One solitary figure struggled where the wide-open sky meets the horizon that seems to go on forever. He slowly pulled an unexpected structure leaving him drenched in sweat under the unrelenting Saskatchewan prairie sun.
Each step brought him closer to open water.
For anyone driving by, they would have done a double take and said…
“Was that a ship?”
It was.
He had built it on a landlocked farm because this man was on a mission.
Through tragedy and sheer determination, he was going to take this hand-built ship across the ocean to his homeland Finland.
I’m Craig Baird, this is Canadian History Ehx and today I’m sharing the story of man and the ship he called Little Dung Beetle.
This is…Tom Sukanen!
He was born Tomi Jaanus Alankola in 1878.in the Grand Duchy of Finland, which was then a part of the Russian Empire.
As a young man, he was described as barrel chested, with broad shoulders and immense strength. Not much more is known other than in 1906 he married Sanna Liisa Rintala.
Tom was as a shipwright, and learned the skills needed to become a legend decades later half a world away.
Through it all we’ll never know if Tom wanted to stay in Finland, because the year he was born events conspired to change his fate regardless of what he wanted.
In 1878, the Russian Empire entered the Russo-Turkish War.
A conflict between the Ottoman Empire and a coalition led by the Russian Empire which included Finland.
Initially Russia sent too few troops which was an early crucial mistake and so with an urgent need for troops on the battlefield, Emperor Alexander II enacted conscription.
It would last for decades.
Tom Sukanen didn’t want to fight in any of Russia’s wars.
To escape he left Finland and his pregnant wife in 1906 for a new life in North America.
But they weren’t separated for long.
A year later, Sanna arrived in the United States with their daughter and the young family travelled to Minnesota where Tom worked in the iron ore mines.
He was strong and did well deep in the mines as he earned the respect of his coworkers.
By 1910, the family had grown. to include a boy, and three girls just as Tom rose through the ranks.
His efforts came with a risk.
Every time he entered the mine, he put his life in the hands of people who didn’t care if he lived or died.
At the time, profit came above all else.
Safety was not a priority.
This was true everywhere.
You might remember that in Canada, in 1910, an explosion at the Bellevue Mine in Alberta led to the death of 30 workers and a rescuer.
From 1902 to 1907, 138 miners were killed in three mine disasters in nearby Crowsnest Pass.
Unionization could bring better safety measures, but mining companies opposed unions with every fiber of their being.
Unionizing also meant higher pay, so Tom got involved in unionizing the miners, and he attracted the ire of his bosses.
One night in 1910, while his family slept, their home was burned to the ground.
Everyone escaped, but one daughter suffered burns that left her scarred for the rest of her life.
It marked the beginning of the end of Tom’s happiness.
Waking up to an inferno had been a truly traumatic experience for the Sukanen family.
They sought stability and safety in North America, far from the wars of Europe but now found themselves in a battle against a vengeful mining company.
The pressure caused the family to fall apart We don’t know why Tom left home.
Perhaps he hoped to build a new life elsewhere before they joined him….
Afterall, he had left Finland, while his pregnant wife stayed behind for a year before she joined him.
We’ll never know for sure what we do know is that Tom walked 1,400 kilometres north to Saskatchewan to a farm his brother was operating.
He arrived with his shoes in tatters and 28 cents in his pocket.
Whatever was the reason Tom’s departure caused a ripple effect that ripped his wife apart.
Surviving the fire, being abandoned and poverty was too much to bear and Sanna cracked under the pressure.
On March 31, 1911, a court order was issued, requiring her to be admitted into a psychiatric facility in Fergus Falls, Minnesota to assess her mental condition.
She spent her time there talking to no one, except when she sat down at the piano to play a mournful song.
The children were split and taken to foster homes.
The two oldest girls were cared for by one family, while the youngest son and daughter lived in another home.
In Saskatchewan Tom was completely unaware of his family’s fate as he built their future.
Once their new home was set up, he returned to Minnesota to get them.
That’s when he discovered the tragedy that had befallen his family.
Tom went to the psychiatric facility to get Sanna, but she refused to leave with him.
He pleaded with the court to try and get his children back, but he was rejected by them as well and was forced to return to Canada alone.
But he didn’t give up.
A few years later in 1918, he returned to Minnesota with the hopes of reuniting his family.
