Spirit Lake Internment Centre Opening

La Ferme, Quebec - The Spirit Lake Internment Interpretive Centre will be opening to the general public by the Camp Spirit Lake Corporation (CSLC) on Saturday, June 25, 2011.  The official opening with dignitaries and special guests will be held in July.

The Spirit Lake Internment Camp was the second largest internment camp established between 1915-1917 during Canada’s First Internment Operations 1914-1920. Spirit Lake was unique among the other 24 internment camps established across Canada for several reasons. The overwhelming majority of the 1,200 people interned were Ukrainian; it was one of only two camps that held families; one of only two camps with barbed wire fencing and one of a few internment camps with an existing cemetery where prisoners who died at the camp are buried.  It is located at La Ferme, 370 miles north-west of Montreal in Quebec’s Abitibi Region.

Many of those unjustly interned were taken from the Montreal Area, including 60 families removed from the young Ukrainian Catholic Church Parish of St. Michael’s in Montreal. Some were also taken from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church Bukovynian Parish of St. John Suchawsky in nearby Lachine, Que., which was under the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church.  As Rev. Ihor Oshchipko, parish priest of St. Michaels’s states, “this was a major and painful blow to the early development of our young parish of St. Michael’s at that time.  It took many years to recover from this loss, both it terms of diminished members and psychologically, as over half our parish members were suddenly gone.”  Volodymyr Hayduk, head of St. George’s Ukrainian Orthodox Church Committee adds, “In 1945, 50 parishioners of Lachine’s St. John’s (Bukovynian) parish, no longer wanting to be under the Russian jurisdiction, began to form St. George parish in Lachine. The first president of the Executive Board of St. George was Heorgiy Towstiuk, who had carried an Austro-Hungarian passport, and was himself shipped off to Quebec’s northern internment. After his release, he apparently travelled to Quebec City many times to negotiate for the land on which St. George Church was to be built.  Towstiuk later became an outspoken Councilman of Ville St. Pierre”.

The idea of the Spirit Lake project, costing over one million dollars, has been underway for the last ten years. However, for the past three years, the Board of Directors of the Camp Spirit Lake Corporation, all volunteers, have worked intensely to build this Centre, with its interpretive museum to be opened to the general public.

James Slobodian, Chairperson of the CSLC Board of Directors, stated “Opening to the general public this June, is an historic event, with an important educational factor, remembering all affected communities, particularly Ukrainians. This Centre will forever honour the memory of those unjustly arrested as “enemy aliens”, bringing awareness to the internment story at Spirit Lake throughout Quebec and beyond.  The Centre will also show the impact internment had on our local area then and today.  Numerous bus tours have already been booked for tourists visiting this area, with this unique Centre as one place to visit.  We had to open to the general public first, as information about our Centre was already printed in over 800,000 tourist brochures distributed across Canada.  Everyone must be welcomed.”

This May, CSLC launched its official newsletter called “Le Barbel” (The Barbed Wire).  This will be a bilingual French-English newsletter about activities planned at the Spirit Lake Internment Interpretive Centre throughout the year and will be published six times yearly.  It also welcomes stories directly linked with Spirit Lake. It invites anyone who might have artefacts, documents or photos connected with Spirit Lake, to consider donating them to this Centre.  

The Camp Spirit Lake Corporation received a major grant from the federally-funded Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund (CFWWIRF), administered under the Shevchenko Foundation. This grant, along with other grants received from local area businesses, donations, and a grant from the Quebec provincial government, made the realization of this project possible.

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress, Quebec Provincial Council and Montreal Branch, have supported the Spirit Lake project over the years, maintaining close ties with its CSLC Board. Recently, UCC delegates from all organizations in Montreal unanimously passed a resolution reaffirming UCC Montreal’s continued support.  “We are very proud of James Slobodian and his team, their determination in completing the Spirit Lake project, overcoming many obstacles. This opening will coincide with the 120^th Anniversary of Ukrainian Settlement in Canada, thereby remembering the many hardships the community overcame in being accepted in their new homeland”, stated UCC Montreal president, Zorianna Hrycenko-Luhova.

The internment story is depicted in the award-winning documentary film Freedom Had A Price, Canada’s First Internment Operations 1914-1920, and the recently re-mastered documentary film Ukrainians in Quebec.  

For further information about the progress of the Spirit Lake Internment Interpretive Centre, please contact James Slobodian at 819-727-2267 or email campspiritlake@cableamos.com  Also visit the Centre’s web site www.campspiritlake.ca

PHOTOS

1 - L. to R.:  Yurij Luhovy producer-director of Freedom Had A Price and Ukrainians In Quebec with Volodymyr Hayduk, head of St. George's Parish Committee in Lachine and associate director of Ukrainians in Quebec

2 - L. to R.:  Andrij Hladyshevsky, President of Shevchenko Foundation and interim chair of CFWWIRF with James Slobodian, Camp Spirit Lake Corporation Board of Directors Chairperson