One on One with Markus - Maija Ceming

Maija Ceming says her birth town Lahti in Finland and her home of Sudbury have a lot of similarities.

She says they're about the same size and both feature many lakes.

But the economy was not great in Finland, which is why at age 12, Ceming moved to Canada.

"Finland was going through extremely hard times in the early 50s," she explained.

"For instance, they created the slap tax. All of a sudden, the taxes went up 50 per cent. It was a disaster for individual businesses."

The family managed to get a sponsor from Foleyet to help with the immigration process.

"There wasn't even a road to Foleyet," she recalled with a laugh.

"We went to Foleyet on a CN train."

Coming to Sudbury

Her dad found a job and the family started to settle in, but living in Foleyet was short lived.

"My mother said 'This is where we're not staying' so we came to Sudbury the following year," she said.

That was in 1958. Ceming has called Sudbury home ever since. Eventually, she started to work and got married. She and her husband bought her parents house on Maki Avenue. The house next door went up for sale, a five-plex. They bought the house and became landlords.

"We did all the work ourselves in the beginning [like] cleaning the apartments," she said.

"You really learn a lot about people and how they live."

That business grew over the years. The couple now owns 800 apartment units in Sudbury.

Apartments and gymnastics 

Despite managing hundreds of units, Ceming also is known as a gymnast, teacher, judge and coach.

She had started dance and gymnastics in Finland, and found Sampo Hall in Sudbury when she moved to the region.

She started as a student and moved into coaching.

"This is my 57th year coaching for Sympo Rhythmic Gymnastics Club," she said.

Though she misses her home country, she says Canada will remain her new home.

"Canada's been extremely good," she said.