Somewhat to my surprise, as I reach the later years of my life, I find myself doing things that I never expected to do when I was young. One is writing the odd article for an Estonian language paper in English. The other is acting as an impromptu tour guide for people from the fatherland visiting Ottawa. This happens every few years or so.

Last time I had a whole busload of women, namely the Tallinn Technical University Women’s Choir that came up from Toronto with my cousin who teaches at the university. A short time ago, I had as visitor a likeable person, recently arrived from Estonia, who currently is working in Toronto on a short term basis.

We have lots of museums here, but most visitors from Estonia seem very interested in Canada’s native people; thus the Museum of Civilization in Hull just across the river from Parliament Hill is a “must see” place.

So it was also with my visitor and off we went. On the way, I warned my visitor that my spoken Estonian was very rusty and my vocabulary was limited to that which I learned from my parents who were simple Saaremaa country folk. From having listened to him talk with my wife, I gathered his English was probably better than my Estonian. He must have felt otherwise because he didn’t switch over from Estonian, but was my head ever tired at the end of the day! Perhaps it was just as well, since I plan to go to the fatherland this summer and the experience should ease the initial shock of total immersion to spoken Estonian.

Anyway, most of the museum ground floor is taken up by native exhibits and most visitors find the totem poles interesting. My visitor stopped in front of an old photo of a large group of forlorn looking native children and asked what that was about. I replied that these were children who had been forcibly removed from their parents and shipped off to the residential schools run by either the Anglican or Roman Catholic churches with help from the government. There they were taught how to be good Christians, turn their backs on their language and culture and assimilate into mainstream white Canadian society. This went on until the middle of the last century when these schools were finally closed. There had been instances of outright abuse and the Canadian government and the churches eventually had to provide financial compensation to victims to such an extent that some Anglican dioceses almost were bankrupted.

Further on were some exhibits featuring bison. I explained that these were nearly wiped out by the Europeans. Many were slaughtered just for their hides or tongues and the rest left to rot. Others were shot by people riding on special trains provided for no other reason that just for the sport of killing something. The native people starved and were forced unto reservations where the government fed them. Their lot became that of a downward spiral of poverty and disease combined with the scourge of intolerance to the effects of alcohol.

Upstairs we started with the early white inhabitants. My guest stopped in front of one of the television screens and remarked that it looked like people were being deported in carts to waiting sailing ships. I filled him in on how the British had forcibly dispossessed and deported the French speaking Acadian people to the wilderness and swamps of Louisiana, many families being split up in the process. The word “deportation” holds special meaning to all Estonians and I could tell my visitor was moved.

Next was the small Chinese laundry. I explained that these were run by Chinese men who originally were brought over as coolie labour to help build the railroads. Those that survived disease, being blown up or otherwise killed in accidents remained here. They were not allowed to bring their families into the country so they wound up as lonely bachelors, surviving by doing the most menial jobs, one of which was operating hand laundries. Later Chinese immigrants did better, one of their descendants being the current Governor General of Canada.

Further on was a picture of some Japanese Canadians in a setting that appeared to be something out of the Soviet Gulag. I explained that at the beginning of the Second World War these people had been rounded up from the west coast, disposed of everything they could not carry with them and shipped off to some forsaken place in the middle of the country under close guard. Although Canada never had conscription as such, many of their young men had volunteered to fight for their country in the European theatre. I didn’t bother mentioning that much the same had happened to people of European origin during the First World War.

The concentration camp scene was not new to my visitor. During his forced service time in the Soviet military he had been a guard at one in Siberia. By some fluke, it was the same camp that his grandmother had been incarcerated in many years before. Her “crime” was that during the Nazi occupation, she had performed for German officers as a professional ballerina. For this she had received the standard 25 years jail time and additional 5 years of exile. Fortunately, she survived and returned to Estonia.

Moving along some more we came to an area depicting the large square timber rafts that used to float down the river from Ottawa to Quebec City. What had happened to the enormous forest industry in Ottawa? Well, the old first growth stands of huge white pine eventually all got cut down and nothing was left even though in the early years the supply had seemed inexhaustible. What was left was pulpwood timber and when the wind is blowing the right way, Ottawa residents are constantly reminded of this.

One exhibit in particular fascinated my guest. This was a small wooden Ukrainian Catholic church, complete with an ornate altar that had come from some small hamlet on the prairies. Why had the congregation given up their church to become a museum exhibit? I explained that the church was about a hundred years old, the congregation had probably mainly passed on and the young people had moved to the city. It was felt to be better this way rather than tearing down the building or turning it to secular use. My guest had trouble tearing away from this tiny church and examined it very closely with a professional eye.

Later, I asked him about his own small village church back in Kolga-Jaani, Estonia where he is the Lutheran pastor. It is somewhat in need of repair having stood there mostly unscathed since early in the fourteenth century, but it had an active congregation and the Estonian government had pledged money for renovation. I could understand his confusion as to how such a relatively new church here could become a museum exhibit.

Yep, civilization is a marvelous thing…

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