LA FERME, Quebec – The award-winning Spirit Lake Internment Interpretative Center is marking its sixth successful year since officially opening in 2010. During the peak tourist season from June to September, the center extended its hours this year from 9 a.m. to 10.p.m. every day, providing guided tours in French, English or Ukrainian. Three university students were hired full-time on a summer student government program to help operate the museum. The three students were recently interviewed about the internment museum and their work at the center on Radio Canada; the report aired throughout Quebec and parts of Ontario.
Spirit Lake Center is listed as one of the recommended museums to see in two official 2016 Quebec tourist booklets. The booklets are distributed throughout Canada, the United States and parts of Europe, drawing visitors from far and wide. Group tours are received from many parts of Quebec.
The center is the largest internment museum in Canada, open all year, which tells the story of the unjust internment at Spirit Lake (1915-1917), Canada’s first national internment operations (1914-1920) and the early history of Ukrainian immigration to Quebec.
This year, the center also highlights the 125th anniversary of Ukrainian settlement in Canada and the contributions Ukrainians have made to the development of the nearby towns of Amos, Val d’Or, Rouyn Noranda and others in the Abitibi region of Quebec.
Rich in history, and located not far from Spirit Lake, is Canada’s first Ukrainian Studite Monastery, established at Lac Castagnier, formerly called Sheptytsky Colony. The last known person to be baptized at Sheptytsky Colony is Marcel (Vasyl) Lesyk, former mayor of Amos and honorary chairperson of Spirit Lake fund raising campaign. The guides at Spirit Lake Center provide information about the many surrounding areas settled by Ukrainians. (This history is also depicted in Yurij Luhovy’s documentary “Ukrainians in Quebec 1891-1945.”)
Spirit Lake was the second largest of 24 internment sites with the majority of the 1,200 internees being Ukrainian. Many were taken from the Montreal area.
Uniquely located on the original internment grounds, the work of the center has recently inspired the writing of a third French-language book titled “Les Amants Maudits de Spirit Lake” (The Tragic Lovers of Spirit Lake) dealing with internment, thereby making the internment story available to over 9 million French speakers across Canada. The author, Claire Bergeron, who was born near Spirit Lake, has been invited by the Ukrainian National Federation Montreal branch’s “Literary Circle” to be present for a book signing at the UNF’s kiosk during the Montreal Ukrainian Festival in mid-September.
Spirit Lake Center continues to offer a range of activities and programs throughout the year, effectively expanding broad public awareness of the internment story. This fall, the center will launch its first nationwide fund-raising campaign to help ensure the center’s ongoing programs, including educational-outreach school visits and workshops, continue.
“We are very proud of Spirit Lake Center’s sixth successful year,” said James Slobodian, chair, “and hope the ongoing, hard work of the center to tell the internment story, with its many dedicated volunteers, will be supported during our first fund-raising campaign. Every year, thousands more visitors from many places learn about internment for the first time as they pass through the museum.”
For more information readers may visit www. campspriritlake.ca or www.facebook.com/campspiritlake.