Section 2

A sheet of birch bark. Canada, at Last!

After about ten days, our ship arrived in Halifax. This was a short trip compared to some which took as long as three weeks. We spent a few days there before boarding the train for Dauphin where we found a few families from Kolomaya Country, - Slyziuk [margin correction; typed “Slzuik”], Pidlisecky, Genik, Hegrych [margin: Negrych(?)], Tokarcuk [margin: Tokarchuk]. The brothers Syrotuiks settled on a farm near Ethelbert. The railroad ended in Dauphin at that time and further transportation had to be made in a horse drawn wagon. We hired a farmer, Mr. Childs, to transport us 30 miles but the last two miles from our destination had to be walked. Our belongings and one-year old sister were carried to our new homestead. We found a nice clearing by Drifting River and that is where we built our log hut, covering it with bark. This was our first residence in Canada. It had no windows or doors. From branches, which were plentiful, we made our beds on the ground and also used them to chase away the hordes of mosquitoes.

A family walking a trail through the woods.
Illustration: A family walking a trail through the woods.
A bark-roofed hut with beds of branches.
Illustration: A bark-roofed hut with beds of branches.
Galician immigrants, including women in headscarves and a small child, standing on a covered wooden platform beside a railway car, about 1911.
Archival photograph Galician immigrants in Quebec, about 1911, photographed by William James Topley. The Hryhorczuks had landed at Halifax in 1896; these are other people from the same part of Europe, fifteen years later. Library and Archives Canada, MIKAN 3193424. CC BY 2.0. Source
Immigrants seated at long tables in a large hall while an officer in a peaked cap checks papers, Pier 21, Halifax, May 1952.
Archival photograph Editorial context, not the 1896 landing. New arrivals in the examination hall at Pier 21, Halifax, in May 1952, photographed by Chris Lund for the National Film Board. Pier 21 opened in 1928, long after the family passed through Halifax. Library and Archives Canada, PA-111579. Source
Three thatched log houses on open ground, with a family standing in the yard. A lantern slide labelled Galician Settlers.
Archival photograph Houses of Galician settlers in Canada, about 1900–1911: log walls and thatched roofs. The same kind of first house as the bark-roofed hut by Drifting River, and not that hut. Agnes Deans Cameron, CC BY-SA 4.0. Source

Illustrated online edition. The memoir text follows the 2011 copy compiled by Rene Nicholas Bilodeau.