Perspective: Ukrainian Immigrants

After 1895, Ukrainian immigrants, sometimes as individuals, more often in groups of families, arrived by the hundreds in Winnipeg. In the large immigration sheds beside the CPR station, they were grouped together, assigned a colonization agent, and escorted to areas free for settlement. Unlike American, Scandinavian, and British immigrants, the Ukrainians often chose specific areas of the West to settle, notably within the parkland regions of the prairies, which were wooded and well watered. Although this choice affected their farming prospects, especially in the first years when tree stumps and stones had to be removed from the soil, this land was strikingly similar to their homeland in Europe. Access to large wood supplies was likely important to Ukrainians who had faced heavy wood taxes at home. Settlements in Manitoba, then at Edna-Star, began attracting later arrivals and forming the large Ukrainian group settlements that remain cohesive to the present day.

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