Sadly, that’s when he learned his wife had died in the hospital four years earlier in 1914 l.
His children had been scattered to the wind.
After much effort he was only able to find and reunite with his son, Taivo.
The two made their way to the border but that’s where they ran into trouble.
Tom had taken Taivo without permission from the foster home, so he couldn’t cross the border with him.
Taivo stayed in the US, and Tom returned to Saskatchewan.
Distraught, he didn’t go home to the farm right away. Instead, he joined a rail gang on one of the many new railroads sprouting up across Canada.
Once again, his strength was an asset as he could carry the massive steel rails by himself, which earned him the respect of his foreman.
By the time he eventually returned home the seed of an idea had been planted in the back of his mind.
Once he was back, he went back to working the land.
Over those few years his farm did well and had large crops.
He was well liked and known for his mechanical skill.
Locals believed he could build anything he set his mind to including a violin, sewing machine, threshing machine and tricycle.
If he wasn’t working, he could be found at community gatherings and he was a fixture of the local Finnish hall.
But then The Great Depression began in 1929 and no place in Canada was hit harder than Saskatchewan.
The province was dependent on wheat, as wheat prices collapsed, farmers were left with no income.
This was on top of severe drought and a yearly plague of grasshoppers.
Things were bleak.
Roughly two-thirds of the farming population of Saskatchewan was destitute, as the province paid more in relief than it made in revenue.
About a quarter of a million people left the province and many more made plans to leave
Tom Sukanen was one of them.
During the early-1930s, Tom returned to Finland for a year.
Being home, around people and places he knew, while speaking his language had a major impact on him.
When he returned to Canada, he decided he wanted to go back to Finland for good.
And this is where things get a bit odd Because Tom Sukanen could have just sold his belongings and boarded a ship for Finland.
Even with The Great Depression, he had some money in the bank, more than enough to pay for passage on a ship.
Instead, he decided he would build a ship.
Right on his farm.
And that would be his way home to Finland.
Maybe Tom had visions of becoming a legendary figure like the Vikings centuries earlier.
Or maybe it was something else…
We don’t know for sure… but we do know that much like a Biblical Noah, Tom got to work on building his vessel.
His plan was simple…He would build a ship, something he once did for a living.
Once it was built, he could transport his vessel to the South Saskatchewan River where he would travel through Saskatoon to join the North Saskatchewan River east of Prince Albert.
From here, he would sail into Manitoba, across Lake Winnipeg, then northeast to the Nelson River and eventually into Hudson Bay.
That’s where Tom would bolt the keel, hull and cabins on their sides, stuff the keel with rocks to form a ballast and then was a mere 6,000 kilometres across the water to Finland.
Simple…
Easy peasy right?
Except for one major thing that Tom did not foresee and it could end his journey before he even left Saskatchewan.
Rapids.
The Saskatchewan River is tough.
Stretches of rapids so strong his little ship could be destroyed long before it ever touched the Hudson Bay.
Whether he knew it or not, began building his ship and his first supplies came from his immediate surroundings.
He was steadfast in his resolve to leave Canada, so Tom wasn’t going to need his farm for much longer.
His barn, granaries and even his house were dismantled to become the ship’s hull.
While he had plenty of wood, he needed steel.
Using the last of his savings, he ordered sheets of metal. When they arrived at the train station, no one helped him load the metal.
Those who were once impressed by his skills as one of the best mechanics around, now mocked him and viewed him with suspicion.
They called him a madman.
Tom had sledgehammers, a forge he built himself, a hand drill, hacksaw and an anvil to build the ship’s hull which became his home.
A coal stove provided heat and place to cook.
His life became a solitary one.
A lone figure on the Saskatchewan Prairie where sledgehammers, flatted metal sheets and moulded them to create boilers to power his ship.
The ringing of metal could be heard for kilometres around.
Soon he became known as the Crazy Finn, and the Noah of the Plains.
Those that once shared meals with him, now refused to speak to him but soon his dreams began to take shape as the farm took a backseat to his obsession.
Every day, from dawn until dusk, Tom built his way home.
It took years but eventually he finished the hull which measured 13.1 metres in length and three metres high.
The keel was slightly smaller at 9.1 metres long and 2.7 metres deep.
