December 4, 2022 – Banff, Alberta
Some of the stone used to build the Banff Springs Hotel was mined using forced labour.
The Banff Springs Hotel was undergoing an expansion in 1914, when WWI broke out.
In a fit of paranoia that only war can induce, the Canadian government decided that approximately 8500 Eastern European settlers were a threat to Canada’s peace and tranquility. Internment camps were established across Canada to house the “subversives”.
A camp established at the foot of Castle Mountain near Banff housed 660 “enemy aliens”, mostly farmers and labourers recently immigrated from the Ukraine to western Canada.
The prisoners were to be used as military conscript labourers but there wasn’t a great deal of military infrastructure to be built in the Rocky Mountains. Recognizing the value of future tourism in the area, camp administrators turned the forced labour pool at their disposal to the task of building Park infrastructure.
Some of the roads we travelled near Banff today were constructed by Ukrainian prisoners of war. They cut trails in the bush, reclaimed land for future recreation areas, and quarried stone to be used in building projects.
This monument has been erected at the site of the Castle Mountain internment camp. It is entitled…
… “Why?”, in three languages.
Why? Pourquois? Чому?
GG
I never knew this, well done for bringing it to light.