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Daily Life

Shelter -- Pioneer Homes in the West (continued)

Clearing the brush and trees was a very difficult and tiring job for everyone. The first months were spent clearing land and planting crops where they could. Women worked as hard to cook and clean and care for the children as they did in the fields and stables. They cleared brush, planted seeds, helped with the harvest and looked after the hens, pigs and cows. Many men left their homesteads to work in lumber camps, coal mines or on the railways. They wanted to earn money to buy more farm tools and food. The women and children stayed behind on their homesteads, and were overworked and often lonely.

Source		Source		Source
Threshing on a Ukrainian farm, St. Julien, Saskatchewan, 1916		Ukrainian woman feeding chickens on a farm near Ethelbert, Manitoba, 1930		Ukrainian women cutting logs, Athabasca, Alberta, circa 1930

Ukrainian Farm Communities

Life in their new land included finding time for families to worship and gather as a community. Ukrainian settlers built distinctive churches in the West, easily recognizable by their onion-shaped domes. Churches were centres of community life, as were the newspapers and schools, where children learned English and Ukrainian. People wanted their children to speak Ukrainian, to keep their culture alive. In their community centres, schools and churches, people gathered to celebrate weddings, attend funerals, share food, learn about their history, and share the joys and sorrows of their new land.

Source		Source		Source
Bishop Budka and parishioners in front of church, Borschiw, Alberta, 1916		Plum Ridge School, Manitoba's first school for Ukrainians, Pleasant Home, Manitoba, 1908		Ukrainian dance group, 1924

What were some of these sorrows? Some farmers were not successful. They gave up their land and moved to cities to work as labourers. Some people, especially English-speaking Canadians, treated Ukrainians disrespectfully simply because they were distinctive. The newcomers wore unique clothing, ate foods that were not common then, did not speak English or French, and attended their own churches. Some Canadians were hostile and discriminatory toward them.

Glossary

discrimination/discriminatory: treating a person or group unfairly, especially because of race, ethnicity, age or gender