Showing 33 results

Photographs are divided into seven subseries:
A - Architecture
B - Arts (Theatre, music, dance, arts, crafts)
C - Business & industry
D - Churches
E - Communities in Northwestern Ontario
F - People, families, & genealogy
G - Organizations

Photographs of Bertrand's travels in Northwestern Ontario and Northern Minnesota, probably 1940s and 1950s. Includes Kakabeka Falls, the Port Arthur Waterfront, and several reproductions of unidentified older portrait photographs.

Most subjects are not identified in any way.

Photographic prints; negatives are also described as #13d.

Photographs and documents, generally collected because they would be of interest regarding the history of Port Arthur and Fort William. Includes rail and CPR, ships, fishing, and social and sporting groups.

Minute books, account books, and membership books for the Port Arthur Finnish Socialists Local. Includes records of the sewing society, entertainment committee, and theatrical society.

Minute books and membership books for the Finnish Athletic Club "Nahjus" and its Youth League.

Frederick O. Robinson was born in Port Arthur, Ontario on Aug. 2, 1903. He attended public and high school in Port Arthur and then served his apprenticeship to the machinist trade in the C.N.R. shops. He worked for 25 years as a skilled machinist in the Port Arthur shops of the C.N.R. until his election to the Ontario legislature in 1943. He continued to work as a C.N.R. machinist between sessions of the legislature, and after his election to the office of mayor, he worked in the C.N.R. shops on weekends.

He entered public life in January 1943 when he was elected to the Port Arthur Board of Education. In August of the same year he was elected to the Ontario legislature as C.C.F. member for Port Arthur. He was M.L.A. for Port Arthur until his defeat in 1951. In civic affairs, he remained on the Board of Education until 1946 when he was elected as alderman. In 1949, he became Mayor of Port Arthur; he remained in this post except for 1952 when he was defeated until 1955 when he resigned to become personnel manager for the Public Utilities Commission. He left active political life at this time. He resigned from the Public Utilities Commission in 1966 because of ill health. In July, 1969, he died.

The Frederick O. Robinson fonds comprises 7 feet of correspondence, clippings, pamphlets, articles and other material and is contained in seventeen transfer cases. The folder titles in the main are those designated by Mr. Robinson. Some re-arrangement of the material has been effected in order to comply with the folder titles. Since the folders themselves were in no apparent order when .they were donated to the university, the following arrangement was thought to be most suitable for research purposes:
I. Pre-1943 Period
II. Political Affairs (relating to the C.C.F.)
III. The Ontario Legislature and Provincial Affairs, 1943-51
IV. Provincial and Local Affairs.
V. Local and Municipal Affairs.
VI. General
VII. Miscellaneous

Consists of photographs of particularly mining development in Northwestern Ontario in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as the waterfront and shipping, local scenery, and notable figures. Also includes some correspondence; railway construction plans.

Records of Reverend Toivo Johannes Pajala (1903-1972), minister of Saalem Pentecostal Church.

Toivo Pajala was born Dec 31, 1903, in Vimpeli, Finland. His family was Lutheran, with some ties to the Pentecostal Church. Pajala migrated to Canada at age 19, and was in Port Arthur at least by 1923. For many years he made a living as a bushworker.

Religion became an important part of Pajala's life: he became Laestadian, then Pentecostal. He attended the Western Bible College in Winnipeg for two years, and then was ordained in 1946 in Toronto. He married his wife Sylvia in 1949 shortly before returning to Port Arthur.

From 1949 to 1963, Pajala was pastor of Saalem Finnish Pentecostal Church in Port Arthur. In 1951, he established a Finnish-language Pentecostal radio program on CKPR, particularly reaching bushworkers and others in rural areas, and people unable to leave their homes. He was also well known for supporting immigrants to the region, and providing funeral services when others would not.

Pajala spent 1963-1967 as a pastor in Waukegan, Illinois. After 1967, he officially retired, and returned to Port Arthur, where he was still active in the church. His death was in 1972.

Most of the records in this fonds relate to either Pajala's religious education in the 1940s (organized by class or by notebook) or the sermons he gave in Finnish or English, in Port Arthur and by radio (organized loosely by theme.)

The last few files of the fonds relate to a project after Pajala’s death: to interview those who knew him and memorialize him. The book “Kansanpappi Toivo Pajala,” written by Tellervo Kähärä and available in the Library, is a result of that work.