Erkki Määttänen and Anna-Kaisa at Alpo's, Part II

It was on Thursday that Erkki Määttänen, Anna-Kaisa Kontinaho and I dropped in on Alpo. I had arranged with Alpo a week ago to go look at Marianna's photo albums again, but then invited Anna-Kaisa and Erkki to come along. I picked up some pulla and strawberry tarts from Harri Bakery on the way. Alpo served us instant coffee in Marianna's best china cups.

Alpo lives alone. He was born in Goreham Ware, out by Lappe and Jake Township ways. Despite never having been in Finland, Alpo speaks Finnish very well. Before we sat down at the kitchen table to have coffee, Erkki pulled out the double bass that Alpo keeps beside the sofa and tried it out. Besides being a great filmmaker, Erkki is also a very good musician. I heard him play a few years back at Gargoyles on Cumberland Street, when Ari Lahdekorpi invited him up on stage. At that time Erkki had made a road trip up here, having come to upper Michigan to film Haapalan Pojat [Haapala Brothers], a documentary he made about two 90-something brothers of Finnish descent who had never been to Finland but learned to speak Finnish at home.

Then Alpo showed Erkki a few tricks. Alpo used to play the double bass in a band. He also plays mandolin. He played the mandolin at our SuperiorFinn Midsummer Festival a few years back but now arthritis has come to visit his fingers. Alpo likes music. He has stacks of old LPs of Finnish singers and musicians; some of the LPs are piled on the sofa, some are stacked by the telephone. You can see Alpo's hi-fi behind Erkki in the photo above.

The double bass is overlaid with mother-of-pearl decorations. Erkki said he thinks it was made in Italy. Alpo said it used to be in the Ukranian Hall here in town.

Alpo's telephone is sea-foam green, a rotary dial, corded, table-top model from the 60s. Its design and colour set it apart from the old black table top phones, and it became known as the Modern Telephone. I said I'd call him Monday night about going out driving in Lappe on Tuesday morning with Anna-Kaisa and my two sisters, Della and Katja, to check out old landmarks and homesteads, such as where Alpo's family home used to be, where the old Finn Hall used to be, and visit the two cemeteries where many Finns are buried.

On the wall over the hi-fi is a portrait of Marianna, Alpo's mother, with his sister and brother. Marianna is dead now, but Alpo still lives in the house that they built in the early 50s after they moved closer to town from Goreham. The house is in Jumbo Gardens. Alpo has been a bachelor all his life. Marianna's family knew my mother's family from back in Hyyppä, Finland; so, too, our families were neighbours in Jumbo Gardens. I met Alpo by chance years ago in the weight room at the Canada Games Complex. A year or two after meeting him, he said, I think I have a photo of you in my mother's photo album. Sure enough, there was a photo of me and my sister, Katja, as toddlers and my sister, Della, as a baby in our mom's arms on Marianna's back steps. Marianna took the picture from the bottom of the stairs. Because Marianna was older than my mom (my mom is the same age as her son Alpo) and had come to Canada much earlier than her, she could give helpful advice to my mom about living in Canada.

Alpo has continued growing the flowers Marianna loved, and has inherited her green thumb. He had a plate of strawberries that he had picked that morning on the kitchen counter, and the rhubarb in his garden was wild.

Erkki Määttänen and Anna-Kaisa at Alpo's, Part 1

Erkki Määttänen in Alpo Koivuranta's living room playing a 100+ year old double bass. Alpo has some amazing flowers in bloom by his south-facing picture window.

Alpo has an eye chart on the back of his sofa so he can check his eyes each morning.

I liked the design on the metal plate covering the stove pipe vent above the kitchen stove.

Alpo, Anna-Kaisa and Erkki after coffee in the keitiö [kitchen].

Chainsaw shop on Manitou Street

Manitou is an Anishnawbe word that means Spirit Being, such as the Great Spirit, whose presence is felt everywhere, as well as a feeling that something mysterious is happening, or mystery, spirit or mysterious. Manitou is also the name of a short street in an old part of downtown Port Arthur (which joined with Fort William to make the city of Thunder Bay).

