Eighty Thousand Voices - Lethbridge Exhibition Park 2013

Eighty Thousand Voices
one of the songs presented at the Calgary/Banff unveiling
June/September 2013
amk

Between September 30, 1914 and November 7, 1916, hundreds of civilian internees cycled through the Lethbridge Internment Camp, one of 24 such sites in Canada first National Internment Operations. The camp operations treated men, women and children who arrived in Canada carrying Austro Hungarian Empire documents as enemy aliens.  In hindsight it has been revealed that most of them were ethnic Ukrainians, immigrants to Canada, whose homeland was caught in the borderland territorial land grabs by empires surrounding Ukraine.

The impact of this type of war measure's act upon newly minted (or almost minted) Canadians, was huge. In this 99th anniversary year of commencement of the First World War, the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association and Lethbridge city officials are unveiling a permanent memorial plaque to these civil internees on Tuesday, October 29th at 1:30 PM at the Lethbridge Exhibition Park, 3401 Parkside Drive South.

The ceremony will take place outside the South entrance of Heritage Hall, pending weather. With significant construction under-way in the area, traffic flow issues may cause guests concern. Therefore Calgary's Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Association is planning to arrange for transportation for interested guests to the site at Lethbridge Exhibition Park.

For more information contact UKRAINIAN CANADIAN PROFESSIONAL & BUSINESS ASSOCIATION OF CALGARY at 403-670-5477 or e-mail: admin@ucpbacalgary.org or www.ucpbacalgary.ca.  To make a donation, please contact Roman at  media@uccla.ca.

National Internment Art Mural Project

food-alovestory.com

The Sunflower is widely accepted as the flower of Ukraine. It's head smilingly follows the sun through the day's journey across the sky. Fields of Sunflowers grow on Ukraine's Farmlands, for its rich oil - Beauty, Food, and Balm.

The scattered seeds of the Sunflower, those thousands of men, women and children of Ukraine and Eastern Europe who were affected by the internment operations in Canada during World War 1 will be honored with a special project being launched February 20, 2013.   Vernon, British Columbia Artist Michelle Lougherty is announcing the official launch of this National Internment Art Mural Project. Specially created murals, designed to capture the imagination of viewers with the purpose of edifying the memory of those persons and their families will be appearing in communities across Canada over the next few years.

The artist, Michelle Lougherty is exploring her personal family's experience through this project. Her direct connections with the people, their lives, the hardship, the trauma, fear and shame - and the unusual manner in which this ancestral experience has shaped her life will come to life on the murals. Ultimately, she and her team will be mounting murals across Canada, in the 24 locations associated with the Internment experience.

At a loss for words, I struggle with this period myself - knowing that my family also lost contact with persons known to them through this experience. Where they went, what was their fate, what experiences they weathered - the stories are yet untold. For it is these stories that continue to resonate just under the surface of the bubbling Ukrainian community in Calgary I believe. Proud to be Ukrainian? Perhaps some families had it drummed out of them, and they have assimilated as quickly as was possible - severing ties with family and ancestral memory.

If you are in any way moved by this experience, I sincerely hope you will open the conversation with individuals in our midst whose lives were touched by Canada's National Internment Operation of the World War 1 period. Our Canadian history, ancestral culture, and social fabric of the community could all benefit from this opportunity of healing.

As the artist says "it is only in learning from the past, ...we become the wings of a better future".

St. Mary's Ukrainian Orthodox Church, in Vernon, British Columbia - on February 20, 2013 - at 2 PM will be the launch of this project, an opportunity for project coordinators and those moved by the Internment experience to collaborate. Those who have historical artifacts of the period, or photos, or recollections, may be able to contribute to the shaping of these murals - please consider this as a gift of your time, for Canada's future.

For more information go to www.internmentcanada.ca.

And for more about the Sunflower Project go to www.michelleloughery.org.

Castle Mountain

amk2013- At the base of Castle Mountain, January 3, 2013

     In 1912, Calgary Stampede Champion organizer, Guy Weadick arranged for the Canadian Pacific railway company to transport interested Stampede visitors from across the prairies for a reduced return fare. It was a coup of marketing that ensured many visitors to the Stampede, among them the thousands of new Ukrainian speaking Canadian settlers. Then, in 1912, they gathered in Calgary as a community, and consecrated the first Ukrainian church in Calgary.

The same railway company, just a couple of years later, participated in something less festive and savory. Starting in 1914 and through 1917 the railway served as a delivery system to move "enemy aliens", those who held Austrian papers, therefore "technically" enemies of the Canadian state during World War 1, from freedom to enjoy Canada's economic opportunities, to forced labour and prison in Canada's First World War Internment Camps.

We recently hiked to the waterfalls in Johnson Canyon, located in Canada's Rocky Mountains, west of Calgary. Other hardy visitors also enjoyed the walk, on a cold winter day, made beautiful by the sparkling snow and icy rivers. The water gushing from under the ice and snow, rushing into the frigid river that steamed before it froze was a sight to behold.

Then we decided to check on the Castle Mountain Internment Camp.

amk2013

     Castle Mountain Internment Camp was an ideal place to confine "enemy aliens" and "suspected enemy sympathizers" during Canada's World War 1 efforts.  In true fact, these people were among the thousands who craved the kind of freedom Canada could provide - and many of their fellow immigrants would prove this point by joining the war effort in Canada's military service to defend these freedoms. 

amk2013

Located at the foot of Castle Mountain, prisoners called the tent camps home for the duration of the war.  Grim, totally isolated, confinement really wasn't much necessary for most because of the exhausting forced labour and severe Rocky Mountain terrain and climate.  Today valued tourists and visitors to Banff National Park have scant clue that much of the infrastructure of Banff National Park took shaped during those forced labour years.   

amk2013

To get there take the Castle Mountain turnoff from highway 1, that's Highway 93.  You make a right and then a left onto 1A.  Continue west towards Lake Louise. The memorial is on the right, and the Internment Camp is somewhere on the left, but there are no markings, probably because this is a historical site that should be preserved.

The memorial was placed in the summer of 1995.  PLAST Ukrainian Scouts had a summer camp out there, (my husband as a helper), and searched to find the actual site of the Internment Camp.  They found traces in a bit of a clearing,  because the trees cut down in those internment camp years hadn't grown back yet.  The PLAST Ukrainian Scouts group found barbed wire still laying on the ground and there were other signs that people had been there, deep in the mountain wilderness.  Mounds of earth caused the young people to become somber in the erroneous belief that they might have been graves.  

amk2013

The site is not far from the railway line, which runs parallel with the river.  It is important to note that general wisdom has it, the internment camp is situated somewhere between the river and the highway, on the opposite side from the actual monument. Clearly Parks Canada doesn't want any persons interfering in the natural processes of history. Now there is a convenient parking spot close to the monument which can be used by guests visiting the general area.  

amk2013 - The crystal clear blue waters of the Bow, that flows through the city of Calgary - in front of Castle Mountain near the Internment Camp.  

http://myrockymountainwindow.com/category/national-mountain-parks/banff-national-park/castle-mountain/