Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1942, Side 34

24
LE NORD
The third period of emigration was during the famous Cali-
fornian gold rush of 1848—50, when Finnish sailors, especially
in San Francisco, were lured by dreams of wealth to desert and
become part of the motley crowd of gold-seekers.
Again, during the Crimean War, entire crews of some Finnish
ships sailing under the Russian flag had to go ashore in America,
either when their ships were sold to prevent their falling into the
hands of the French or the English, or when they were captured
and sunk in American waters.
Further, during the American Civil War of 1861—65 many
Finnish sailors left their ships to join the Northerners — especially
their Navy — and remained in that service or settled in the coun-
try in some other capacity. — Apart from all this, individual
sailors deserted for personal reasons, as happens everywhere. Thus
Finnish sailors remained in the West in San Francisco and some
other places on the coast; in the South — at least in New Orleans
— in the East in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston; and, after
the Civil War, on the shores of the Great Lakes, specially in
Chicago. Some of them summoned their wives and sweethearts
to join them in the new country, others continued to correspond
with their friends in their home districts, and some came home
on visits from time to time. Thus their contact with the home-
land was more constant than in the days of the Delaware and
Alaska enterprises, and in this respect they are the direct pioneers
of the great emigration of Finns just as they are the originators
of many fantastic stories about America.
The principal causes of the most extensive Finnish emigration,
which occurred during and immediately after the American Civil
War, were: the need for labour in mining copper in Michigan
and iron in Minnesota, the demand for timber for these mines
and for building purposes, and for labour in loading and un-
loading the ores at the Great Lakes ports, the great railway ex-
pansion from the Central States towards the West, the efforts to
attract population by offering land for “homesteads,” the gold-
fields further west, the lumbering in the great forests of the Far
West, the fishing, especially in the Columbia River; also, in the
Eastern States certain industries and the offer of “homesteads.”
To all this must be added the building by Canada of the Canadian
Pacific Railway and the development of her mining and other
industries.
This widespread American demand for labour grew rapidly,