borshch: beet soup
chytalnya: reading room
dido: grandfather
gerdan/gerdany: an intricately designed glass beaded necklace
holubtsi: cabbage rolls
kamizelka: vest
kasha: cooked buckwheat
khrustyk/khrustyky: sweet fried dough crisps
kolach: a round braid of egg bread
kolomyika: a lively traditional dance where onlookers crowd around, clapping, while others come forward and try to out-dance those who danced earlier
krashanka/krashanky: boiled eggs that are dyed in solid colours for Easter
kutya: a Christmas dish made with boiled wheat, poppy seeds, honey and nuts
kystka: tool for applying hot wax to eggs
Mnohaya Lita: a greeting song wishing one a long life
nalysnyky: crepes
provody: a religious procession to commemorate the dead
pyrohy: stuffed noodles, called perogies in English
pysanka/pysanky: Easter eggs, unboiled, decorated using a wax-resist method of dyeing
Rizdvo: Christmas Day
rushnyk/rushnyky: cloth for special occasions
studenetz: jellied fish
Svyat Vechir: Christmas Eve (literally: Holy Night)
tato: father
toloka: a building bee
tsymbaly: stringed instrument
Veselykh Svyat: Happy Holidays
Vichnaya Pamyat: lament sung at Ukrainian funerals and commemorative services
vushka: mushroom-stuffed noodles
German
kronen: Austrian coins
Irish
maimeo: grandmother
Acknowledgments
Every effort has been made to trace ownership of visual and written material used in this book. Errors and omissions will be corrected in subsequent updates or editions.
Cover portrait: detail from Young Galician immigrant holding envelope labelled “Red Star Line”. Saint John, NB. May, 1905, Library and Archives Canada, C-063254
Cover background: Officer standing at train station with gun resting on his shoulder, watching as train approaches the station, R. Palmer/Library and Archives Canada, PA-170492
Image 1: 160 Acres of Free Land, Library and Archives Canada, C-006196
Image 2: Galician immigrants c. 1905, John Woodruff/Library and Archives Canada, C-005610
Image 3: School children at School District No. 1515, Frank, Alberta, ca 1920, Gushul Family Fonds/Glenbow Archives, NC-54-4198
Image 4: Hundreds of prisoners standing in open square of internment camp, R. Palmer/Library and Archives Canada, PA-170457
Image 5: From the documentary film “Freedom Had a Price,” directed by Yurij Luhovy
Image 6: Prisoners of war at internment camp, Castle Mountain, Alberta, 1915, Glenbow Archives, NA-3959-2
Image 7: Children of prisoners of Spirit Lake Internment Camp, Library and Archives Canada, PA-170470
Image 8: Prisoners of Spirit Lake Internment Camp with their family members, Library and Archives Canada, PA-170623
Image 9: Women and children prisoners of internment camp, Library and Archives Canada, PA-170620
Image 10: A prisoner shovelling a pathway through snowbanks, Library and Archives Canada, PA-170641
Images 11 and 12: Militia Book No. 60 cover and one interior page, courtesy of John Perocchio
Image 13: Grave marker, courtesy of Sandra Semchuk
Image 14: Camp of prisoner tents on shore of Spirit Lake [actually the Pikogan camp near the internment camp], R. Palmer/Library and Archives Canada, PA-170467
Image 15: Portion of release certificate of Maksym Boyko, courtesy of Otto Boyko
All sketches, and image 16, courtesy of the author
Images 17 and 18: Maps courtesy of Paul Heersink. Canada map: data © 2002 Government of Canada with permission from Natural Resources Canada.
The publisher wishes to thank Barbara Hehner for her careful fact-checking of the manuscript, and Sophia Kachor for checking the spelling and translation of Ukrainian words and terms.
We are indebted to Orest Martynowych, author of Ukrainians in Canada: The Formative Years, 1891–1924. His detailed observations in vetting the manuscript were always helpful, even in sections where we opted to reflect a different interpretation of the events. We also thank Dr. Frances Swyripa, author of Wedded to the Cause: Ukrainian-Canadian Women and Ethnic Identity 1891–1991 and Ukrainian Canadians, and co-author of Loyalties in Conflict: Ukrainians in Canada during the Great War, for vetting the Historical Note.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the memory of my grandfather, George Forchuk (Yurij Feschuk), who was interned at Jasper Internment Camp, Alberta, during World War I. Dido, you are not forgotten.
Many thanks to the following people who supplied me with precious tidbits of information:
Dr. Lubomyr Luciuk, Yurij Luvovy, Zorianna Hrycenko-Luhova, Peter Melnycky, Sandra Semchuk, Brenda Christian, Andrea Malysh, Maria Rypan, Ghyslain Drolet, Myron Momryk, Margriet Ruurs, Dr. Desmond Morton, Olga Temko, Walter Kowal D.D.S., Olga Kowal, Mary Moroska, Orysia Tracz, Connie Bilinsky, Linda Mikolayenko, Larry Warwaruk, Danny Evanishen, Paulette MacQuarrie, Dr. Denys Hlinka, Gerry Kokodyniak, Roman Zakaluzny, Orest Martynowych, Dr. Frances Swyripa, Orest Skrypuch M.D., and Dorothy Forchuk.
Sincere thanks to all of the fine “Private Kidcrit” participants in Compuserve’s Books and Writers Community.
Huge thanks and appreciation to Sandy Bogart Johnston, editor extraordinaire, and to Diane Kerner for all of her help and support, and — as always — to my agent, Dean Cooke, who makes all things possible.
About the Author
As a child, Marsha Skrypuch heard bits of conversation about her grandfather having been “put in jail for something he didn’t do,” so she would ask her father for details. He would tell her intriguing anecdotes about her grandfather, but wouldn’t answer the question. When she asked aunts and uncles to clarify, they clammed up. Then, in the late 1980s, Marsha read an opinion piece in the Globe & Mail by Lubomyr Luciuk, about the Ukrainian internment during WWI. She phoned her father and asked if he had ever heard of such a thing. Her father sighed and said, “Of course. What do you think happened to Dido?”
Marsha’s grandfather was dead by this time, so she sat down with her father and peppered him with questions. She learned that George Forchuk, who at the time was known as Yurij Feschuk, had been interned at Jasper Internment Camp in Alberta. He had come to Canada from Bukovyna in 1912 and obtained prime farmland in the area around Hairy Hill and Willingdon, Alberta. Like Irena’s neighbour, he was single, and had to report regularly to the authorities to have his “enemy alien” registration card stamped. Like Irena’s neighbour, Marsha’s grandfather was arrested during one of those reporting sessions, and was taken to Jasper Internment Camp. Just like Stefan’s father, Ivan Gregoraszczuk and so many others, Yurij found the conditions at the camp intolerable. He worked from “dark to dark” in brutally cold weather. One thing that he learned to do while imprisoned at Jasper was to “carry a fifteen-foot log on his shoulder at a dog trot.”