"Ambitions to make everything turn good"

There were seven all together, and one, Mr. Wilander, brought his wife along, so she was the first woman.They were the only people here when I arrived.I was 22 then.I came from Finland along with this other lady.Our husbands were here in Sointula alreadyWe arrived here late at night.It was pitch black of course, and all the bay was covered with these big kelps -these great big snakes in the water with these great big heads on them.The boat tied up to some sort of slip and we had to walk along these logs to the shore where this little shack was.In this log cabin there were five double bunks for all these families.Hay was piled on these bunks for a mattress, and my husband and I and the two children got one of these bunks of our own. 1When Katri Riksman and Mrs. Salmi arrived on Malcolm Island with their children on June 3, 1902, the population of women in the fledgling community of Sointula tripled.Yet what promises enticed these young women to step into the darkness on a deeply forested and remote island in British Columbia?Founded in 1901 as a utopian community, Sointula represented an alternative to exploitative capitalism for Finnish immigrants.Despite the rustic living conditions, hard work, and uncertainty that awaited new arrivals, many families and individuals chose this unconventional and challenging path to forge a new community based on equality, self-sufficiency, and communitarianism.Initially, settlers were members of the Kalevan Kansa Colonization Company, and the community was under the formal leadership of Matti Kurikka, an unconventional romantic socialist, and A.B. Mkel, a more pragmatic Marxist-socialist. 2 Philosophical disagreements and financial hardship led to the departure of Kurikka and many settlers in 1904, followed by the collapse of the official colony in 1905.Despite the turmoil, some settlers remained on Malcolm Island, British Columbia, and fashioned a distinct community culture.For women especially, the community offered a