They returned to Austria-Hungary (now is Ukraine) with encouraging reports on farming opportunities in Canada. They then returned to Canada with friends and families and settled in Alberta. In 1895, Dr. Joseph Oleskow from Halychyna toured Canada and wrote glowing reports and descriptions of farming on the Prairies. He published a booklet, "About the Free Lands", which encouraged Ukrainian immigration to Canada.
From these humble beginnings grew a Ukrainian Canadian community that today numbers more than one million people.
Why did Ukrainians come to Canada?
The decision to leave their homeland was not an easy one. In the late nineteenth century, many Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia faced economic hardship, poverty, limited access to land, and social and national discrimination. For peasant families, opportunities to improve their circumstances were often extremely limited.
Canada, by contrast, was actively seeking immigrants.
The Canadian government wanted settlers to populate and develop the vast Prairie West. Immigrants were needed to cultivate the land, build railways, work in mines and forests, and contribute to the development of growing communities and industries.
For many Ukrainians, Canada offered something increasingly difficult to find at home: land, opportunity, and hope for a better future for themselves and their children.
Pylypiw and Eleniak were among the first to make the journey. Their experience would soon be followed by thousands of others.
Leaving home for an uncertain future
The journey to Canada was long, difficult, and often perilous. Immigrants left behind parents, siblings, relatives, friends, familiar villages, and the land of their ancestors. Most arrived with very little money and few possessions.
What they lacked in material wealth, however, they brought in abundance: determination, resilience, a willingness to work, and a deep attachment to their language, culture, traditions, and homeland.
These qualities would prove essential as Ukrainian immigrants established farms, built homes, cleared the land, worked on the railways, entered the mines and forests, and established new communities across the Canadian Prairies.
The early settlers endured hardships that are difficult for many of us to imagine today. Yet they persevered, creating a new life while maintaining connections to the culture they had left behind.
The importance of Taras Shevchenko
For many of the early immigrants, Ukrainian culture was inseparable from the writings of Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine's great poet, writer, and national figure.
Many immigrants were familiar with Shevchenko's works before leaving Ukraine, and some brought copies of his poetry—including his famous Kobzar—with them to Canada.
Shevchenko's words spoke directly to people who understood poverty, injustice, displacement, and the longing for freedom. His compassion for ordinary people, his courage in the face of adversity, and his belief in human dignity provided inspiration to immigrants confronting the enormous challenges of establishing themselves in a new country.
For Ukrainian Canadians, Shevchenko became more than a literary figure. He became an important symbol of Ukrainian identity, cultural survival, and hope.
Building Ukrainian Canadian communities
Ukrainian immigrants did not simply establish farms and places to live. They began building communities almost immediately.
Churches became important centres of spiritual and social life, while community organizations, cultural groups, schools, reading rooms, and other institutions helped immigrants preserve their language and traditions and educate the next generation.
The development of Ukrainian cultural and educational life was particularly significant because many immigrants recognized that building a future in Canada did not mean abandoning their Ukrainian identity.
In Winnipeg, for example, a Taras Shevchenko Reading Room was operating by 1903, and the first recorded Shevchenko Concert took place on May 1, 1904. The Ukrainian-language press also began to develop. Kanadiysky Farmer (Canadian Farmer) began publication in 1903, and the first Ukrainian book was printed in Winnipeg the following year. A Ukrainian bookstore followed in 1905.
These developments helped create an intellectual and cultural network that connected Ukrainian communities across Canada.
In 1918, the Ukrainian Labor Temple Association was established, eventually becoming associated with the development of the Ukrainian Labour Temple movement and, later, the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians.
These organizations and institutions played an important role in helping Ukrainian immigrants navigate their new lives while preserving a sense of community and cultural identity.
From prairie settlers to Ukrainian Canadians
The first generations of Ukrainian immigrants played an important role in transforming Canada's Prairie provinces.
They cleared and cultivated land, established farms and businesses, built churches and community halls, organized cultural activities, and helped develop the towns and rural communities in which they lived.
Their contribution extended far beyond agriculture. Over succeeding generations, Ukrainian Canadians became teachers, doctors, lawyers, scientists, artists, business owners, politicians, military personnel, community leaders, and professionals in virtually every field of Canadian life.
The story that began with two immigrants arriving in Montreal in 1891 became a story of millions of individual journeys, families, communities, sacrifices, achievements, and contributions.
From two people to more than one million
On September 7, 1891, Ivan Pylypiw and Vasyl Eleniak could not have known what their arrival would eventually mean.
They came to Canada seeking opportunity, land, and a better future. Instead, they became the starting point of a remarkable chapter in Canadian history.
Over the next 135 years, successive generations of Ukrainians would come to Canada, arriving during different periods and under very different circumstances. Each wave added another chapter to the story of Ukrainian Canada.
Today, Ukrainian Canadians continue to celebrate and preserve their language, culture, traditions, music, dance, faith, food, history, and family heritage. They continue to pass these traditions from one generation to the next while contributing to the broader Canadian story.
