Sometimes in times of gratitude, we don’t know who to thank.
And this is not a cold case - an unsolved criminal investigation which remains open pending the discovery of new evidence. But it is suspicious.
As you drive along you will know these roadside features.
It is one of the 1,300 Ontario Trust plaques found on the highways/byways and the back roads. These enliven Ontario’s sense of place sharing stories of the people and events that have helped to shape the province. This one is tucked away in a 1967 Centennial Park in a northern Ontario city.
The once vibrant colour of the blue and gold trimmed plaque is badly faded. But the embossed metallic words of the past indicate an unsolved crime and an impactful event. The inscription of the place name of the incident - Onion Lake - is new.
In the Riverside Cemetery in Thunder Bay is a black and grey granite headstone.
“The graves you are looking for are side by side in Section 15 lots 741 & 742, eleventh row from the main road and 14 graves from the bottom of the section,” Jennifer Topp, the office manager said. There are two Finnish names on it, and there are some clues as to who the people buried there are. The date of death is Nov 18, 1929. I leave a visiting rock. It is a Jewish custom. There’s more to appreciate.
Then to the back roads north of the city, there’s a dead slow trip, along a speckled alder shrouded, greatly deteriorating logging road. There are questionable stops to have a look, can we make it (?). Upon arrival at Onion Lake, a widening of the south flowing Current River, the accident-crime site has been altered by humankind and Nature, but it remains timeless.
What happened
In trying to make sense of how two well-intended men went missing, research showed Rosvall and Voutilainen are well-known enough especially in two cities that became a gateway for immigrants.
“On November 18, 1929, Finnish-Canadians Viljo Rosvall and Janne Voutilainen left the Port Arthur-area 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 the public memory as martyrs to the cause of organized labour.”
There’s much more information than what the plaque says.
There was help from the Lakehead University archives, Professor Sara Janes. “Oh, for sure! We've got a really significant collection of Finnish-Canadian history, including contributions from a lot of different people and organizations.
“Rather than using the term "Onion Lake incident" I'd recommend searching by the names of Rosval or Voutilainen, as within the Finnish community their names are well known.” And off we went with some provided contacts.
Central Canada (mainly Ontario) has generally been the largest destination for Finns. Thunder Bay boasts the largest Finnish population outside of the Fennoscandia peninsula in Europe and the only Finnish cultural centre in Canada, housed in the Finnish Labour Temple along with the famous Hoito Restaurant both devastated by a December 23, 2021 fire.
The context
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.
Finnish immigration to Canada was often a direct result of economic depressions and wars or in the aftermath of major conflicts like the Finnish Civil War.
It was between the White Finland and the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic (Red Finland) during the country's transition from a grand duchy ruled by the Russian Empire to a fully independent state. The clashes took place in the context of the national, political, and social turmoil caused by World War I.
Canada was often chosen as a destination because of the similarity in climate and natural conditions, while employment in logging or homesteading attracted landless farmers in the early 20th century.
It was characteristic newly arrived Finnish immigrants to Canada quickly became involved in political organizations, churches, athletic clubs and other forms of associational life. Halls and co-operatives were often erected in communities with sizable Finnish populations such in Port Arthur and Fort William (Thunder Bay) and Sudbury.
Historian
Dr. Saku Pinta is an instructor in the Labour Studies Program at the University of Manitoba, the President of the Thunder Bay Finnish Canadian Historical Society, and a proud member of CUPE Local 3909 and the Education and Research Workers Industrial Union 620 of the IWW.
“This is an article I wrote speculating on the identity of an unknown man whose image was featured in a collage of labour martyrs – Rosvall and Voutilainen are mentioned briefly, but the more important part of this is the context of the violence of the state and vigilantes in labour disputes in North American during the first three decades of the twentieth century.”
“I think that piece can serve as a corrective for people today who find it hard to believe that such violence and murder could be associated with labour conflict, or that the justice system could be so skewed in favour of those perpetrating such acts. Such acts were all too common through the late eighteenth and early twentieth centuries.”
He provided a link to a documentary film that he helped make some years ago – “Rosvall and Voutilainen are mentioned, at around the 5-minute mark, and you might find this useful as I coached the narrator for a pretty good pronunciation of Viljo Rosvall (Veel-yo Rosvall) and Janne Voutilainen (Yan-nay Vow-tee-lie-nen).
“For me, on a personal level, the story of Rosvall and Voutilainen has in one way or another followed me throughout my life. I grew up maybe 500 metres away from the cemetery that they are buried in. My very first published piece of writing on labour politics was on the anniversary of the deaths of Rosvall and Voutilainen back in the early 2000s in a student publication in Thunder Bay called The Mill. I even played Viljo Rosvall in a movie filmed in 2011.”
But probably the most impactful personal connection for Saku happened in the early 2000s.
