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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 18, 2020)
A4 THE ASTORIAN • SATuRdAy, JANuARy 18, 2020 OPINION editor@dailyastorian.com KARI BORGEN Publisher DERRICK DePLEDGE Editor Founded in 1873 JEREMY FELDMAN Circulation Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN Production Manager CARL EARL Systems Manager WRITER’S NOTEBOOK ‘Deep River’ and the feisty Finns T he name Deep River conjures thoughts of complex mysteries drifting in eddies far below the water’s surface like monstrous old stur- geon. It makes an ideal title for a novel about a feisty contingent of Columbia River immigrants a century and more ago — particularly the Finns — notori- ous for keeping a steely grip on secrets. On Tuesday, upstairs at the Liberty Theatre, author Karl Marlan- tes will talk about and answer questions con- cerning a book many MATT years in the making: WINTERS “Deep River.” It prom- ises to be among the most popular Columbia Forum events in recent years. Not only is his book richly woven with local connections, but the author himself is from Seaside. Although the novel tinkers with geog- raphy to some extent, past and present residents of western Wahkiakum County will recognize many similarities with the actual Deep River, so named because it was deep enough to permit riverboat navigation several miles upstream to the village of the same name. The illustri- ous 97-ton Astoria-built steamer Gen- eral Washington plied the route between Deep River, Knappton and Astoria in the years when remote villages were bound together by water rather than highways. For five years in the 1990s, I lived in Pigeon Bluff, a sort of suburb of two of these near-ghost towns — Cottardi and Altoona. Quite in contrast with what some might experience as dreary iso- lation, even now these villages are in fact light and airy, opening out onto the pearly glow of the Columbia River estuary. Fine and friendly people line the great river’s lively little tributaries, which are fed by the many feet of pure COLUMBIA FORUM For more information about this and other Columbia Forum events, see facebook.com/ColumbiaForum Columbia Pacific Heritage Museum rain that fall on the Willapa Hills. Transportation required infinitely more patience back around a century ago when Finn-American midwife Aino made her way to patients and conducted other errands via the General Washington — or on foot, as on the day she is kicked out of Altoona for attempted labor orga- nizing. Anyone who gets to know Aino in the pages of “Deep River” will surely hope she is brought to life in a movie. A quick online casting search suggests per- haps Krista Kosonen to play her. Although we who live around the Columbia estuary inevitably know Finns of every political persuasion — and get used to random extra vowels and con- sonants in surnames — it is the rad- ical factions of the first decades of the 20th century who get most atten- tion from historians and Marlantes. Of course, one person’s “radical” is anoth- er’s sensible supporter of basic workers’ rights. Although I associate the Indus- trial Workers of the World, or Wobblies, much more with Centralia, “Deep River” paints a picture of extremely agitated times in Astoria and other nearby places. “If there is injustice in any industry, everyone goes on strike. Everywhere. We don’t wait for Marxist bullshit about the workers’ paradise. We don’t wait for the Republicans or the Democrats. They’re both financed by capitalists,” an activist tells the excited Aino. The Astorian Suomalainen Sosial- isti Klubi, or Finnish Socialist Club, is a focal point in fiction, as it was in real life. There were once enough Finnish lefties to merit an entire history, “Finn- ish Radicals in Astoria, Oregon 1904- 1940,” by Paul George Hummasti. Finns of every viewpoint were among the most visible of our region’s immigrant pop- ulations, which also included Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, English, Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, Yugoslavians and others. With a firm dedication to their own cultural heritage and language, the Finns have been among the most con- sistently obvious of all. As The Astori- an’s Steve Forrester wrote several years ago, between 1891 and 1951, 10 Finnish language newspapers were published in Astoria. Local historian Liisa Penner told For- rester that the socialist strain of Finnish politics remained a hot-button topic for generations. After publishing the 1995 series “The Finnish Socialists of Clatsop County,” Penner had a confrontational encounter. “A woman said to me: ‘I had two people (in my family) mentioned. I don’t want the family name listed.’ This was in 1995, and the reference was to her family in 1914.” Setting such long-simmering contro- versies aside, people with Finnish ances- try remain key ingredients in local cul- ture and color. Finnish voices — though I couldn’t imagine what they were — bubbled along with the Naselle River when I went out to report on the smelt run in 1991. Finn is an ancient linguis- tic artifact, and there was something in those inexplicable syllables that echoed the vast woodlands and self-sufficient farms of far northern Europe. It was a thrill a few years ago when a genetic test suggested I have a tiny sliver of Finnish ancestry myself — a trace of some centuries-old passion among the hardy families of the northwestern corner of the Old World. It makes me feel like brewing potions, herding reindeer, dip- ping smelt and indulging in overheated political arguments. Matt Winters is the editor and pub- lisher of the Chinook Observer. REVIEW A fascinating look at Finnish immigration he book “Deep River” by Karl pari’s own fields and homes. All family Marlantes is the fictional story members had to contribute to the labor. of a woman, Aino Koski, from Another aspect of the period, unusual her youth in Finland in the early 1900s in the rest of the world, was the fact that through a series of harrowing events to Finland recognized women’s rights quite her later years in the Pacific Northwest early. During the period as an autonomic and the life of a political activist. duchy of Russia, Finland, as a country, While the characters are fictional, gave women full voting rights in 1906. many of the events or