John Pihooja: A man with a wanderlust
Ralph Pihooja
A young Estonian man has been touring the Chinese city of Peking and has inadvertently wandered into the Forbidden City. He is arrested and taken away for questioning - an interrogation that must have been fruitless since the young man spoke only a few words of Chinese and the Chinese did not speak Estonian. Somehow he made an escape and continued on his adventures while traveling around the world. True story or family legend?
This is the dilemma facing the young man’s descendants when attempting to piece together a cohesive timeline of the man’s life and adventures. The young man in question, John Pihooja, kept no journal of his travels and only a few faded postcards with almost illegible messages exist from that time. The stories have been preserved through oral retelling; and even though dates and details are sketchy, they still provide a glimpse of the world in the early twentieth century and the life of a restless young man before he settled down to become one of Alberta’s early Estonian pioneers.
Born to Peeter and Liiso Pihooja of Vöru, Estonia in 1892, Juhan Pihooja was the youngest son in the family of six boys and two girls. At this time Russia controlled Estonia, they taxed the peasants on their small farms, established the Russian language as the official language, and conscripted young Estonian men into the Russian army. One by one upon their 21 st birthday, Juhan’s older brothers served time in the Russian army. In 1905 Juhan’s eldest brother August emigrated to Canada with his wife and infant daughter to join their friends Henry Kingsep and a small community of Estonian settlers whowere homesteading west of Red Deer, Alberta. This provided the young Juhan with a contact when he later embarked on his travel adventures.
In 1912 19-year-old Juhan and his 26-year-old brother Karl, second youngest son in the family, arrived in the Gilby-Medicine River area of Alberta where their brother August was farming. Postcards from Estonia were sent to Juhan, care of the Gilby Post Office, so we know he was in the area at the time. In today’s age of jet planes, freeways and controlled border crossings it is difficult to visualize a time in North America when crossing borders was easy, citizenship wasn’t challenged, and travel was by boat, train or horse. But that seems to be the case when tracing the series of postcards sent between John, Karl and their family and friends in this early time.
By May 1913, postcards from Estonia were addressed to John in Red Deer, where he was working in a sawmill. The young man’s restless nature was showing, for later that year John received a postcard at a Pender Street address in Vancouver from his friend Eduard Wirro in Coquitlam, B.C. Edward complained of the rainy weather but asked John to look out for a job for him in the city if one came by. John was working in the logging industry then. One of the mills he worked at for was located where Gastown is situated today. Hastings Street was the main skid line for the mules that pulled the logs over greased corduroys. By the next summer John returned to the Gilby-Medicine River area and appeared ready to become a homesteader as he and his friend Carl Huul acquired land in an area known as Risulas (a very desolate and uninhabited area). A year later John’s friend Eduard wrote from Anaconda, Montana where he was working in a copper smelter making $3.25 in an eight hour shift. This news eventually encouraged John, his brother Karl, and their Estonian friends Carl Huul and Oscar Ossul to join Eduard in Montana. Throughout 1916 they variously worked at the Anaconda smelter and copper mine in Butte. At this time Canada was involved in World War I, but the United States had not yet entered the war so there appeared to be lots of work for the young men. It was very hot and dangerous working in the mine. John recalled how one of the underground walls collapsed and struck the carbide lamp he was carrying. But the Estonian bachelors had a lively social life as their postcards mentioned Butte’s many amusements and dancing half the night with pretty girls, and John played in the Butte Orchestra. In 1917 there was a strike at the Butte mine and John returned to Red Deer while his brother moved to Vancouver. By May of the following year, John was in Vancouver but planned to travel by boat with Oscar to Seattle, Washington to meet Karl at the harbor. It is believed that this is when John and Karl embarked on their working tour around the world, although it is possible they may have done some traveling through Finland and Siberia prior to arriving in Alberta in 1912. The only existing postcard from this time, dated September 1920, is to John in Shanghai from Karl in Hong Kong in which Karl urges John to come to Hong Hong quickly as there is a Chinese boat that will be sailing soon.
Without specific dates or the precise chronological order that these travels occurred, we have only an oral history of the early twentieth century trip around the world and personal experiences of John Pihooja. He has told of crossing Russia along the Siberian railway and working from Vladivostok with the summer fishing fleet. He visited Japan where he experienced a high scale earthquake, which he said was like walking on jelly.
In Peking he saw the Forbidden City and in Shanghai he received the urgent postcard from Karl. Why and when they were separated is unknown. Other places he traveled to and worked were Hong Kong, Haiphong, Vietnam, Singapore, Colombia and Ceylon. In Ceylon he worked on the rubber trees and in logging operations where elephants were used to skid the logs. John recalled getting along very well with the twelve-year-old elephant and the mahout (elephant handler).
Postcards in Hong Kong and Ceylon were printed in English and postcards in Haiphong were printed in French. In all John sailed under the British, Norwegian, Swedish, and Japanese flags. From here details are sketchy. We know he survived the treacherous journey around Cape Horn and at sometime the two brothers ended up back in Estonia where in 1922 John married 18-year-old Wanda Schlack, who had fled from Bolshevik Russia.
In July 1922 the two newlyweds left Tallinn, Estonia and sailed on the R.M.S Empress of France to arrive in Quebec, Canada the following month. From there they traveled by C.P.R to Eckville Alberta. Because of the Canadian rules for homesteading and because John had abandoned his early homestead in the Risulas area, John and Wanda had to buy a new farmstead. After staying with Estonian friends in the area, they bought their own land at Wood Lake, northwest of Eckville and became early Alberta farmers. Their only son, Ralph was born in 1923. The farm on the shores of Wood Lake was a scene of many festivities and annual celebrations.
Foremost was the festival of “Jaanipäev” in which everyone would drink, dance and sing around the bonfire. For some weeks before, timber and material was gathered to make a huge pile. Then on June 23 rd it was set ablaze. It was said that the flames were visible from as far away as Medicine Hills. The second activity of the summer was the annual Fish Soup Festival. Nets were cast the evening before and the bounty, along with milk, potatoes and onions was prepared in large cauldrons. On one occasion the Raabis family’s new Oldsmobile sedan’s engine burst into flames. A few ingenious souls lifted the huge cauldron of soup and threw it on the burning motor. That quick action saved the car, however, the aroma lingered on for quite a while. In the winter months the Lake was the scene for many skating parties. John and Wanda opened their home for skaters to warm up and to tend to small scrapes and bruises.
As the farm was midway from Eckville and the homes of many travelers from the northwest, it was a haven for travelers to warm up in the winter and have nourishment. At times John also repaired broken harnesses or fixed loose horseshoes. John and Wanda also were active in the Estonian drama group’s annual production in the Estonian Hall, consisting of three act plays which played to a full house. It was sometimes necessary to travel ten to twelve miles in sub-zero temperatures to rehearse in individual homes.
John and Wanda retired from farming in the mid-fifties and moved into the village of Eckville. Purchasing the Eckville Billiard Hall, John became known as a friendly pool hall operator. In 1968 they joined their son Ralph and family in the warmer climes of Oliver, B.C. John’s beloved wife died in 1974 after battling cancer for months. John suffered a stroke while living with his family in Penticton, B.C. and passed away in 1976. Both are buried in Oliver, B.C.
Credits: Liz Tardie
