This new work by Eldon Oja continues the story of his family after settling in Fort
William. It combines personal reminiscing with local history writing, and
genealogical research covering the entire Finnish population in the target area. In
this sense, it follows the tradition started by Salomon Ilmonen a hundred years
ago in his books on the history of Finnish Americans, however, not only as an
objective historian but also as one who lived in the community and observed the
changes.

Fort William had the smaller Finnish population of the twin cities of Fort William
and Port Arthur (now Thunder Bay), and as a Finnish community more compact
than that of neighboring Port Arthur. Finns shared their core area with other
immigrant groups – Italians, Slovaks, Poles and Ukrainians sometimes living on
different streets and sometimes on different sides of the same street. They all had
their cultures and institutions. Finns had their saunas, churches, meeting halls,
restaurants, shops and other businesses. The author describes this history and the
developments over the first half of the 20th century, and the gradual dilution of
the Finnish community. Today it has almost vanished from the minds of living
descendants of the Finns.

The appendix of the book provides a comprehensive list of Finnish families that
lived in Fort William. It builds on genealogical research and combines various local
history sources to show where they lived and when, who they married, identifies
some larger family groups that may have lived elsewhere in Canada, and connects
the immigrants to their ancestral roots in Finland. This is made possible by the
community of Finnish and Canadian genealogists that continues to build on
the World Family Tree in geni.com . Most of the family information is documented
in the geni project – Fort William Finns.

The book can be downloaded here.