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!
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www.christinenykoluk.com

Follow my author journey and read about other books on my Facebook account:
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https://www.facebook.com/christinenykolukauthor/
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My note: Thank You to the Canmore Library for featuring me for the month of February, I've copied and pasted the interview here for your reading convenience.

Did you know that there are over 100 authors who call Canmore their home? We are so excited to shine the spotlight on local authors for our newsletter subscribers! 
 
We are thrilled to introduce Christine Nykoluk as our local author spotlight this month! She has written for both work and pleasure for over 30 years, writing in a variety of styles. In early 2023, she published her first historical fiction novel Heart Stones – A Ukrainian Immigration Story of Love and Hope. You can read reviews of her book and check out her Blog Page at www.christinenykoluk.com.
 
Read our interview with Christine below!
 
What led you to start writing?  
I worked as a field-based Rangeland Management Specialist for the federal government for 23 years and there was a need for writing in my work group. I viewed this as a great opportunity. I wrote rangeland management reports using field data I’d collected, newsletters for our clients (ie. translating science into “everyday language”), and near the end of my career, I designed and taught range management related courses. I was also a “ghost writer” for other land managers so that their innovative vegetation management techniques could be shared with a wider audience. A professional communications group assisted me in all this.
 
After I retired in 2012, I started researching my paternal grandparents’ immigration and I realized that their story was unique – they were separated for nine years during and after WWI. I’d earlier thought that writing a novel would be a good lifetime accomplishment but I knew that only a compelling story would enable me to see it through.  I explored my grandparents’ experience through historical fiction written with abundant dialogue – thus Heart Stones: A Ukrainian Immigration Story of Love and Hope was published in early 2023.
 
What advice would you give to any committed writer? 
Write from a subject matter expertise if you can (when you are beginning), most workplaces need good writers, and it usually pays better than publishing a novel! Your time spent writing may even be pensionable. It’s a way to practise your craft and helps you cultivate an audience for your work.
 
Write every day if possible, it keeps your characters and subject matter alive. Be sure to read Stephen King’s book “On Writing”, it is the best book I’ve read on how to write a novel. Join a writing group so that you can have your work critiqued. This is very important.
 
Engage your audience by including an emotional element in your story, it helps keep readers interested.
 
How do you get your creativity flowing?
I simply make an effort to begin and then my creativity follows.  I firmly believe that the most important step is simply getting words onto the page. Just write without evaluating, there’s plenty of time for editing later. Editing is a different process than creating. I typically try to write for an hour, but it often turns out that I write for longer.
 
I read books in a variety of genres and I try to be open to anything that I see or hear during my day – anything is fodder for my next scene.  I pay attention to how people talk and act and I try to identify a person who exemplifies the character I am trying to create and then I “copy” them.
 
Give a shout-out to a fellow author.
I’d like to mention three of my favorite Canadian writers: 

Harley Rustad – I enjoyed his book Lost in the Valley of Death and I love listening to him speak about writing.
 
Louise Penny – I’ve read all of her books, I enjoy the way she constructs her characters and mysteries.
 
Richard Wagamese – his book Embers made a big impression on me.
 
What aspect of writing have you most improved in over time? What resources helped you most in this area?
I decided to learn how to write dialogue for fiction. I paid close attention to how authors I admired wrote dialogue, and I asked my writing group for feedback, to make sure that my dialogue sounded natural. Nikki Tate and her online Writers on Fire group helped me so much. I couldn’t have completed my novel without them!
 
Using the voice function in Word also helped me to edit dialogue. Hearing is different than reading it.

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Place a hold on Christine's book Heart Stones today! You can order it through interlibrary loan at libraries in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Be sure to search her website for where you can buy her book, download a free copy of Chapter One, plus ideas for Book Clubs.