“I was standing on the corner of Bay and Algoma, close to the Finnish Labour Temple, with perhaps several dozen other people as part of a May Day rally. Someone tapped me on the shoulder. An elderly Finnish woman had come to find the young man with a Finnish name who had been quoted in the local paper the day before about May Day and workers' struggles.
“That person of course was me. She came to deliver a message to me. 'You told the truth,' she said. 'Don’t let the people forget how hard it was during the Depression and how we fought back.' Her life and experiences had been deeply impacted by the murders of Rosvall and Voutilainen. As she revealed to me, she was in all likelihood the last living person to have marched in their funeral procession at the tender age of six years old.”
He said many people in the Finnish community in Thunder Bay, and beyond, the case of Rosvall and Voutilainen represent a class injustice.
“The true, violent nature of the state laid bare through its protection of the capitalist interests, and the reality that the law did not apply equally to all people, especially to workers who challenge economic power and privilege.
He explained this is a story of martyrdom, two union organizers who paid the ultimate sacrifice for the cause of organized labour, an event that further served as a dark harbinger of the Great Depression of the 1930s. “
“Now, as then, it is hard to believe that the deaths of Rosvall and Voutilainen were the result of an accidental drowning. It is maybe plausible to think that one man by himself could fall through the ice and drown this way, but not two experienced woodsmen together, especially considering the shallow depth of the water that their bodies were recovered. As has been explained to me, it is likely that there was a struggle, the men were overpowered and knocked unconscious, and their bodies disposed of through a hole in the ice. Now, as then, rumours have circulated of those responsible having returned to Finland.”
But there is more to the story than that. “As an elderly Finnish woman who had been in the funeral procession of Rosvall and Voutilainen emphasized to me, the workers fought back. The workers did not lose their agency or fighting spirit. In this way, their sacrifice can be described in terms similar to the lyrics of “I dreamed I saw Joe Hill last night. From San Diego up to Maine, in every mine and mill, Where workers strike and organize, it’s there you’ll find Joe Hill.”
The Lumber Workers Industrial Union of Canada, to which Rosvall and Voutilainen belonged, would become the Lumber and Sawmill Workers Union in 1935 when it affiliated with the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners.
“Lumber & Saw”, as they were popularly known, would go on to become the largest lumber workers union in northern Ontario, leading strikes and collective actions that improved wages, hours, and working conditions for thousands of workers.”
The same fighting spirit he said was undoubtedly present when, in April 1974, 1,000 uranium miners in Elliot Lake, Ontario launched a wildcat strike over health and safety concerns, a strike that would go on to establish occupational health and safety regulations from coast to coast to coast in Canada, saving countless lives.
“It is the same fighting spirit that will be called on again in the struggles of precarious workers, temporary foreign workers, the fights against two-tiered contracts and pensions, and the many other contemporary issues facing the working class in Canada today.”
He stated, “In this way, the legacy of Rosvall and Voutilainen truly belongs to working people in Canada as a whole. As the fictionalized account of the murders in Michael Ondaatje's novel In the Skin of a Lion demonstrates, this story has already entered into the popular consciousness, becoming a part of the larger story of this country.”
Finnish community
Jorma Halonen helped found Thunder Bay Finnish Canadian Historical Society in 1974. He has been the Chair off and on for 20 years. Of the Onion Lake Incident, " I think it is still quite controversial and misinterpreted."
“With respect to significance, I am not too sure how it could be evaluated in terms of today. Nothing related to ordinary workers seems significant to people today.
“Certainly the incident is historically significant, particularly with respect to unionization of loggers. Thirty-three years before the Reesor siding incident this event may have been pivotal in uniting the loggers into one union which became the Lumber and Sawmill Workers Union.”
There were other upstart unions “competing for the support of loggers, who in Northwest Ontario were predominately Finnish.”
He said the disappearance of the two men pretty well marked the end of a failed strike, their funeral appears to have brought in IWW members to join the commemoration. And by the mid 1930’s the LWIU of Canada became the dominant loggers union.”
In terms of the history of Finnish Immigrants, it was also a significant event to those who were predominantly socialist-oriented and at that time the majority of the Finnish immigrant population.
“To a degree, the event and the 'establishments' reaction to it confirmed disenchantment of the promise of a good life in Canada. In the hopes of establishing a better world where ordinary workers were respected.”
The truck trek and walk to Onion Lake was one of those rough road excursions. There was a need to stand where these past acts transpired to feel the untruth of it all. The timber crib dam where the bodies were found near has been removed (see the archives photo).
Here is the map to retrace the doubtful puzzle pieces of what happened to Rosvall and Voutilainen.
These government-sponsored heritage plaques tell poignant stories some remain more relevant, and even more so for the future. We are grateful to the labour movement for many reasons, sometimes there were sacrifices; this is why we have weekends and holidays, and more time to explore the back roads. Thank you.
