#149 MY GRANDMA SUOMELA'S VOYAGES
Two Journeys, One Harbour: A Family's Return to Canada
Halifax, 1905 and 1933
There are places in the world where history and family memory meet. For my family, one of those places is Halifax Harbour. Twice, separated by twenty-eight years, three generations of women in my maternal family arrived in Halifax after crossing the Atlantic Ocean. Both journeys represented turning points in their lives. Both were undertaken by mothers concerned for the future of their daughter. Yet the emotions accompanying those two arrivals could hardly have been more different.
In 1905, Mimi Hendrikson immigrated to North America filled with hope for a future she could scarcely imagine. In 1933, another mother returned grateful to have escaped a future she wished she could forget. At the centre of both stories was one remarkably special woman — my grandmother, Carrie.
1905 — A Mother's Hope
Mimi (aged 27) and Carrie’s 1905 arrival in Canada was through Halifax's earlier immigration facility at Pier 2
.
The immigration process was undoubtedly bewildering, with the inspections and paperwork and then figuring their rail transport west. Mimi spoke no English and had $10. (But a family could cross Canada for $7; they just had to provide their own bedding and food.) Mimi intended to join her husband in North Dakota where he had gone two years earlier to find work.
In 1905, little Carrie (aged 2½) was too young to
appreciate the significance of her arrival in Halifax. She could not have
understood that her mother had crossed an ocean in the hope of giving her a
better future. Nor could either of them have imagined that twenty-eight years
later, Carrie would return to this same harbour, this time as a mother herself,
carrying memories of an entirely different kind.
1933 — A Mother's Desperate Relief
In 1933, my grandmother Carrie, her husband Väino Suomela, and their ten year-old daughter — my mother — were returning to Canada after six miserable months in Soviet Karelia.
They had gone to Russia believing in the promises of a socialist paradise. Like many North American Finns during the Great Depression, they had been persuaded that Soviet Karelia offered employment, security, equality, and the opportunity to build a better society. Instead, they encountered a harsh and frightening reality.
The promised paradise in Karelia was an illusion. Initially the family lived in an army barrack, a room with rows of beds, no running water, no indoor plumbing, no central heating, and an abundance of roaches and bedbugs. Later they were given one room in a half-completed building. Ironically, in the midst of the rich forests of Karelia, there was a shortage of firewood so at night, Carrie would sneak out to steal some of the building's fences to burn for heat. Food--black bread, tea, flour, meat, fish--was rationed; fruits, vegetables and coffee (the Finnish beloved beverage!) were almost impossible to obtain. To supplement their rations, Vaino and Carrie sometimes took gold or silver items to a bartering store to trade for rare items like oranges, milk or eggs. Vaino said that during his six months in Russia, he had no meat, fish or potatoes and the black bread made him sick. He lost forty pounds and Carrie lost twenty-five pounds. My mother stayed inside and did not attend school. Vaino was able to somehow talk his way out of questioning by the soviet police who twice came to his home. Vaino was assigned to work as a garage mechanic and was paid 300 rubles a month when that amount would buy $5.25 worth of goods. Their experiences left them disillusioned, frightened, and desperate to escape.
After six bleak months, they managed to leave the Soviet Union. Unlike many who had travelled to the Soviet Union, Vaino and Carrie did not surrender their passports on arrival; this ultimately allowed them to leave. My mother smuggled a wad of money and a small revolver under her belt; she was a little girl so it was hoped she would not be checked. The family went to Finland where new Finnish passports were issued on October 9, 1933. From Sweden, they boarded the Swedish American S.S. Drottningholm for the journey across the Atlantic to Halifax.
For Carrie, this crossing must have stirred memories of her first voyage in 1905. But this time, there was no excitement about an unknown land of opportunity. She knew Canada. She had grown up there. It was home. And now, more than anything, she wanted to get her daughter safely back to it.
1933 The Voyage Home
The Drottningholm
The Drottningholm was an impressive ocean liner with a remarkable history. The Suomelas travelled tourist class, but by 1933, Third Class accommodation on transatlantic liners had improved enormously. The ship offered comfortable cabins, proper dining rooms, fresh meals, lounges, libraries, and spacious decks. There were even concerts and opportunities for recreation.
After the deprivation and misery of Karelia, such ordinary comforts must have seemed extraordinary. I imagine Carrie’s feelings at sitting down to a meal prepared for her family, with fresh food and enough to eat. Or to sleep in a clean bed without the immediate hardships they had so recently endured. For my ten-year-old mother, the voyage may even have offered moments of excitement and pleasure. She was one of the few children on board and kids enjoyed the ship’s freedom.
According to the family biography, discussions among returning Finnish migrants aboard the ship could become heated. Some wanted to forget Karelia, others remained sympathetic to the Soviet cause, while still others believed the truth about their experiences needed to be told. For Väinö, the experience would never be something he could simply put behind him.
