Park Prisoners.
The Untold Story of Western Canada’s National Parks, 1915 to 1946
Bill Waiser, ISBN-13:978-1-895618-74-7
Book Review
Some of our
National Parks have a very chequered past that most of us are unaware of. As we
drive through the front gates inviting the world in to enjoy Banff National
Park today there is little evidence of the misery that men lived to build that
portal.
Bill Waiser has
written a very informative book describing how many of the facilities, buildings,
roads and bridges were constructed during the war years and through the great
depression. The projects were designed by Canada’s federal government,
Provincial governments and National Parks Bureau. Riding Mountain National Park
in Manitoba, Prince Albert National Park in Saskatchewan, Banff and Jasper
Parks in Alberta as well as Yoho and Revelstoke National Parks in B.C. were all
beneficiaries of very cheap hand labor. Thousands of men were gathered up like
prisoners and housed in makeshift camps, forced to work like many had never
worked before. Some were elderly, some were very young and many torn from their
families for the first time. They suffered from loneliness, home-sickness, and
helplessness and from the weather. The endured crowded, often dirty camps and
the drudgery of difficult work far from creature comforts.
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| Memorial to the Internees That Helped Build Facilities in Our National Parks |
When Canada went
to war against Germany in 1914, there were more than half a million single men
from Eastern Europe who had immigrated to Canada. To protect our nation from
possible subversives among us, they were forced to report to RCMP stations
declaring where they lived and what they were doing monthly. If they failed to
report they were rounded up and placed in labor camps. The Canadian public were
not content to simply have these men interred but they should also be put to
work to earn their keep. Internment camps were set up in isolated places in the
country so it would not be easy for the prisoners to escape and cause mayhem.
Don’t forget, these men were guilty by being of Eastern European descent only
and came from Hungary, Turkey, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Austria, Germany considered
to be “pauper immigrants, and ignorant foreigners”. Many had small farms or
worked in factories throughout the country. Anyone not of British descent was
suspicious and the general populous fear of foreigners ran rampant. These
aliens were put to work building roads using wheel barrows, picks, shovels and
axes only, to keep costs down and make the jobs last. None of these men were
guilty of any sins. As we drive the road between Banff and Jasper, think of the
gangs of men toiling with their hand tools to make that terrain passable by
car. Castle Mountain was the site of the first internment camp in Canada
housing enemy aliens. None of these people thought that Canada would round up
her own people for no reason and effectively imprison them.
Imagine building
the road through the Kicking Horse Pass through Field and Golden, then on to
Revelstoke by hand. Think of the bridges that had to be built across some of
those raging rivers. Generally the men were fed decently but housing was
crowded, cold, wet and dirty. Some barracks or bunkhouses were tents or built
of logs. Outhouses, wash basins and rivers were the sanitary standards of the
day. I can’t imagine living in those crowded conditions. The rate of pay was
.25 per day for six days per week and there were rules about how they could
spend that.
After the war was
over the men collected their confiscated pay and allowed to go back to their
homes if they had not caused any problems. Troublemakers were deported.
In 1930 many
internment style work camps were reopened to house relief workers and
transients. These workers were generally any man who did not have a job during
the depression. Thousands of men wandered the country, riding the rails
searching for food and jobs of any kind. These men put considerable strain on
this country’s and cities resources to feed and house them. Many of them were
rounded up and shipped off to these forced labor camps to continue the work of
building facilities and roads in our parks. Once again, little machinery was
used as it was expensive to operate and took too many men’s jobs. Some of the
men who worked in these camps looked back on their experiences as very
beneficial to them. They had a place to live, good food to eat and made a
little bit of cash. Living conditions were very rustic to say the least. Elk
Island National Park had workers clearing brush for bison pastures, Prince
Albert National Park used transients for building many buildings such as the
museum at Waskesiu and repaired water and sewer lines. Riding Mountain,
Waterton, Miette Hot Springs, and Banff all had buildings and roads improved or
built by the relief workers and transients.
During the Second
World War, “Conchies,” or Conscientious Objectors who did not believe in
fighting were put to work for the betterment of the country. Many Mennonites, Doukhobor’s,
Hutterites and Jehovah’s Witnesses were housed in small camps throughout most
National Parks in Western Canada doing works that benefited the community as a
whole. Trail cutting, road and building improvements, firewood cutting and any
job deemed necessary were done. Most of these Conchies were very hard workers
but also very homesick and worried about their families at home. Many had never
been away from their families before. They earned around .50 per day and some
of their wages were sent home to their families. These men worked very hard and
accomplished much using their hands and ingenuity developed and practised on
their own farms.