The journey that began with two people crossing the Atlantic has become a story shared by more than one million Canadians of Ukrainian descent.
From two people to more than one million. It is estimated to be over 1,200,000 Canadians of Ukrainian descent.
From a journey across the ocean to 135 years of building a life in Canada.
From two Ukrainian immigrants to a vibrant Ukrainian Canadian community whose story continues to be written today.
This is the story of Ukrainian Canada.
A Genealogy Note:
My own Kalynchuk and Stetsko families were part of this early immigration story. They departed Hamburg, Germany, on April 15, 1897, and arrived at the port of Halifax, Nova Scotia, on April 30, 1897.
On April 30, 2027, my family will mark the 130th anniversary of their arrival in Canada. Their journey began in the village of Strilkivtsi, in the Borshchiv district of what was then Austria-Hungary and is now Ukraine.
Their story is a reminder that the history of Ukrainian immigration to Canada is not simply a story of dates, ships, and statistics. It is also the story of our own families—the people who left their homes, crossed the ocean, and began building new lives in Canada.
I encourage you to investigate your own family's arrival story. Passenger records, immigration files, homestead records, naturalization records, church records, census records, and community histories can help you discover when your ancestors arrived, where they came from, and how they began their lives in Canada.
Perhaps, like my own family, your ancestors were among the early Ukrainian immigrants who helped lay the foundations of Ukrainian Canada.
Further Reading:
Ukrainians in Alberta: Early History
https://www.ualberta.ca/en/canadian-institute-of-ukrainian-studies/centres-and-programs/kule-centre/ukrainians-in-alberta.html
Wasyl Eleniak, Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine
https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CE%5CL%5CEleniakWasyl.htm
Ivan Pylypow, Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine
https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CP%5CY%5CPylypowIvan.htm
Wasyl Eleniak, Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasyl_Eleniak
Iwan Pylypow, Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iwan_Pylypow
Trailblazers of Ukrainian emigration to Canada: Wasyl Eleniak and Ivan Pylypow
by Nay, Marshall A., 1924-
https://archive.org/details/trailblazersofuk0000naym
Ukrainian Canadian History and Settlement
https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/timeline/ukrainian-canadian-history
The First Immigration (1891-1914)
https://www.torugg.org/History/history_of_ukrainians_in_canada.html
The First Wave of Ukrainian Immigration to Canada (1891-1914)
https://usctoronto.ca/ukrainian/first-wave-ukrainian-immigration-canada-1891-1914-galicia/
Why did Ukrainians come to Canada?
The decision to leave their homeland was not an easy one. In the late nineteenth century, many Ukrainians in Eastern Galicia faced economic hardship, poverty, limited access to land, and social and national discrimination. For peasant families, opportunities to improve their circumstances were often extremely limited.
Canada, by contrast, was actively seeking immigrants.
The Canadian government wanted settlers to populate and develop the vast Prairie West. Immigrants were needed to cultivate the land, build railways, work in mines and forests, and contribute to the development of growing communities and industries.
For many Ukrainians, Canada offered something increasingly difficult to find at home: land, opportunity, and hope for a better future for themselves and their children.
Pylypiw and Eleniak were among the first to make the journey. Their experience would soon be followed by thousands of others.
Leaving home for an uncertain future
The journey to Canada was long, difficult, and often perilous. Immigrants left behind parents, siblings, relatives, friends, familiar villages, and the land of their ancestors. Most arrived with very little money and few possessions.
What they lacked in material wealth, however, they brought in abundance: determination, resilience, a willingness to work, and a deep attachment to their language, culture, traditions, and homeland.
These qualities would prove essential as Ukrainian immigrants established farms, built homes, cleared the land, worked on the railways, entered the mines and forests, and established new communities across the Canadian Prairies.
The early settlers endured hardships that are difficult for many of us to imagine today. Yet they persevered, creating a new life while maintaining connections to the culture they had left behind.
The importance of Taras Shevchenko
For many of the early immigrants, Ukrainian culture was inseparable from the writings of Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine's great poet, writer, and national figure.
Many immigrants were familiar with Shevchenko's works before leaving Ukraine, and some brought copies of his poetry—including his famous Kobzar—with them to Canada.
Shevchenko's words spoke directly to people who understood poverty, injustice, displacement, and the longing for freedom. His compassion for ordinary people, his courage in the face of adversity, and his belief in human dignity provided inspiration to immigrants confronting the enormous challenges of establishing themselves in a new country.
For Ukrainian Canadians, Shevchenko became more than a literary figure. He became an important symbol of Ukrainian identity, cultural survival, and hope.
Building Ukrainian Canadian communities
Ukrainian immigrants did not simply establish farms and places to live. They began building communities almost immediately.
Churches became important centres of spiritual and social life, while community organizations, cultural groups, schools, reading rooms, and other institutions helped immigrants preserve their language and traditions and educate the next generation.
