SHOCKING STATE OF CANADIAN INTERNEE CEMETERY PROTESTED
(November
17,2006)
A small Ukrainian Catholic cemetery located near La
Ferme, Quebec, site of the Spirit Lake internment camp from 13
January 1915 to 28 January 1917, is in danger of disappearing entirely
unless the federal government takes immediate steps to protect and
restore what many Ukrainian Canadians regard as a sacred place, worthy
of designation as a national historic site.
During a one-day symposium organized by the Spirit
Lake Camp Corporation, on Wednesday, representatives of the Ukrainian
Canadian community - Andrew Hladyshevsky, president of the Ukrainian
Canadian Foundation of Taras Shevchenko, and Dr Lubomyr Luciuk,
director of research for the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties
Association - visited the cemetery, located in the adjacent boreal
forest, at some distance from the main internment camp site.
Commenting, Dr Luciuk said: " In 1999, many of
the internee crosses were still standing, and, while obviously
neglected, this cemetery was surrounded by a small picket fence and
marked with a wooden sign describing it as the final resting place of
some of the men, and possibly children, held here during Canada's
first national internment operations. Most were Ukrainians who had been
herded up from the St Michael the Archangel Parish in Montreal, then
transported north by box car, here forced to labour for the profit of
their gaolers on the grounds of a large experimental farm. Today only
two crosses still stand, the picket fence is down, the site is almost
lost in the bush, and with it the memory of what happened here. While
we endorse the work that the Spirit Lake Camp Corporation has been
doing to establish an interpretive centre where the camp once stood, we
are alarmed at the lack of any care being shown for the cemetery. For
years now we have been asking Ottawa
to step in and protect the site. They have ignored our requests. We
would do this ourselves if we had the resources but, unfortunately,
despite all the promises made to us over a year ago not a penny of the
pledged funding has been received to date. We have today written to the
Minister of Canadian Heritage, the Honourable Bev Oda, asking her to
immediately provide us with the resources we need to acquire, restore
and protect in perpetuity this hallowed ground. Innocents are buried
there, far from their families and the communities they once knew. They
are the only Ukrainian Canadians left at La Ferme. That they lie here
only because of their needless imprisonment as "enemy aliens." Those
who so branded them have a moral duty to make sure that their final
resting place does not itself end up being buried by the bush,
neglected, forgotten, and finally lost."
For more information on UCCLA go to www.uccla.ca
To contact Dr Luciuk phone (613) 546-8364 or email luciuk@uccla.ca
To contact the Spirit Lake Camp Corporation phone Ghyslain Drolet,
(819) 732-8524