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| Meadows Below Castle Mountain in Banff Where Work Camps Held Japanese Detainees |
After the Japanese invasion of Pearle Harbour,
all Japanese male citizens living near Canada’s west coast were rounded up and torn
from their families and businesses and sent to remote camps far inland so they
could not be of assistance to the pending Japanese invasion thought to be imminent.
They lost everything with no compensation leaving them and their families
destitute, frightened and under suspicion and prejudice. Jasper, Blue River, Tete
Jaune Cache were areas where Japanese camps were set up to supply labor clearing
right-of-way and building the road through the Yellowhead Pass. Their rate of
pay was .25 per hour but they had to pay for their camp and food as well as
send money home to families. The internees worked steadily but did not exert
themselves and devised a strategy of passive resistance to protest being separated
from their families. This caused much strife between guards, parks and
government supervisors who expected much more production from each camp. There
is a small plaque commemorating the Japanese along the side of highway 1a
between Banff and Lake Louise.
Also during World
War 2 something had to be done with German Prisoners-of-war being held in POW
camps at Medicine Hat and Lethbridge. Most of these captives had been captured
in North Africa and shipped to Canada to prevent them from rejoining the German
war effort. One of these captives was my Dad’s cousin Gottfried Scriba. He did
not get sent to some of our labor camps but spent his time at Medicine Hat
before being sent to my Grand Father’s farm at Heart Valley, Alberta. Here, he
was under the direct supervision of Grandpa. My grandparents, German immigrants
since 1927, also had to report to the RCMP at Spirit River regularly, which was
no small feat in those years. It required a trip by team and wagon of more than
30 miles to accomplish. There were some German immigrants from our area who
were rounded up and kept in camps because of some suspicious activities.
Gottfried enjoyed his time at the farm very much and talked about it in later
years with fondness and thankfulness. After the war was over, Grandpa received
a letter from the Canadian Government ordering him to “produce one live
prisoner-of-war, Gottfried Scriba, to the train station on such and such a
date.” Gottfried was shipped back to Germany to be repatriated.
Other German
prisoners were not so lucky. Many of them were sent to detention camps to work
off their keep doing all sorts of jobs. These camps were placed in isolated
regions making it very difficult to escape from and cause turmoil in our
country. The National Parks Bureau received prisoners which were sent to
various regions from Western Ontario though Alberta. They cut fuel wood, pulp
wood and built camp housing then tore it down when finished. Generally, the men
were paid .50 per day, were fed and housed well and had some freedom. These
camps were not like POW camps we hear of in Japan or Germany. Many of the POWs
made life-long friends with fellow prisoners and guards.
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| Spectacular Scenery Visits Made Possible by Hard Work of Many Detained Workers |
We have had,
since these times, apologies made by government to the Japanese people for
their treatment. All of the people above, except for the German POWs had done
nothing wrong. They were victims of the hard times that Canada was going
through as well as deep seated fears about possible subversives living among
us. It continues today with the influx of Muslim immigrants coming from very
war-like countries. Can we learn from the past or will we continue to be very
suspicious of people who look a certain way or speak a different language? Are
our policies of freedom-of-speech, freedom-of-religion, freedom-to-do-whatever
get us in trouble down the road? I look back at the past one hundred years and
wonder at the changes in government policy to immigrants. Europeans came and
learned the rules-of-law, the language of the country and adapted to the land
through very difficult times. They assimilated into the landscape and local
culture of their communities while adding their own colours in harmony to build
very rich and strong co-operative efforts to make a strong and united land. They
built the roads, communities and added the convenience we do not think about
today. Running water, electricity, telephones all came to be everyday
conveniences which were unheard of in my parents and grandparents lifetime.
Will our new refugees and immigrants add to the land or will they subvert the
building process? All I can say is that we will be watchful and try to be aware
of what is happening within our own communities.
I talked to one
elderly lady within the past year who said she would never go back to Banff.
She remembers it being a horrific trip on some of the worst roads. She recalls when
there were no services to be had and it just wasn’t worth the trouble. I would
say that it was during the late 1940s or early 1950s when she was last there.
She is unaware of the new difficulties Banff is having with crowded streets
thronging with foreign tourists.
As we drive
through our National Parks of Alberta, B.C., Saskatchewan and Manitoba,
remember the hard work, human suffering and difficulties that some people
endured to make them what we so treasure now. Take a look at the roads over the
passes and up to Columbia Icefields and to Golden and pause for a moment using
your imagination to see hundreds of men wielding a pick axe, shovel and wheel
barrow building these roadways.
I’d like to thank Bill Waiser for bringing this story to
light. Our history provides many lessons that can be learned from and that we
need to never to forget.