The development of Ukrainian cultural and educational life was particularly significant because many immigrants recognized that building a future in Canada did not mean abandoning their Ukrainian identity.
In Winnipeg, for example, a Taras Shevchenko Reading Room was operating by 1903, and the first recorded Shevchenko Concert took place on May 1, 1904. The Ukrainian-language press also began to develop. Kanadiysky Farmer (Canadian Farmer) began publication in 1903, and the first Ukrainian book was printed in Winnipeg the following year. A Ukrainian bookstore followed in 1905.
These developments helped create an intellectual and cultural network that connected Ukrainian communities across Canada.
In 1918, the Ukrainian Labor Temple Association was established, eventually becoming associated with the development of the Ukrainian Labour Temple movement and, later, the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians.
These organizations and institutions played an important role in helping Ukrainian immigrants navigate their new lives while preserving a sense of community and cultural identity.
From prairie settlers to Ukrainian Canadians
The first generations of Ukrainian immigrants played an important role in transforming Canada's Prairie provinces.
They cleared and cultivated land, established farms and businesses, built churches and community halls, organized cultural activities, and helped develop the towns and rural communities in which they lived.
Their contribution extended far beyond agriculture. Over succeeding generations, Ukrainian Canadians became teachers, doctors, lawyers, scientists, artists, business owners, politicians, military personnel, community leaders, and professionals in virtually every field of Canadian life.
The story that began with two immigrants arriving in Montreal in 1891 became a story of millions of individual journeys, families, communities, sacrifices, achievements, and contributions.
From two people to more than one million
On September 7, 1891, Ivan Pylypiw and Vasyl Eleniak could not have known what their arrival would eventually mean.
They came to Canada seeking opportunity, land, and a better future. Instead, they became the starting point of a remarkable chapter in Canadian history.
Over the next 135 years, successive generations of Ukrainians would come to Canada, arriving during different periods and under very different circumstances. Each wave added another chapter to the story of Ukrainian Canada.
Today, Ukrainian Canadians continue to celebrate and preserve their language, culture, traditions, music, dance, faith, food, history, and family heritage. They continue to pass these traditions from one generation to the next while contributing to the broader Canadian story.
The journey that began with two people crossing the Atlantic has become a story shared by more than one million Canadians of Ukrainian descent.
From two people to more than one million. It is estimated to be over 1,200,000 Canadians of Ukrainian descent.
From a journey across the ocean to 135 years of building a life in Canada.
From two Ukrainian immigrants to a vibrant Ukrainian Canadian community whose story continues to be written today.
This is the story of Ukrainian Canada.
A Genealogy Note:
My own Kalynchuk and Stetsko families were part of this early immigration story. They departed Hamburg, Germany, on April 15, 1897, and arrived at the port of Halifax, Nova Scotia, on April 30, 1897.
On April 30, 2027, my family will mark the 130th anniversary of their arrival in Canada. Their journey began in the village of Strilkivtsi, in the Borshchiv district of what was then Austria-Hungary and is now Ukraine.
Their story is a reminder that the history of Ukrainian immigration to Canada is not simply a story of dates, ships, and statistics. It is also the story of our own families—the people who left their homes, crossed the ocean, and began building new lives in Canada.
I encourage you to investigate your own family's arrival story. Passenger records, immigration files, homestead records, naturalization records, church records, census records, and community histories can help you discover when your ancestors arrived, where they came from, and how they began their lives in Canada.
Perhaps, like my own family, your ancestors were among the early Ukrainian immigrants who helped lay the foundations of Ukrainian Canada.
Further Reading:
Ukrainians in Alberta: Early History
https://www.ualberta.ca/en/canadian-institute-of-ukrainian-studies/centres-and-programs/kule-centre/ukrainians-in-alberta.html
Wasyl Eleniak, Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine
https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CE%5CL%5CEleniakWasyl.htm
Ivan Pylypow, Internet Encyclopedia of Ukraine
https://www.encyclopediaofukraine.com/display.asp?linkpath=pages%5CP%5CY%5CPylypowIvan.htm
Wasyl Eleniak, Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wasyl_Eleniak
Iwan Pylypow, Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iwan_Pylypow
Trailblazers of Ukrainian emigration to Canada: Wasyl Eleniak and Ivan Pylypow
by Nay, Marshall A., 1924-
https://archive.org/details/trailblazersofuk0000naym
Ukrainian Canadian History and Settlement
https://thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/timeline/ukrainian-canadian-history
The First Immigration (1891-1914)
https://www.torugg.org/History/history_of_ukrainians_in_canada.html
The First Wave of Ukrainian Immigration to Canada (1891-1914)
https://usctoronto.ca/ukrainian/first-wave-ukrainian-immigration-canada-1891-1914-galicia/
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| Iwan Pylypow |
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| Wasyl Eleniak |
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| Advertisement to come to Canada, 1900s |
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