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.
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.”
One evening, he decided that it was time to go. Instead of going back to the internment camp with the other prisoners at the end of the day, he escaped into the woods. He could hear the soldiers’ “bullets whistling through the trees” but he was not shot. He hid in the bush for a while, then changed his name and went to the Lethbridge area, where he worked in the coal mines. He kept away from people as much as he could until 1918. One day he was surprised to see a fellow internee walking down the street. Everyone had to wear masks at that time because of the Spanish Flu epidemic, but Yurij pulled down his mask to talk to the other man. A policeman saw him do that and fined him two dollars. While Yurij was counting out his coins, he said to the officer, “You may as well know, I am also an escapee from the prison camp.” The policeman looked at him in confusion. The fellow internee interjected to explain that the internees at Jasper had been released eighteen months ago. That was the first time Yurij realized that he was a free man.
Yurij travelled back to his old homestead in the Willingdon area, but was dismayed to find that his farm had been sold to someone else and his livestock had been divided up among the neighbours. He also realized that the people in the area thought he must have done something wrong. Otherwise, why had he been interned? The farmland in the Willingdon area was some of the best in the province. There wasn’t any left to buy, and even if there had been, Yurij didn’t feel comfortable staying in the area, nor did he have enough money to buy land there. He left for good and saved up enough money to buy another homestead. Good land was too expensive by this time, though, so he ended up with marginal farmland between Myrnam and St. Paul. It wasn’t until 1939 — a quarter of a century after being interned — that Yurij was able to save enough to buy a homestead in Innisfree that was comparable to the one he had lost in 1914.
In November of 2004 Marsha made the long trek to where Spirit Lake Internment Camp used to be. The railroad has long since been dismantled, so she flew to Val D’Or, then drove to Amos, where she met Ghyslain Drolet. He had been working towards putting together a Spirit Lake interpretive centre for a number of years. He took Marsha out to the cemetery at Spirit Lake first. It is now all grown over with brush and abandoned.
The person Anya Soloniuk is based upon, Mary Manko, was only six when she and her family were taken from their Montreal home and sent to Spirit Lake Internment Camp. Mary’s two-year-old sister Carolka died at the camp. Mary Manko was in her nineties when this book went to press; she is the last known survivor of the Ukrainian internment operations.
While she was at Spirit Lake, Marsha visited the Pikogan Community Centre. There were not many artefacts, but there were maps showing the Pikogan community’s traditional hunting ground in the early 1900s, so Marsha was able to confirm that her Anya could very well have met up with people from that community. At a store in Val D’Or that sold authentic Pikogan beadwork and crafts, she saw designs similar to what the Pikogan used in 1914. Marsha was able to purchase a bead necklace that is much like a Ukrainian gerdan.
Marsha is the author of Aram’s Choice (CLA Canadian Children’s Book of the Year Award finalist and nominee for the Silver Birch Express Award), Stolen Child (named a ResourceLinks Best of the Year selection and shortlisted for the CLA Book of the Year Award for Children), and Making Bombs for Hitler. Prisoners in the Promised Land was named a ResourceLinks Best of the Year selection.
Earlier novels include The Hunger, Hope’s War (nominated for the Manitoba Young Readers’ Choice Award, the Snow Willow Award, the Rocky Mountain Book Award and CBC’s Canada Reads People’s Choice book) and Nobody’s Child (nominated for the Red Maple Award, the Alberta Rocky Mountain Book Award, and the B.C. Stellar Award). She has written three picture books, Silver Threads, Enough and The Best Gifts, and edited an anthology called Kobzar’s Children: A Century of Untold Ukrainian Stories. Her newest book is One Step at a Time: A Vietnamese Child Finds Her Way.
Author’s Note
Events mentioned in this story did happen to actual people, but the characters themselves are fictional, with the exception of Mr. Foster, Pte. Palmer, Ivan Gregoraszczuk, Father Redkevych, Father Perepelytsia, and my grandfather, Yurij Feschuk.
Anya would never have graced these pages had it not been for the help of many people. First and foremost, I would like to acknowledge Mary Manko Haskett, the last survivor from the Montreal community, who was interned at Spirit Lake. Mary Manko’s personal story, and that of her sister Carolka, who died at the camp, as well as that of another little girl who was interned there, Stephania Pawliw, inspired me to write this story.
I would also like to thank Otto Boyko, whose father was interned at Spirit Lake, and my own father, Marsh Forchuk, for his crisp recall and his willingness to finally open up about my grandfather, despite the pain.
— M.S.
While the events described and some of the characters in this book may be based on actual historical events and real people, Anya Soloniuk is a fictional
character created by the author, and her diary is a work of fiction.
Copyright © 2007 by Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch.
Published by Scholastic Canada Ltd.
SCHOLASTIC and DEAR CANADA and logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.
All rights reserved under International and Pan–American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read this e-book on-screen. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher, Scholastic Canada Ltd., 604 King Street West, Toronto, Ontario M5V 1E1, Canada.
ISBN: 978-1-4431-2404-1
First eBook edition: October 2012
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