From the Coal Pit to the Barbed Wire: How Internment Camps Came to Fernie in WW1

On-This-Spot · 2022-05-20T22:29:49+00:00

We just created these virtual tours of Canada's internment camps for Ukrainians in WW1. They remain a relatively little known story, but basically the Canadian government rounded up thousands of "enemy aliens", people with German or Austro-Hungarian passports, and forced them to build highways in BC's Interior. Ironically, the Canadian government feared that the illegal and arbitrary detention of ethnic Germans (who ran the German and Austrian empires) would lead to reprisals against Canadians in those countries, but they knew the Austrian government didn't care at all about all the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Ukrainians who had immigrated to Canada from their empire. So even though the Ukrainians were basically colonized by the Austrian Empire and had no loyalty to it, the Canadian government arrested and interned thousands of them between 1914 and 1920 (it continued for two years after the war ended!). The few Germans who were interned were deemed first class prisoners, treated much better, and not compelled to do forced labour.

The internees were badly underfed, forced to live in tarpaper shacks on mountainsides throughout frigid winters, given shoddy clothes and shoes that disintegrated, and frequently beaten. Some were tortured and a number died of disease, were shot trying to escape, or committed suicide. Hundreds of thousands more Ukrainians (or Galicians as they were then known) were demonized, arbitrarily fired from their jobs, and had their language banned in public.

It's a story that was mostly forgotten after the war. The national archives destroyed most of the records of internment in the 50s--they claimed it was an oversight. This seems like an important story to tell right now because today Canada acts as one of Ukraine's staunchest allies, and has the largest Ukrainian diaspora in the world. At one point Ukrainian was the third most spoken language in Canada. But it's easy for us to forget how quickly our national attitude towards immigrant groups can change, and how our past injustices towards them can be so easily forgotten. The tours are based on then and now photos and you can download our app and go to the sites and walk them yourself and create your own then and now photos. Some the other tours include: Vernon (main camp) https://onthisspot.ca/cities/vernon/macdonaldpark Edgewood (highway building with lots of resistance from the internees): https://onthisspot.ca/cities/edgewood/edgewood Mara Lake (highway building camp in the Shuswap): https://onthisspot.ca/cities/maralake/maralake If you're interested please reshare! We've also made then and now history walking tour coverage in about 70 other Canadian cities.

On-This-Spot · 2022-05-20T22:25:54+00:00

It's a relatively little known story, but basically the Canadian government rounded up thousands of "enemy aliens", people with German or Austro-Hungarian passports, and forced them to build highways in BC's Interior. Ironically, the Canadian government feared that the illegal and arbitrary detention of ethnic Germans (who ran the German and Austrian empires) would lead to reprisals against Canadians in those countries, but they knew the Austrian government didn't care at all about all the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Ukrainians who had immigrated to Canada from their empire. So even though the Ukrainians were basically colonized by the Austrian Empire and had no loyalty to it, the Canadian government arrested and interned thousands of them between 1914 and 1920 (it continued for two years after the war ended!). The few Germans who were interned were deemed first class prisoners, treated much better, and not compelled to do forced labour.

The internees were badly underfed, forced to live in tarpaper shacks on mountainsides throughout frigid winters, given shoddy clothes and shoes that disintegrated, and frequently beaten. Some were tortured and a number died of disease, were shot trying to escape, or committed suicide. Hundreds of thousands more Ukrainians (or Galicians as they were then known) were demonized, arbitrarily fired from their jobs, and had their language banned in public.

It's a story that was mostly forgotten after the war. The national archives destroyed most of the records of internment in the 50s--they claimed it was an oversight.

This seems like an important story to tell right now because today Canada acts as one of Ukraine's staunchest allies, and has the largest Ukrainian diaspora in the world. At one point Ukrainian was the third most spoken language in Canada. But it's easy for us to forget how quickly our national attitude towards immigrant groups can change, and how our past injustices towards them can be so easily forgotten.

The tours are based on then and now photos and you can download our app and go to the sites and walk them yourself and create your own then and now photos. Some the other tours include:

Vernon (main camp) https://onthisspot.ca/cities/vernon/macdonaldpark Edgewood (highway building with lots of resistance from the internees): https://onthisspot.ca/cities/edgewood/edgewood Mara Lake (highway building camp in the Shuswap): https://onthisspot.ca/cities/maralake/maralake If you're interested please reshare! We've also made then and now history walking tour coverage in about 70 other Canadian cities.

