Under The Fed Star is a feature length docu-drama about the politics and culture of the Finnish community in Canada before World War Two. Shot on Super 16 and set in the first decades of the twentieth century, with a cast that included over 200 extras and award-winning actors Jussi Nikkila and Elena Leeve from Finland, this is a different kind of immigrant story.
The film looks at Finnish radicalism in Canada prior to WWII. The backdrop for the film is the historic Finnish Labour Temple, which is the largest monument to Finnish immigration in North America. Originally a gathering place for politics, sports and entertainment, it was the birth place of social democracy in Canada, and it was once home to the Industrial Workers of the World. The events that took place in the Finnish Labour Temple in those early years and the people who organized them, helped shape Canadian politics in the twentieth century and they provide us reflection of the evolution of Canada as a country of immigrants.
Under the Red Star and Letters from Karelia
Find out more about Finnish immigration and settlement in Canada since the late 19th century. These books range in topics from historic to contemporary issues. The contributions to Canada by Finnish immigrants and their Canadian-born children are remarkable. They came in three waves and brought their politics with them. The first wave of immigrants fled poverty and Russian control over their homeland. The second fled right-wing oppression after a civil war that cost almost 40,000 lives. The third wave came after 1945 when the Finnish economy was on the ropes and when Finland was required to pay war reparations to the Soviet Union after WWII. It is therefore not surprising that the Social Democratic Party of Canada was founded in 1912 in the Finnish Labour Temple in Thunder Bay, or that during the 1920s, about 60% of the members of the Communist Party of Canada were ethnic Finns. Two of the most remarkable were Aate Pitkanen, a Canadian executed as a traitor by the Finns during WWII and the subject of Letters from Karelia, and Sanna Kanasto, a woman who dedicated her life to radicalizing men and women, and who is a main character in Under the Red Star.
Suggested Reading for Red Star and Letters from Karelia
1. Michel Beaulieu, Ronald N. Harpelle, and David Ratz, editors, Hard Work Conquers All: Building the Finnish Community in Canada, University of British Colombia Press, (2018)
2. Michel Beaulieu, Ronald Harpelle, and Jaimi Penny, editors, Labouring Finns: Transnational Politics in Finland, Canada and the United States, Turku: Institute for Migration, (Siirtolaisuusinstituutti) (2011)
3. Ronald Harpelle and Michel Beaulieu, guest editors, Developments, Definitions, and Directions in Finnish Language, Literature, and Culture, Journal of Finnish Studies, Vol. 14, No. 2, (Winter, 2010)
4. Ronald Harpelle, Varpu Lindstrom and Alexis Progorelskin editors, Karelian Exodus: Finns in North America and Karelia During the Depression Era, Journal of Finnish Studies/Aspasia Books, (2004)
See also www.lakeheadfinns.ca for a website dedicated to the history of the immigration and settlement of Finns in Canada.