Photo of the Nykoluk family during the 1930's. Mary, Anne, Wasyl, John, and Violet Nykoluk with family friend Kost Solovey.
What intrigues you most about your ancestors’ immigration to Canada? What was my grandparents’ daily life like in Melnytsya Podilska, near the Dniester River? What were the political and social events that spurred them to leave their country in 1914? My efforts to answer my questions led me to explore first person accounts of Ukrainian and other immigrants to Canada. Recorded first-person accounts make an important contribution to history, and one of the tenets of expectation is that their accounts remain relatively unmodified by external writer’s agendas. I like to think of these first-person accounts as a type of “citizens’ research.” Unfortunately, family stories don’t last forever, and so anyone who takes the time to record first-person accounts is making a critical contribution towards our understanding of our own individual and collective past. Many of our immigrant ancestors experienced similar things. Many years ago, and again more recently, I read All of Baba’s Children, by Myrna Kostash (1977). Her book is a work of non-fiction, for which she interviewed a community of Ukrainian-Canadians east of Edmonton, Alberta in the 1970’s. The basis of her book was first-person accounts. Her book is now considered a Canadian classic and includes chapters on 16 different topics relevant to immigrating Ukrainians including why they left their ancestral villages, impacts of WWI and WW2, politics, assimilation within Canada, and racism. My online search into my own ancestry began around 2015 with a quest to find my grandparents’ names on trans-Atlantic passenger ships in 1914. I eventually found my grandfather’s name, Wasyl Nykoluk, on The Ships List website. Along with passenger lists, The Ships List also provides valuable first-person travel accounts from early European immigrants: https://www.theshipslist.com/accounts/index.shtml The beautiful book by Michael Mucz entitled Baba’s Kitchen Medicines: Folk Remedies of Ukrainian Settlers in Western Canada contains comprehensive research of Ukrainian anthropology, history, and ethnobotany using first person accounts of first Ukrainians and their descendants to Canada. Most early immigrant Ukrainians did not have access to, nor the money to pay doctors. This was also true when they still lived in their ancestral villages. Women typically held healing knowledge within each family. Nearby First Nations were also a source of knowledge about medicinal plants and how they could be used to treat health problems. Mucz’s collection of first-person accounts also includes ample information about daily life in Ukrainian ancestral villages. I grew up on a farm near the community of Riding Mountain, Manitoba. However, railway work also figured prominently in my family’s history. Long before they were able to buy their farm, my grandfather worked for the CNR near Sioux Lookout, Ontario. My grandmother finally joined him there in 1923. Thus, my grandfather wasn’t only familiar with the Canadian prairies, he also experienced the vast Ontario forests, rivers, and lakes shortly after leaving his ancestral village. He would have experienced the boom-and-bust nature, and often dangerous conditions, of immigrant railway work. The Virtual Museum, Taras Shevchenko Museum Community Stories was key in building my understanding of the role of early Ukrainians working on Canadian railroads. The link for this important and sizeable collection is: https://www.communitystories.ca/v1/pm_v2.php?id=story_line_index&fl=0&lg=English&ex=00000464&pos=1 Sandra Semchuk’s 2019 book The Stories Were Not Told: Canada’s First World War Internment Camps provides accounts by direct descendants of Ukrainian Internees – Canada’s first internees. Many Canadians do not know that there were numerous internment camps all across Canada during WWI, since government records were destroyed in the 1950’s. Many Ukrainians lost property, and some even lost their lives as a result of these unfortunate government policies. Semchuk’s book plays an important role in capturing the truths of this key time in history. Good general background history can be gleaned from Orest Martynowych’s 1991 book Ukrainians in Canada – the Formative Period: 1891-1924. My Ukrainian grandparents’ prolonged and difficult immigration inspired the writing of my recently released book Heart Stones: A Ukrainian Immigration Story of Love and Hope. Nykoluk family stories were included in addition to use of the above-mentioned first-person accounts as inspiration for many of my book's scenes. So many important events occurred during the years 1914 to 1923, in both Canada and Galician villages. In my historical fiction novel, I include scenes about the impacts of the beginning and end of WWI on my grandparents, my grandmother’s long wait to be reunited with my grandfather, Canadian Internment Camps during WWI, the Spanish Flu, Winnipeg General Strike and worker unrest, and discrimination against newcomers to Canada. The important role of the Ukrainian Red Cross in Winnipeg in reunifying Ukrainian families after WWI is also included. Even though it is a work of historical fiction, many readers of Heart Stones comment that my story reads more like non-fiction. It is my belief that this is because I made extensive use of first-person accounts for creating both scenes and dialogue. The collection of first-person accounts that I wrote about in this blog post are but a few of the key research resources I used for composing my manuscript. Visit my website for more details about Heart Stones, read Reviews, and check out my Bookstore page, listen to recent CBC radio interviews, read about my offerings for book clubs, and check out my other blog posts. While here on my website, you can download Chapter One from my book, it’s absolutely free! www.christinenykoluk.com Follow my author journey and read about other books on my Facebook account: https://www.facebook.com/christinenykolukauthor/
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Welcome...I'm Christine Nykoluk, author of Heart Stones, produced through FriesenPress and now available for purchase. TopicsArchives
December 2023
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