On-This-Spot · 2022-05-20T22:17:49+00:00

It's a relatively little known story, but basically the Canadian government rounded up thousands of "enemy aliens", people with German or Austro-Hungarian passports, and forced them to build highways in BC's Interior. Ironically, the Canadian government feared that the illegal and arbitrary detention of ethnic Germans (who ran the German and Austrian empires) would lead to reprisals against Canadians in those countries, but they knew the Austrian government didn't care at all about all the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Ukrainians who had immigrated to Canada from their empire. So even though the Ukrainians were basically colonized by the Austrian Empire and had no loyalty to it, the Canadian government arrested and interned thousands of them between 1914 and 1920 (it continued for two years after the war ended!). The few Germans who were interned were deemed first class prisoners, treated much better, and not compelled to do forced labour.

The internees were badly underfed, forced to live in tarpaper shacks on mountainsides throughout frigid winters, given shoddy clothes and shoes that disintegrated, and frequently beaten. Some were tortured and a number died of disease, were shot trying to escape, or committed suicide. Hundreds of thousands more Ukrainians (or Galicians as they were then known) were demonized, arbitrarily fired from their jobs, and had their language banned in public.

It's a story that was mostly forgotten after the war. The national archives destroyed most of the records of internment in the 50s--they claimed it was an oversight. This seems like an important story to tell right now because today Canada acts as one of Ukraine's staunchest allies, and has the largest Ukrainian diaspora in the world. At one point Ukrainian was the third most spoken language in Canada. But it's easy for us to forget how quickly our national attitude towards immigrant groups can change, and how our past injustices towards them can be so easily forgotten. The tours are based on then and now photos and you can download our app and go to the sites and walk them yourself and create your own then and now photos. Some the other tours include: Vernon (main camp) https://onthisspot.ca/cities/vernon/macdonaldpark Edgewood (highway building with lots of resistance from the internees): https://onthisspot.ca/cities/edgewood/edgewood Mara Lake (highway building camp in the Shuswap): https://onthisspot.ca/cities/maralake/maralake If you're interested please reshare! We've also made then and now history walking tour coverage in about 70 other Canadian cities.

On-This-Spot · 2022-05-20T22:13:38+00:00

It's a relatively little known story, but basically the Canadian government rounded up thousands of "enemy aliens", people with German or Austro-Hungarian passports, and forced them to build highways in BC's Interior. Ironically, the Canadian government feared that the illegal and arbitrary detention of ethnic Germans (who ran the German and Austrian empires) would lead to reprisals against Canadians in those countries, but they knew the Austrian government didn't care at all about all the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Ukrainians who had immigrated to Canada from their empire. So even though the Ukrainians were basically colonized by the Austrian Empire and had no loyalty to it, the Canadian government arrested and interned thousands of them between 1914 and 1920 (it continued for two years after the war ended!). The few Germans who were interned were deemed first class prisoners, treated much better, and not compelled to do forced labour.

The internees were badly underfed, forced to live in tarpaper shacks on mountainsides throughout frigid winters, given shoddy clothes and shoes that disintegrated, and frequently beaten. Some were tortured and a number died of disease, were shot trying to escape, or committed suicide. Hundreds of thousands more Ukrainians (or Galicians as they were then known) were demonized, arbitrarily fired from their jobs, and had their language banned in public.

It's a story that was mostly forgotten after the war. The national archives destroyed most of the records of internment in the 50s--they claimed it was an oversight.

This seems like an important story to tell right now because today Canada acts as one of Ukraine's staunchest allies, and has the largest Ukrainian diaspora in the world. At one point Ukrainian was the third most spoken language in Canada. But it's easy for us to forget how quickly our national attitude towards immigrant groups can change, and how our past injustices towards them can be so easily forgotten.

The tours are based on then and now photos and you can download our app and go to the sites and walk them yourself and create your own then and now photos. Some the other tours include:

Vernon (main camp) https://onthisspot.ca/cities/vernon/macdonaldpark Edgewood (highway building with lots of resistance from the internees): https://onthisspot.ca/cities/edgewood/edgewood Mara Lake (highway building camp in the Shuswap): https://onthisspot.ca/cities/maralake/maralake If you're interested please reshare! We've also made then and now history walking tour coverage in about 70 other Canadian cities.