kinds of events Aino was one who fully treasured that Marlantes describes did take place in Fin- recognition and wanted to take part in land and the Pacific Northwest. activism. The story opens with some background The story begins with the family liv- ing in relative comfort on a small tenant to the period in Finland, at the time when farm. Aino, the daughter of the family, Aino is ready to move away for fear for is tutored by someone who finds that she herself and her family. Women had to is eager to learn the radical ideas that he be very strong under those difficult cir- cumstances, and she quite clearly was believes in. When Russian military men not afraid to do what take over the house, she felt was best at the forcing the family to WE FINd time. move into the barn, It should be remem- they create an inci- MARLANTES’ BOOK dent that results in bered that in the early Aino’s father being 1900s, Finland was an FASCINATING. imprisoned. autonomic duchy of IT SHOWS WHAT As a result, the fam- Russia, after the Rus- ily can’t make pay- sians finally defeated TERRIBLE ments to the owner of Sweden in 1809 and CONdITIONS THE their rented farm and took Finland from they are forced to leave Sweden. There were NEW IMMIGRANTS and to wander from many Finns who felt place to place in pov- more comfortable HAd TO SuFFER erty. Through a series with the conditions ANd HOW HARd of bungled actions, under Russia than they Aino is taken by Rus- had been under Swe- THEy HAd TO sians and under tor- den. The country was ture gives information divided about Russian WORK TO resulting in the death rule; many opposed ESTABLISH of a fellow activist, for it and many were in which she knows she favor of it. THEMSELVES By the late 1890s, is to blame. Suffering when Russia imposed both physical and men- IN THEIR NEW tal pain, she decides to greater restrictions on COuNTRy. go to the U.S. where the Finns, the Finns her older brother, responded by call- ing for independence, which they won Ilmari, was living. at the time of the Russian Revolution in In the Deep River area in Washing- ton state, she is persuaded by her brother 1917. At the same time, Finland became to work for an old widower who has chil- immersed in a civil war caused by class dren. In time, her physical wounds heal. differences. Aino’s father, Tapio, was a “torppari,” Further events lead her to a logging camp a kind of tenant farmer. The torppari sys- in the woods, where she is hired to work tem was developed in Scandinavia sev- in the kitchen. It is here she is reminded eral centuries earlier. The farmhouses of the injustices of life. Here the men and plots of land the torpparit farmed for lived like animals while the owner and his themselves belonged to large estate own- wife lived in luxury in a big house. She is ers who charged rent and required that the outraged that the men sleep in their damp torpparit contribute to the rent by working clothes on straw on boards in a shack that on the owners’ fields for free. That often is not heated until the men leave after 10 hours of work and build a fire in the left very little time to tend to the torp- T Carol Newman Liisa Penner, left, and Leena Riker looking at some old Finnish language newspapers at the Liisa Penner Research Center and Archives at the Clatsop County Historical Society. stove. When one of the loggers is killed by a snapped cable, she asked if anyone had checked the cable. “Who looks out for your safety?” she said, knowing no one did. “If working people owned logging companies then there would be time for safety inspections.” At first attracted to socialism, then communism, she is persuaded that the Industrial Workers of the World would be the best to lend her talents to help. The other organizations only talk about change, she was told, but the Wobblies would act. On free nights off work, she travels to surrounding areas, persuad- ing one worker after another to join the movement until logging camps all around included members who had joined. Later, they acted to halt work in the woods. Owners retaliated by firing the men, hiring others to take their places, provoking incidents and arresting strikers. But, sometimes, the owners settled, agree- ing to shorter hours, more pay and better conditions. This, however, is only part of the story. The adventures of Aino’s brothers and Aksel are as offbeat as can be imagined: her brother and his spiritual Indian guide, the three friends who found a mysterious way to become wealthy and the madam who found the perfect husband for her daughter. Anyone who loves the woods and the waterways of the Northwest will love this book. Every scene Marlantes describes is beautifully done, worth reading again and again. The primitive condition of the camps as described in the book reflect the actual conditions reported by early loggers whose reminiscences were captured for the film “Steam Whistle Logging,” made by Lawrence Johnson in 1987 for the Clatsop County Historical Society. The files contain comments about the dangers of logging, the health risks due to poor facilities for sleeping and bathing, and the long hours worked. Fred Burkhard reported that at the camp at Goble, similar to many other early camps, “The men slept on hay-lined wooden shelves; everyone ‘was lousy’ and they didn’t even have a bathhouse or anything. Rain soaked their clothes and there was no place to dry them at night and they would go to bed with their wet clothes on … until the I.W.W. strike in 1919 to 1923 (when) they made the camps put in beds for the men.” Charlie Quick, another old logger, said that Joe Florey, who owned a logging out- fit in Jewell, didn’t dare go in his own camp. He killed too many of them “driven ‘em, driven ‘em.” That was “highballing,” a practice engaged at times when owners wanted to maximize profit. The result was more injuries. We find Marlantes’ book fascinating. It shows what terrible conditions the new immigrants had to suffer and how hard they had to work to establish themselves in their new country. We all had our prob- lems after arriving in the United States, but the problems of modern times were at least a little easier to handle. In each case, though, Finnish ‘Sisu’ helps. Liisa Penner is the archivist at the Clatsop County Historical Society. Leena Riker lives in Gearhart.
