Chapter 20 continues
The story so far: Winter sets in; Lily has some good news.
Although Katka's first winter on the Iron Range was brutal, there were always things to do. Helen Cerkvenik had introduced Katka to so many people. She received invitations to social gatherings almost every weekend. She attended bonfire parties on Merritt Lake, where she and the other residents roasted venison over the dying embers. Also, Lily gave Katka a pair of blades to attach to her boots and Helen taught Katka how to skate.
One day, she and Helen were on the lake, holding hands. Helen gracefully skated backwards, while she clumsily glided forward. When Helen let go of her hands, Katka couldn't stop. She barreled right into Milo, who sat unawares on the side of the clearing, attaching the blades to his shoes. Soon after, Avi Nurmi's cousin Maiah asked Katka to accompany her to Laskiainen, the Finnish sliding festival. She was thrilled and wrote about it in the journal.
Laskiainen was one of many traditions carried over from the old country. In addition to crowning a young Finnish girl "Miss Laskiainen," and demonstrating sewing and cooking techniques, there was also a great deal of sport. She and Maiah got dizzy as two young Finns hurled them about in the "whip sled." They also tried the toboggans. The men iced narrow luge tracks on a steep hill leading to the lake. Men, women and children of all ages competed to see whose toboggan would travel the fastest and farthest. According to Finnish tradition, the farther the toboggan would fly across a frozen lake, the higher the flax would grow in the summer. As she sat on the toboggan at the top of the icy slope, with Maiah sitting behind and holding her waist, Katka felt happy. When a villager gave them a push and they went careening down the ice track, she felt invincible. Afterwards, they ate fish-eye stew and lefsa. She was beginning to love this land where people embraced the outdoors no matter what froze, burned or fell from the sky.
Later that month, there was another cave-in at the St. James. Katka helped lay out two dead miners on the dining room table and dress them for their funerals. They had been boarders in the house. She wrote letters to their families back home, then printed their obituaries in the journal. Replacement boarders arrived within a week.
One Saturday in early March, Katka was in the kitchen, doing the morning dishes. Anton and Lily were seated at the kitchen table. Anton was scrubbing his boots and Lily was reading from the Company Chronicle, the Oliver Mining Company newspaper. Lily was reading aloud, "The war in Europe will increase the importance of the work we do. The workers who labor in our mines are true patriots," Lily read.
"If the workers are the patriots, why aren't they getting a raise? What does that company think these men are, a bunch of thick-skulled nincompoops? We immigrants do the work and they get the money. No wonder the men talk strike when the winter breaks. The men have been asking for a raise for a year now, I tell you. With this war, there's no more workers coming in, but more demand for ore. They make men work twice as hard for the same pay. How could they not expect revolt?"