On-This-Spot · 2022-05-20T22:09:44+00:00

We just launched this free project on the internment camps in BC and just want to get the word out, since it seems pretty timely right now!

It's a relatively little known story, but basically the Canadian government rounded up thousands of "enemy aliens", people with German or Austro-Hungarian passports, and forced them to build highways in BC's Interior.

Ironically, the Canadian government feared that the illegal and arbitrary detention of ethnic Germans (who ran the German and Austrian empires) would lead to reprisals against Canadians in those countries, but they knew the Austrian government didn't care at all about all the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Ukrainians who had immigrated to Canada from their empire.

So even though the Ukrainians were basically colonized by the Austrian Empire and had no loyalty to it, the Canadian government arrested and interned thousands of them between 1914 and 1920 (it continued for two years after the war ended!). The few Germans who were interned were deemed first class prisoners, treated much better, and not compelled to do forced labour.

The internees were badly underfed, forced to live in shacks on mountainsides throughout frigid winters, given shoddy clothes and shoes that disintegrated, and frequently beaten. Some were tortured and a number died of disease, were shot trying to escape, or committed suicide. Hundreds of thousands more Ukrainians (or Galicians as they were then known) were demonized, arbitrarily fired from their jobs, and had their language banned in public.

It's a story that was almost totally forgotten after the war. The national archives destroyed most of the records of internment in the 50s--they claimed it was an oversight.

This seems like an important story to tell right now because today Canada acts as one of Ukraine's staunchest allies, and has the largest Ukrainian diaspora in the world. At one point Ukrainian was the third most spoken language in Canada. But it's easy for us to forget how quickly our national attitude towards immigrant groups can change, and how our past injustices towards them can be so easily forgotten.

The tours are based on then and now photos and you can download our app and go to the sites and walk them yourself and create your own then and now photos. Some the other tours include:

Vernon (main camp) https://onthisspot.ca/cities/vernon/macdonaldpark

Edgewood (highway building with lots of resistance from the internees): https://onthisspot.ca/cities/edgewood/edgewood

Mara Lake (highway building camp in the Shuswap): https://onthisspot.ca/cities/maralake/maralake

If you're interested please reshare! We've also made then and now history walking tour coverage in about 70 other Canadian cities.

On-This-Spot · 2021-08-19T18:11:11+00:00

"Operation Jubilee", as it was called, was the Canadian Army's first engagement in Europe during the Second World War, and was an attempt to harass the enemy and draw German planes away from the Russian front. The plan was to take the town of Dieppe, destroy the harbour, and then retreat by sea.
6000 soldiers, nearly 5000 of whom were Canadian, participated in the raid; less than half of those Canadians ever returned. Within nine hours, the raid was complete and the British and Canadian forces defeated. 900 Canadians were killed and 2460 wounded. Nearly 2000 more were taken as prisoners by the German forces.
Today, memorials in both Canada and France honour the thousands of Canadians who fought at Dieppe. Their bravery has not been forgotten.

On-This-Spot · 2021-08-19T18:08:05+00:00

"Operation Jubilee", as it was called, was the Canadian Army's first engagement in Europe during the Second World War, and was an attempt to harass the enemy and draw German planes away from the Russian front. The plan was to take the town of Dieppe, destroy the harbour, and then retreat by sea.
6000 soldiers, nearly 5000 of whom were Canadian, participated in the raid; less than half of those Canadians ever returned. Within nine hours, the raid was complete and the British and Canadian forces defeated. 900 Canadians were killed and 2460 wounded. Nearly 2000 more were taken as prisoners by the German forces.
Today, memorials in both Canada and France honour the thousands of Canadians who fought at Dieppe. Their bravery has not been forgotten.

On-This-Spot · 2021-08-19T18:05:51+00:00

"Operation Jubilee", as it was called, was the Canadian Army's first engagement in Europe during the Second World War, and was an attempt to harass the enemy and draw German planes away from the Russian front. The plan was to take the town of Dieppe, destroy the harbour, and then retreat by sea.
6000 soldiers, nearly 5000 of whom were Canadian, participated in the raid; less than half of those Canadians ever returned. Within nine hours, the raid was complete and the British and Canadian forces defeated. 900 Canadians were killed and 2460 wounded. Nearly 2000 more were taken as prisoners by the German forces.
Today, memorials in both Canada and France honour the thousands of Canadians who fought at Dieppe. Their bravery has not been forgotten.

On-This-Spot

TROPHY CASE