Ottawa: Making a Capital - Constuire une capitale

Polish Immigrants in Northern Ontario and the Ottawa Valley during the Early Twentieth Century

Polish Immigrants in Northern Ontario and the Ottawa Valley during the Early Twentieth Century Jan Grabowski Polish immigrationto Canada began as atrickle inthe 1830s, following Poland's failed uprising against tsarist Russia. The trickle grew to a steady flow at the end of the nineteenth century. The most significant increase occurred during the Laurier years when the Canadian government implemented apolicy to open andpopulate the west. Nevertheless, Polish immigration wasby no means sizeable, even among central- and eastern-European ethnic groups that came to Canada. Poles fell well behind the Germans and the Ukrainians, for instance. Furthermore, there is little precise information for a contemporary researcher to gather in order to determine the exact number of Polish immigrants to Canada during this period.1 First, Poland was still not an independent state at that time and, consequently, these migrants came with Russian, German or Austro-Hungarian passports, depending upon their point of departure. Canadian officials, often unaware of or unconcerned with ethnic distinctions, used citizenship criteria based on the documents supplied by immigrants to gather census data. Second, the sense of national identityamongthese immigrantswas not always developed. As lateas 1936, for example, during the last pre-World War II national census in Poland, over one million people chose to describe themselves as "locals."The confusion was most evident inthe eastern parts of the country which was inhabited by Poles, Ruthenians, Bukowinians, Russians, Galicians, Lithuanians and other, less numerous, ethnic groups. Additionally, the primary distinction between many such people lay intheir religion rather than in language. Catholicismwas most often associated with the Poles, and the Orthodox church with the Ukrainians. The "Old" Immigrant Population: The Kashubs Guided by Canadian authorities and their own desire for land, the vast majority of Poles settled in the prairies. While a clear majority of Polish immigrants settled in the West, several thousand decided to stay in the Ottawa Valley. Their decision seems to have been linked, in part, to the presence of an old Polish community in the Renfrew area, the Kashubs. The Kashubs, who hailed from the German part of partitioned Poland, arrived in the early 1860s and established several villages in the upper Ottawa Valley.2 Their tenacity and industriousness allowed them to prosper as farmers and in the lumber trade. According to the 1911 census there were 2,300 Poles born in Germany living in Renfrew County. Another 400 were born either under Russian orAustro-Hungarian rule.3 Tothis total one must add the Canadian-born children of Kashub immigrants. 252 Construire une capitale - Ottawa - Making a Capital The existence of the Kashub communities was no secret to the second wave of immigrants and the Polish clergy in Canada who provided the newcomers with some information about their new country. As the news of these communities spread, some Laurier-era immigrants decided to establish themselves in the vicinity of the capital rather than the unfamiliar west. A majority of Poles coming to Canada during the early twentieth century were agricultural labourers, non-inheriting farmers and farmers' sons. Back home, they were likely to have been involved in salaried work. For quite a few of the newcomers the Ottawa Valley was a logical choice. Not surprisingly, there were very few Poles who chose to establish themselves in the city of Ottawa.4 The government had little use for the immigrants flocking into the cities, and it vigorously pursued a policy of settling them in remote rural areas. Also, and perhaps most significantly, during the opening years of the twentieth century, job opportunities beckoned in mines and lumber camps in and around Sudbury, Cobalt, Cochrane and Timmins.5 In 1894, the Canadian Pacific Railway line connected the Polish settlements in the upper Ottawa Valleywiththe capital, facilitatingfurther colonization and - inthe process - opening the door to an increased Polish presence in the area. The 1921 census identifies 4,000 people of Polish descent living in Renfrew County. Most of the immigrants from this second wave came from the Austro-Hungarian empire and were referred to as Galicians. Polish lumbermen, Renfrew area, circa 1890. Source: National Archives of Canada, PA-148295. Polish Immigrants in Northern Ontario and the Ottawa Valley 253 However, these numbers may have underestimatedthe true size of the local Polishimmigrant population. Most of the day-labourers, miners and lumberjacks tended to drift from one area to another, following work opportunities, and thus often eluded census officials. Many Polish immigrants were single men...