About the Project
Welcome to the Rosies of the North website, created by the Friends of the Finnish Labour Temple and generously funded by the Thunder Bay Community Foundation. Rosies of the North is an interactive website that uses audio interview recordings, photographs, employee records, newspapers, and other archival materials to tell the stories of the incredible women who worked at the Canadian Car and Foundry plant during the Second World War. Although women’s roles during the Second World War are often overlooked, they played an integral part in the war effort both at home and overseas. Many women traveled from across the country to help build Hawker Hurricanes and Curtiss Helldivers to be used by the Allied forces against the Axis powers.
Many of the elements seen throughout the website were gathered during the research phase of the Rosies of the North film production, which took place between 1997 and 1999. In 2019, Friends of the Finnish Labour Temple received hundreds of photographs and employee records donated by Bombardier. It is the purpose of this website and the Friends of the Finnish Labour Temple to bring these forgotten elements back to life and tell the stories of the more than 7,000 workers (half of which were women) that worked at the Canadian Car and Foundry plant during 1939-1945!
We strongly encourage members of the community to reach out through our contact page or by emailing directly to rosiesofthenorth@gmail.com any stories, photographs, interviews, and other artifacts that they would like to share. As information flows in, this website will be updated regularly to showcase the new information and artifacts for the public to learn and enjoy. As most families in Thunder Bay have some form of connection to the Canadian Car and Foundry, it is the purpose of this website to bring this history alive in a free and accessible manner.
Meet the
Kelly Saxberg
Kelly Saxberg is a film producer, director, editor and cinematographer who has worked on over 100 films. She works in English, French, Spanish and Finnish. She is also an historian and researcher who specializes in labour, gender, and politics. Saxberg has taught courses in film history and Women’s Studies in the past and offered many filmmaking workshops over the years. Saxberg directed the National Film Board film, Rosies of the North (1999), which this website is based upon.
Bryson Irvine
Bryson was born and raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario and is a recent graduate of Lakehead University’s Masters of History program. His research project focused on Canadian Member of Parliament Howard Green and his attitudes towards the Mackenzie King government during the early part of the Second World War. Bryson was employed on a summer contract in 2022 with Friends of the Finnish Labour Temple, where he completed research and interview editing of workers at the Fort William CanCar plant. Presently, Bryson works as a court reporter at the Thunder Bay Courthouse, but still works with Flash Frame on a part time basis.
Katie Green
Katie was born and raised in Thunder Bay, Ontario. After completing her undergraduate degree at the University of Guelph, she moved back home and completed her Master of Arts degree in history at Lakehead University. Her Major Research Project focused on World War Two history and gender history. Katie has been employed with Friends of the Finnish Labour Temple since 2020, where she worked as an intern on the Reel Memories of the Lakehead project, a collaboration with the Thunder Bay Museum to restore and digitize 16mm news footage from 1954-1979. Katie also works part-time in aviation, which has made this project even more interesting to her.
Ron Harpelle
Ron Harpelle teaches in the Department of History at Lakehead University. In addition to being a historian, he is also an award-winning filmmaker who specializes in historical documentaries. He has worked closely with Kelly Saxberg on several films, including Rosies of the North.
Nathan Hatton
Nathan Hatton is a public historian and award-winning author who teaches at Lakehead University in Thunder Bay. He serves as the Department of History’s Public History Specialization Coordinator, where he has supervised student participation in the Rosies project.
Ximena Gerón
My name is Ximena Gerón Fonseca, I am Mexican and I was a master student of the History Program at Lakehead University. I helped with the information of the women who worked at the Canadian Car Factory. It was a new experience for me and it helped me to understand how we can tell people from Thunder Bay and the rest of Canada the important role of these women in history. One thing that surprised me was to find in the factory archives someone’s work card with my last name “Fonseca”, which made me comprehend how we are connected over time. I really enjoyed the project, I hope you all enjoy it too.
Laura Polcyn
Laura Polcyn was born near Poznań, Poland and grew up in Thunder Bay. She completed two degrees at Lakehead University: an Honours Bachelor of Arts in history with a minor in economics and a Master of Arts in history. Her honours thesis and graduate research focused on the economic and political history of interwar Poland. Following her graduate studies, Laura began a law degree at the University College Cork, in Cork, Ireland. In 2022, she was happy to work on the Rosies of the North Project as part of her Graduate Assistantship at LU.
Shylin Henits
Shylin recently completed an HBA in History & Philosophy, with a specialization in Public History, at Lakehead University. She is currently pursuing a Master’s at Lakehead and is planning to write her thesis about Rosies of the North next year. Shylin is interested in local histories and very much enjoyed working on the Rosies of North website project.
Samuel Shonosky
Samuel is a graduate of the Interactive Media Development program at Confederation College with a passion for history. Before doing web design for Friends of the Finnish Labour Temple. Samuel worked at the Bombardier factory where he became more familiar with it’s history, and the impact it has had on the city over the years. Now Samuel is working on various projects like Rosies of the North for Shebafilms, and the FFLT.
RJ Cayanga
RJ graduated from the Interactive Media Development program at Confederation College and received his Advanced Diploma in Media Arts. He was hired as a storyboard artist, motion designer, and animator, and has been involved in many projects such as Sniper, a documentary about two indigenous soldiers, Patrick Riel and Phil McDonald, as they fought through World War I as a pair of snipers. RJ created the visual and interactive aspects for the Rosies website to improve user engagement.
Thank you:
Lakehead University – Department of History
Thunder Bay Community Foundation
Northwestern Ontario Aviation Heritage Center