With his boilers, keel and hull finished, Tom turned his attention to steam cylinders and pistons, which like everything else would be made by hand.
He cut the gears and sprockets, took steel rods and hammered them into a chain.
It was now the late-1930s, and rumours swirled about Tom.
Some said all his teeth had fallen out and he replaced them with iron. They said he had killed his family and went insane over the guilt.
None of this was true.
By all accounts, Tom didn’t care.
With the ship nearly completed, he built two cabins on the deck. One would be the wheelhouse, the other his sleeping quarters.
To keep the ship from breaking apart on the ocean waves, Tom attached tin plates together and nailed them to the keel.
After seven years, Tom stared back at his ship before him as it glistened in the setting sun.
It was finished and he named it Sontiainen, Finnish for Little Dung Beetle.
Now he just needed to put it in water.
The year was 1938 Superman, co-created by Canadian Joe Shuster, made his first appearance.
Comedian Tommy Chong was born in Edmonton, while Gordon Lightfoot was born in Orillia, Ontario.
And on the Saskatchewan prairie, a lone Finnish man making his dream of going home come true.
He had spent years building a ship and now he had crossed a mere 10 kilometres to finally begin his journey.
The distance isn’t immense. We’ve all walked that in a single day.
But very few of us have pulled a ship while doing it. Using iron wheels and several fence posts, he hooked the ship up to two horses and began pulling it across the prairie.
It didn’t take long for tragedy to strike when one horse died from exhaustion.
The second died soon after.
Now it was up to Tom to pull the ship by himself.
Tom hammered a post into the ground and used a winch tied to the post to pull it once he made headway, he pulled the post, moved it down a bit further and repeated the process.
It took a full day to travel a few metres, and the effort was taking a toll on Tom.
He was close to starving, he hadn’t bathed in days and his Herculeanstrength was failing him, as his depression over the slow progress set in.
A tractor could have pulled the ship in a single day.
Legend has it he had asked a neighbour for help, but they feared becoming a social pariah like Tom and refused to help.
So, Tom inched his ship along one centimetre at a time.
By 1939, the ship had travelled 4.8 kilometres, just halfway to the river.
One day, Constable Bert Fisk traveled the short distance with Svante, Tom’s brother.
They found Tom so weak he could barely move and had to be helped to his feet.
Fisk loaded him into his car and took him to North Battleford, Saskatchewan, to a psychiatric hospital.
While Tom sat in the hospital, locals descended upon his ship.
They stole his tools, vandalized the vessel and scattered his belongings across the prairie.
The ship was hauled to a local farm owned by Victor Markkula, one of the few friends Tom had during that time.
Markkula hoped he could keep the ship safe and in the meantime it stored wheat, and sometimes was used as a chicken coop.
People who visited Tom didn’t tell him what had happened how people had destroyed his dream and what little he had.
They were worried for his well-being.
Unfortunately, one day, someone accidently let it slip.
That was it.
Tom had nothing left to live for.
On April 23, 1943, he died at the hospital.
But Tom’s dream didn’t
His story was adapted into books, graphic novels, television and film.
In 1985, Shipbuilder, a drama film by the National Film Board was released.
In 2009, Sisu: The Death of Tom Sukanen premiered at the Montreal World Film Festival.
Three years later, Mad Ship, a film shot in Manitoba and loosely based on Tom’s story, was released.
But Like any great story, there is a prophecy and a legend to it.
After Tom learned that his ship had been vandalized and looted.
He wrote a letter to his sister in Finland that said that four times men would try and raise and assemble his ship.
Three would fail, and only the fourth would succeed in sailing the ship across the prairies.
Victor Markkula kept Tom’s ship safe and as it was foretold witnessed as three men came along hoping to move it and profit off the story.
Two ended up running out of money. The third abandoned the idea after a flood hit the area.
The fourth man was Laurence Mullin.
Unlike the other men, he wanted to restore the ship and erect it in honour Tom Sukanen’s dream.
The ship was loaded on the back of a semi-truck and taken down the highway to its new home south of Moose Jaw where it was restored at what became the Sukanen Ship Pioneer Village and Museum.
But they weren’t done yet.
Tom’s body was then exhumed from North Battleford and transported where he was buried next to his beloved ship.
And finally, Tom Sukanen found peace.
[OUTRO]
