Sisters are a girl's best friend

I know that some sisters fight cats and dogs, and some sisters are catty, mean, and jealous, and some sisters never care to see each other, but in the case of my sisters, they are more precious than diamonds. Thank god/dess for my sisters! My older sister, Katja, and I, have been each other's best friends ever since we can remember. Our sister, Della, was always "the baby" who our mom pampered and kept by her side while Katja and I went out traipsing along backroads, catching pollywogs and bees to keep in glass jars. Once, lying on the ground in our driveway, we found all sorts of interesting looking small stones. We thought, wow! these must be worth something! So we put the rocks that we found into a basket and set off door-to-door to sell them. (door-to-door salesman --and Avon ladies -- were very common in the late 50s/early 60s).

Who wouldn't want a hat-shaped rock? we wondered. Or one with small silver specks? or a white crystal band?

Well, no one did. One lady told us that she would give us a penny but to keep the rock.

I remember we walked home very puzzled, wondering why no one wanted our pretty rocks.

Well, we still find stones interesting, and haven't lost that childhood curiosity of finding the beauty in the everyday mundane world.

At some point, our sister Della outgrew being "the baby" and became part of the secret cabal of stone-selling sisters, too. Yet, I think that Katja's and my hand-holding closeness ever since whenever has a lot to do with having immigrated to Port Arthur when we were little and having to learn a new place together. Before Katja went to school, we sisters only spoke Finnish. The community around us was almost exclusively working-class Finnish immigrants, so we grew up immersed in Finnish immigrant culture.

Because she was our big sister and went to school before we did, Katja was the first authority on everything Canadian and how to do it like "Canadians" did. Della, who was born in Canada, got the benefit of 2 sisters' experiences of learning the culture of Canadians, of 2 sisters' language lessons.

a Port Arthur girlhood

My sister, Della, made this card for me from an old photo of my dad, my mother, and me. I keep it on my dresser. Today, I went to my mom's to look through old bxw photos of our early days in Canada. Of course, as usual, it was time for coffee. My mom and sister, Katja, served me the best munkki kahvit [donut with coffee]. My mom's homemade donuts are the best. I ate 3 in a row. That was my lunch. Munching on our munkkis, Katja and I reminisced about visiting our aunt, Irja, [our mom's sister] in Tampere, Finland in summer 2001. Irja took us out one morning to the river front for munkki kahvit. [but in our dialect we really say munkki kahavit as we draw out the word coffee]. If you've never had one, it should be noted that a munkki has nothing to do with a Robin's or Dunkin' or Tim Horton's doughnut. A munkki is a possu [a soft piglet of a donut!]. I was at my mom's looking for old photos to illustrate my immigrant story. Katri Saukkonen, the new Finnish intern journalist for Canadan Sanomat, interviewed me yesterday for the immigrant stories section that Anna-Kaisa Kontinaho began writing.

Here is a photo at Hillcrest Park, taken by my dad of my older sister, Katja, and me with our mom. Perhaps it is 1957. As you can see our äiti has her arm behind us to make sure we didn't fall off the edge. To this day, she has what my sisters and I call "worse case scenario" syndrome, aka Finnish mother's worrywart tendency. Wherever we went, she would be sure to shout out: älkää vain! ...which sort of translates to "do not!" but is less a directive and more a mother's worry that bad things will happen, accidents will occur, and she fears for us.

Here is a view of the parking lot at the lookout at Hillcrest Park. It must've been a Sunday, as Sunday was the day we went for a Sunday drive...and why are we so dressed up? Our dad wouldn't normally be wearing a suit on any given day, being that in those days he worked pushing logs at the waterfront at the mill in Terrace Bay. A Sunday drive was a thing that many families and folks did, shown by the many cars lined up. Getting a car was part of the American dream. Going out for a drive was part of the car culture of success. Our mother is taking the photo this time. Me and Katja are in our dad's arms. Most likely some versions of this photo was sent back to the relatives in Finland.

Here is a photo in the Sunken Gardens at Hillcrest Part, taken perhaps in 1958 because there is our baby sister, Della, on the grass with our mom holding her up. Again, we are dressed up. Again, our dad behind the lens. I am pointing something out, which, as my sister, Katja laughed aloud and said is still something I tend to do. Point things out.

This is something I have since outgrown. Storming out of the room when I get mad. This photo is from 1964; I was 8. I was mad because my mother made me wear a boy's style shirt; something Mrs. Nevala had picked up at the Sally Ann. We were living in Makela's basement apartment. My mother mentioned at our munkki kahavit that she visited Mrs. Makela in the senior's home the other day. Mrs. Makela has Alzheimer's. My mom said she seemed to stir and brighten up when my mother sang her old Finnish songs that they learned when they were children. My mother's tendency to get me things that looked like boy's stuff, shoes, shirts...hmmm...I wonder if it has had anything to do with my tendency to give orders and point things out?

