BOOK REVIEWS: Michael Ewanchuk's tenth book about Ukrainian settlement In Canada (06/27/99)

BOOK REVIEWS

Michael Ewanchuk's tenth book about Ukrainian settlement In Canada

East of the Red: Early Ukrainian Settlements 1896-1930 by Michael Ewanchuk. Winnipeg: published by the author, 1998. 138 pp.

by Wolodymyr T. Zyla

Michael Ewanchuk's "East of the Red: Early Ukrainian Settlements 1896-1930" is the author's 10th book in a series that depicts Ukrainian settlements in Canada. Each of these books, according to reviewers, has been successful in creating interest in the Ukrainian settlement in Canada.

Mr. Ewanchuk, who turned 91 in March, says his latest book, "East of the Red," chronicles a period of Ukrainian history in southwestern Manitoba about which not enough has been written. Therefore, he has already begun research for Volume II of "East of the Red," which will concentrate on communities east of the Red River and will venture north of the Trans-Canada Highway to include Beausejour, Whitemouth and Elma.

The present volume begins with a narration of a tour of the Steinbach area, where settlement had begun 21 years prior to Dr. Joseph's Oleskiw's visit to Manitoba in 1895. Oleskiw was impressed with the rich black soil and easy cultivation mode, because there was no need to cut down trees or pick up stones. But when the first Ukrainian immigrants arrived a year later, they found there were no homesteads.

The settlers were acutely disappointed, but despite all hardships they established settlements spreading to the east and the south. In the next five years the wave of Ukrainians in that area totaled more than 3,000. Regrettably, the land they settled was not the good land of Red River, instead, it was light and stony. Their hardships were compounded when a major prairie fire further reduced the poor land to even more sand and stone.

But the settlers stayed. The men went to work on threshing crews in North Dakota and western Manitoba or sought employment herding cattle, while the women remained home to take care of the children.

Here they built their churches and schools, and they sent their children to Winnipeg to study to become teachers, lawyers, doctors, etc. Others went west, where the land was better and farming offered more profit and a better life.

As an example, Mr. Ewanchuk cites one family's struggle to get a start at Gardenton. Today's descendants of that family own 11 sections of land near Elm Creek and live a prosperous life. The achievements of the Ukrainian settlers in Canada are truly a saga of labor and love that helped to conquer hardships and made the desperate migrants respected citizens of Canada.

The book is elegantly produced with a number of maps and at least 50 rare photos. Its appendices are worth reading in order to re-emphasize the contributions made by men like Dr. Joseph Oleksiw, the Rev. Ivan Volansky, the Rev. Nestor Dmytriw, as well as a number of leaders who helped guide the people to a better future. Also of interest is a modest bibliography and an index of names.

Mr. Ewanchuk's achievement is impressive. He combines solid scholarship and exhaustive research with a love for Ukrainian settlers that reveals itself in the details and anecdotes of the work. By subjecting Ukrainian settlers' experience to analysis placing it in the context of the history of other Canadian settlements, Mr. Ewanchuk demonstrates what has been achieved in Canada.

This work will remain an authoritative source on 20th century Ukrainian settlement in Canada and a good starting point for those who wish to read other books by Mr. Ewanchuk.

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