them in public memory as martyrs to the cause of organized labour.

As an event that has seeped into more mainstream Canadian consciousness, the case of Rosvall and Voutilainen has aroused interest from academics, unionists, and authors. For instance, Michael Ondaatje

Michael Ondaatje

Philip Michael Ondaatje , OC, is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian novelist and poet of Burgher origin. He is perhaps best known for his Booker Prize-winning novel, The English Patient, which was adapted into an Academy-Award-winning film.-Life and work:...

's 1987 novel In the Skin of a Lion

In the Skin of a Lion

In the Skin of a Lion is a novel by Canadian/Sri Lankan writer Michael Ondaatje. It was first published in 1987 by McClelland and Stewart. The novel fictionalises the lives of the immigrants whose contributions to building Toronto in the early 1900s never became part of the city's official history...

gives a fictionalized account of the murder of Rosvall and Voutilainen.

Continuing controversy

Historian Peter Raffo has carefully analyzed the oral and written evidence, and concluded, "According to the contemporary historical record, the likelihood is that Rosvall and Voutilainen were not murdered. The oral record - the myth - does not stand up well to close examination. Practically none of its details are sustained by the facts of the case... Not martyrs so much as tragic and brave victims."

Raffo's analysis, however, might be criticized from at least two different angles: firstly, the reliability of Raffo's access and interpretation of the oral record as a non-Finnish speaking academic; and secondly, as an interpretation based almost entirely on the "oral record" for evidence, largely neglecting other important elements in the case of Rosvall and Voutilainen.

Satu Repo, for instance, observes in her article "Rosvall and Voutilainen: Two Union Men Who Never Died" that

The advances made by [social historians such as] E.P. Thompson in expanding historical writing about the working class to include the experienced, "lived" quality of history, the way the past felt to the contemporaries, are not easy to apply to Canadian working-class history. There are several reasons for this. Not only is it hard to find records from which to construct the subjective side of working-class lives, (this is presumably the case everywhere), but these
records, even when they do exist, speak in the numerous languages of our ethnically fragmented population. The precondition to access to some of them requires a kind of double identity, an ability to be on intimate terms with some "other" Canadian experience, and at the same time the capability of communicating that experience to the mainstream culture. An additional problem, of course, is the highly selective nature of any such records. For obviously it is not some homogeneous working class, but certain self-
conscious and articulate minorities who are likely to leave a record of any kind.

Repo thus raises the question of how accurate Raffo's analysis could be, given that Raffo lacked direct access to Finnish-language sources. It could be charged further that Raffo's article is an inappropriate attempt to use a highly emotional and controversial event in Thunder Bay labour history as merely a case study in oral history.

As for the second criticism, the reliance on oral history does not address many of the facts of the case. Voutilainen was a trapper who had maintained trap lines in the Onion Lake area for several years, and thus, intimately familiar with the area. How could an experienced trapper with an intimate knowledge of the local environment fall through ice and drown in (at most) three and a half feet of water? The testimony of the official coroner, Dr. Crozier, also raises doubts. Not only was his testimony highly agitated and hostile, but Crozier also belonged to an anti-union "citizens' group" formed around the time of the Winnipeg General Strike. Other inconsistencies include contradictory statements from the camp boss, Maki, and evidence of injuries on the bodies suggesting a struggle before their drowning. That violent methods were used by employers, the authorities, and/or vigilantes to disrupt or discourage union activity around this time in North America is not unusual. Numerous instances such as the lynching of Frank Little, the case of Sacco and Vanzetti

Sacco and Vanzetti

Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were anarchists who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts, United States...

, the Everett Massacre

Everett massacre

The Everett Massacre was an armed confrontation between local authorities and members of the Industrial Workers of the World union, commonly called "Wobblies". It took place in Everett, Washington on Sunday, November 5, 1916...

, or the Estevan Riot

Estevan Riot

The Estevan Riot, also known as the Black Tuesday Riot, was a confrontation between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and striking coal miners from nearby Bienfait, Saskatchewan which took place in Estevan, Saskatchewan on September 29, 1931. The miners had been on strike since September 7, 1931...

, to name only a few, clearly show that violent and brutal means were common place in class conflict.

External links

• Ontario Plaques - Rosvall and Voutilainen
• http://www.stonesofrebellion.ca/rosvall_and_voutilainen_text.html Stones of Rebellion] article about Rosvall and Voutilainen.