At the corner of Manitou and Court Streets is an old chainsaw shop. I remember going there with mun isä [my dad] once years ago when I was little. He went there to get some saw blades sharpened.

You can see the red insulbrick building that is the old chainsaw shop from the bottom of Manitou Street. In November it was dusted with snow. I think that's Musti's ear in the foreground.


You can still see the old sign saying Oregon Saw Chain posted on the chain link fence that surrounds the lot, which looks like it is not more than 25' across. Summer or winter that sign is still hanging in there.

But the place is abandoned and the windows are smashed.

Garbage bags line some of the windows to keep out the homeless.

The front steps are no longer sturdy.

A close up of the window reveals: OPEN FOR BUSINESS and Sorry, we're CLOSED. The shop has been closed for many years. I'll have to ask the old guys at the Hoito coffee counter who used to be the owner and when did it close. They will know.

mallards in the morning

Yesterday I went to my friend, Alpo's, with Erkki Määttänen,a Finnish filmmaker who has come to town to film Urho and other interesting goings on, and Anna-Kaisa Kontinaho, the soon-to-leave Finnish intern at Canadan Sanomat. I will post some photos soon of our visit.

Today my sister, Della, who lives in Ireland, is coming to town. I've made a cake with honey, whole wheat and brown rice flour, and Yasmin and I thought to make couscous mint salad to go with the barbeque meat.

This morning Erkki Pietilä's voice calling back to me "Are you going to the Finnfest in Duluth next week?" (of course, he said this in Finnish) startled the blue heron that had been standing silent while we were talking and wondering where the blue heron was this morning.

Alex told me the he saw the blue heron fly over Machar Avenue the other day. Where was it flying to? I wondered. Maybe the pond at the hospital.

Over the last 2 days, I have dropped off the summer issues of the New World Finn newspaper that Gerry Henkel sent my way via Erkki Määttänen (see him on the cover in the earlier link!). I left some at Renco Grocery Store (run by 2 Italian Canadian guys I worked with at the Paramount Theatre in my highschool years; lots of Finnish Canadians shop there), Harri Bakery (a Finnish-Canadian bakery in town run by Harri Kurtti, who makes great pulla, strawberry tarts and Alexanderi cookies), and handing them out to my many Finnish Canadian friends, some who I came across this morning outside the Hoito.

Amanita muscaria street art

The path to the lake shore along McVicar's Creek tunnels under Algoma St. Overnight, a street artist has painted a new image onto the wall on the underside of the bridge that spans the creek. A proposal was put forth to make this underground street-art space into a legal graffiti wall. Whether it was city-sanctioned, I don't know, but it does have a changing artscape of graffiti on it!

The image caught my eye, not only because it is large and noticeable, but also because it reminds me of the mushrooms found illustrated in the Finnish fairytale books of my childhood. It is called Amanita muscaria, and also known as fly agaric, magic mushrooms, and many other names. The Finno-Ugric peoples have long traditions of making use of the magic mushrooms. The spotted cap mirrors the lid of the Sampo, and of the kirjokansi, that is, the "magic text" of the stars in the northern sky. The Amanita muscaria is often depicted as having 7 spots, like the 7 stars of the Little Bear constellation, which holds Pohjantähti, the North Star, Polaris, the hinge of the ancients, the Nail of the North, a star central to northern peoples.

Of course, many other cultures have used the Amanita muscaria for many reasons, including shamanistic purposes. Some folks say the red and white mushroom lies behind the iconic image of Santa Claus. People learned of its magic from animals and birds who have used hallucinogenic aids since time immemorial. As a sacred plant, Amanita muscaria's use is a gift that needs to be learned, because without the wisdom of its proper use, it can kill you! So, too, alcohol. Tobacco.

The Amanita muscaria is part of the 'twilight language' between worlds, a language accessed by ritual practitioners. As I have written in my paper Alchemy of Ancestors, "The vocabulary of shamans includes bear claws, dog bones, a hornet’s nest, bird’s egg, blue heather, lakka, fly agaric mushroom, Angelica Archangelica, a cap edged in woven braids, a bird-shaped pendant, an apron, a birch burl, a cloud, a brook. These objects contain an inherent power -- väki.