My mother's hearts ease.

Great Blue

I went out for an after supper stroll to the lake front the other day with my sister, Katja, my husband, Walid, and our friend, Sue. It was a warm, calm evening. At the overpass we stopped to admire the colours of the sky and because he was so well camouflaged at first we didn't notice him standing so still.

But there he was. Out fishing for a late evening snack of crayfish.

Look closely, there's his partner. Looking lakewards at sundown, dead center of the photo.

Like a dowager.

the upcoming Three Sisters

Louhi + Ilmatar + Tree of Life

Katja and Della and I, the 3 sisters, will be writing a regular piece for the New World Finn, a Minnesotan newspaper edited by Gerry Henkel. Our column will be called ...you guessed it! "The Three Sisters." For our first article, we have decided to write a collective piece on the symbolism of the interesting jewelery that Della bought back. She gave me Louhi and Katja got Ilmatar; for herself, she chose the Tree of Life. She bought them at Sommelo, a folk music workshop she attended in and around Kuhmo, Finland this summer. She went there to learn more about lamentation singing and kantele playing. You can find her in the middle, 3rd photo down, in the lamentation photos! (many more interesting photos here).

The jewelry, which we took off of our necks and placed on a large south-facing stone in the Hope and Memory Garden, is made by Antti Nieminen of Vaskitsa. Even if you don't know Finnish, if you click through his website you can see some of the outstanding pieces he creates. His pieces draw on ancient Finno-Ugric mythology. Needless to say, his craftmanship called up all sorts of ideas for us 3 sisters.

Check the next edition of New World Finn for what we dreamt up about these 3 evocative Vaskitsa pieces that afternoon that we sat in the tranquility of the Hope and Memory Garden on the shore of the McIntyre River. A long way from the forests of Finland.

Midsummer Garden work party

The ubiquitous Urho came by during our work party on Friday to keep us entertained. We were out at the Midsummer Garden lot on Friday with a large crew, and then Saturday and Sunday to do some odds'n'ends. So the photos here are from the weekend.

We moved around some topsoil and started some flower beds. This is the beginning of a shade garden under the trees. An astilbe, two hostas and a lady fern are greening this spot up!

Paula Sullivan lent us the 2 garden gnomes she painted for her daughter, Kristina's, wedding. Kristina's wedding was a garden party, held outdoors. Paula lent the garden gnomes to us to add some colour to our garden and to draw attention to it! Katja and Elijah set them up and later, by chance, we noticed that the sign we made 'faces' the street.

I painted the name of our garden-to-be on the wall of Kivela Bakery. I took a can of paint from home that I wanted to paint one of my kitchen walls with but my daughter refused to allow me to put this colour in the kitchen. So, here is its cheery yellow, recycled. Kaija Maki painted the flowers to add some pizazz.

Two sisters from the neighbourhood tried out the garden gnomes! There's our load of topsoil behind them, waiting to get spread about the lot.

Some of the work crew on Friday included folks from the Roots to Harvest Garden. Bryan Dowkes (up in the 'saving grace' tree) is one of the coordinators of that community garden. It is amazing! I love their non-linear approach to planting! In the foreground are some of their hard-working youth crew that came to help us get started: Keenan, Jesse, Cindy and Sam.

In the center, beside Brian, is Judi Vinni. She's one of the key women of Willow Springs, and she got a lot of things moving on our Friday work party, starting some flower beds, delegating jobs, planning the beds, trimming trees...she's a Jill-of-all-jobs! Next to Judi is Fallon Poile of Anishnawbe Mushkiki, the First Nations health center in town. She is the garden coordinator for a new garden that they are making out in Dorion. She has begun the plant beds by using something called 'lasagne gardening'. Fallon also made a stone for our 'stage'.

The Willow Springs Creative Centre set up the garden stone making workshop. (on their site, check their Lazy Dames workshops). The stones we made on Friday were large square patio sized stones that we will put together to make the 'stage' area around the 'saving grace' tree. It will be a place to hold performances in the park, for musicians, for chanting...whatever strikes the fancy of folks.

Here is a close-u[ of one of the beautiful designs created for the stones. Sharon Ried's hands are in action making this particular stone for our "stage". The Willow women had bits of tiles, mosaics, glass beads, buttons and other interesting bric brac to use for design-making.

I like this photo because the bicycle and the stroller hint that our garden-to-be will be a fun neighbourhood green space!

Here's Elijah, getting to work raking up some twigs and branches.

This ring-billed gull was the overseer. It sat on the chimney of Kivela Bakery, watching the goings-on.

see you there! I will post when we have another Midsummer Garden work party.