It was a very different Halifax from the bustling immigration port of the 1920s. The Great Depression had reduced immigration to a fraction of its former levels. In some years, more people were leaving Canada than arriving. But for the Suomelas, the quietness of the pier would hardly have mattered. They were back in Canada. Almost. But before they could truly feel safe, they still had to pass through immigration.
Pier 21 was a large, imposing building, opened only five years earlier. Passengers entering the large immigration hall encountered officials, medical inspections, document checks, and an atmosphere that could be intimidating even under ordinary circumstances. Families, women, and single men were directed into separate processing groups. Luggage was placed in wire enclosures while passengers underwent examination. For people who had just escaped Soviet Karelia, the sight of guards, official questioning, and wire cages must have been particularly unsettling. Had they escaped one frightening system only to face detention in another? Their fears were not entirely unfounded as returning Finnish Canadians who admitted having lived in the Soviet Union faced serious difficulties with immigration authorities; Canadian authorities viewed communism with deep suspicion, fearing that its revolutionary ideology threatened Canada’s democratic institutions, capitalist economy and established social order. Immigration officials regarded known communists as potential political agitators so could exclude or deport individuals associated with such organizations. Fortunately, the Suomela’s passports, issued in Finland, apparently gave Canadian officials the impression that the family had simply been visiting relatives there. Their papers were accepted.
Once their immigration documents had been checked and their luggage cleared by Customs, they could proceed down the ramp toward the railway facilities adjoining Pier 21. Perhaps they stopped for something to eat. Perhaps they purchased food for the train journey to Toronto.
According to the ship's passenger manifest, the family had just $200 in cash. It was not a fortune, especially during the Depression. But they had something far more valuable-- their freedom. Who knows precisely what they said or did in those final moments at the Pier, but I can well imagine my grandma Carrie taking her daughter's hand, or exchanging a look with Väinö, as they realized that the ordeal was finally over. They had made it home.
The Burden They Carried
Home
Yet returning to Canada
did not mean leaving Karelia entirely behind. For many Finnish Canadians who
had gone to the Soviet Union, coming home brought unexpected difficulties. Some
members of their communities regarded the returnees as failures or traitors to
the socialist cause. Others simply refused to believe their accounts of the
terrible conditions they had encountered.
In 1935, he published a 64-page Finnish-language account entitled Kuusi kuukautta Karjalassa: Mitä siirtolainen näki ja koki Neuvosto-Karjalassa — Six Months in Karelia: What an Immigrant Saw and Experienced in Soviet Karelia. Published in Sudbury, the booklet was a forceful criticism of the economic and political realities of Soviet Karelia. In its opening, Väinö posed a stark question: "Was it heaven on earth or was it hell?" It was a question born not of political theory, but of personal experience. For my grandfather, telling the truth became a way of confronting what had happened to his family and warning others who might be tempted by the same promises. And for my grandmother, there must have been the quieter, deeply personal task of rebuilding ordinary family life after a frightening interruption.
Two Mothers, Two
Journeys
When I think about these
two arrivals in Halifax, I am struck by the extraordinary connection between
them.
In 1905, Carrie's mother
stepped ashore with her three-year-old daughter, hoping that North America would
provide a safer, more promising future. In 1933, that same little girl, now a
grown woman and mother, stepped ashore with her own ten-year-old daughter,
profoundly grateful that Canada could once again provide a safe haven. One
mother had brought her child across the ocean toward an uncertain future. The
other had brought her child back across the ocean after discovering just how
terribly wrong a promised future could become. The first journey was an act of
hope. The second was an act of survival. And between those two journeys lay the
story of a family that had learned, through painful experience, that the
promise of a better world and the reality of living in one were not always the
same.
Returning to Halifax —
2026
This week, I visited Pier 21 in Halifax. (Nothing remains of Pier 2). Ninety-three years have passed since my grandparents and my ten-year-old mother walked through that immigration building. I have visited many historical places in my genealogical travels, but this one was different.
I stood where my own
mother once stood as a child, newly returned from an experience that would
become part of our family's history. I thought of my grandfather Väinö, who
carried home memories so troubling that he eventually felt compelled to write
about them. And I thought of my grandmother Carrie, who crossed the
Atlantic twice — first as a little girl in her mother's care, and later as a
mother responsible for the safety of her own child. And I thought of my
great-grandmother, who began this Canadian story in 1905, when she brought
little Carrie to North America in search of a better life. Three generations of
women. Two ocean crossings. One Canadian harbour. And now, a fourth generation
returning — not as an immigrant or a refugee, but as a daughter and
granddaughter, searching for a deeper understanding of the women and men who
came before her. In 1905, Halifax represented the promise of a new beginning;
in 1933, it represented the profound relief of coming home. And for me, in
2026, it represented something else again—a place where family history became
more than names, dates, and passenger lists.
Such an interesting account of you mother’s and grandparents’ entries to Canada. I’m sure it must have been emotional for you when you visited the site of Pier 2 in Halifax!
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