There were three significant waves of Ukrainian immigrants between the years of 1891-1914. Ukrainian-Canadians make up one of the largest groups to come to Canada and are said to have one of the biggest impacts of the development of Canada. 1 in 10 Canadians can trace their ancestry to the Ukraine, and Ukrainian is the 5th more commonly-spoken language in our country.
The first wave was when Russian started to industrialize and the Ukraine was kept in a state of 3rd world poverty. They Ukrainian revolted against the Russian Czar and Czar Nicholas 11 wasn’t going to take any chances so he posted Russian soldiers throughout the Ukraine. The Ukrainian peasantry were harassed, abused and arrested with little provocation.
A young Canadian ambassador to France, Philippe Roy, came to the idea to attract the “starving and oppressed Ukrainians.” The Ukrainians were mostly farmers and Roy drew many similarities between the large, flat unforested grasslands of the Ukraine to the Canadian prairies. Canada needed hardy farmers to build the west so plans were made up to attract the Ukrainians with free land, expense-paid travel and immediate citizenship. Sounds good, right? One problem stood in these peoples way, Russia. They forbade Ukrainians to leave the country. Thankfully in 1891 this wasn’t too hard to over come as the borders were generally porous and there was no passport system in place like today. So, the Canadian government officials put up posters in bordering town in eastern Germany, Romania and Serbia. By early summer of 1891 the first boatload of Ukrainian settlers landed in Montreal!
Many of these immigrants had little to their names. They were put onto trains and sent to the plains of Saskatchewan and Alberta. Once off the train, they were given 2 draft horses and a cart along with some basic farming tools and supplies. They were shown where their plot of land was on a map. Once they found their land they discovered that it was either a barren desert or a plot of forest. Like all of our immigrants they didn’t complain, they persevered as “for the first time in their lives they owned land, had freedom and were being treated with dignity.” So with “burning patriotism” they cleared those trees and dug irrigation channels through the deserts. They built homes, churches, roads and grain silos. By the end of 1914, the “First Wave”, there were more than one million Ukrainians in Canada’s west!
Our Great Grandfather Terrick immigrated from the Ukraine and went to Winnipeg Manitoba where our grandpa was born as first generation Canadian. Great Grandpa Terrick was born in Puhacze, a small village about 175 km from Warsaw. This photo is a copy of his naturalization certificate.