Ukrainian Canadians fight to save a forgotten cemetery in Quebec's Abitibi region

Beyond the crops, tucked deep in a boggy forest on a farmer's land in the Abitibi region of Quebec, you'll find the remnants of a cemetery, a few crosses still visible between the trees.

More than 100 years ago, at least 16 detainees from the nearby Spirit Lake internment camp were buried here.

But there's no commemorative plaque or historical protection for the land that is slowly being swallowed up by forest.

"This is a sacred space, hallowed ground," said Lubomyr Luciuk, a professor of political geography at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ont., and a member of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association.

After the internment camp closed, the federal government sold the land to Quebec in 1936. In 1988, the parcel of land where the cemetery sits was acquired by a private farmer.

The cemetery is no more than 30 square metres in size and located in the backwoods of the property. It has no agricultural value, but Luciuk says attempts to restore and reconsecrate the cemetery have been unsuccessful.

Without the intervention of the federal government, he's afraid it will be forgotten.

"To me, I don't like it when I see the final resting places of people allowed to disappear," said Luciuk. "If we can do something, we should."

Enemy aliens

The Spirit Lake internment camp was one of 24 camps established by the federal government during the First World War to hold so-called enemy aliens, mostly Ukrainians and other Europeans, who were considered a threat to national security.

Located near the town of Amos, about 600 kilometres northwest of Montreal, Spirit Lake was one of the largest camps and operated between January 1915 and January 1917.

Nearly 1,200 men, women and children were plucked from their homes and transported to Abitibi by train. The men were forced to do hard labour.

Of those who perished at the camp, records show tuberculosis was a common cause of death. Several children died and, in one case, a man was shot to death as he tried to escape.

In 2008, the Canadian government established the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund (CFWWIRF) to help finance commemorative or educational projects related to these operations.

One of the largest grants was given to the Spirit Lake Camp Corporation to start an interpretive centre, which opened in 2011. The fund's endowment council also hoped to restore the internee cemetery.

Unfortunately, Luciuk says the animosity between the camp corporation's president, James Slobodian, and the property owner, Denis Trépanier, made it impossible to have any fruitful discussions.

In 2018, the centre closed due to financial difficulties.

Petition to save cemetery

That same year, Luciuk started a petition, calling upon the federal government to step in to help preserve the cemetery, but the Canadian Heritage Department said it had no legislative jurisdiction over the land. It encouraged them to contact the Quebec government instead.

This past summer, Luciuk wrote directly to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Since the internment camp and cemetery were created by the federal government, Luciuk believes it has a "moral obligation to intervene and rectify this historical injustice."

He copied all of the federal party leaders, as well as Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who has Ukrainian heritage.

A few months later, Trudeau's office sent him a letter, letting him know his comments had been passed on to the heritage minister.

A departmental spokesperson referred questions from CBC News to the CFWWIRF, the internment recognition fund.

Luciuk is frustrated. He says their demands are simple.

With the help of ground-penetrating radar scans, an archeologist could help identify all of the graves so they could install crosses over each one.

They would rebuild the fence and put up a historical marker, explaining the cemetery's significance.

"We are prepared to agree that there will be one annual visit," said Luciuk. "There's something called Green Sundays, where we go to the cemeteries and pay respect to our ancestors."

At one point, Luciuk said they offered Trépanier a stipend to maintain the cemetery, but they couldn't reach an agreement.

Trépanier did not respond to CBC's request for comment, but Luciuk says the farmer and his wife have indicated they'd prefer to see the cemetery relocated.

"This is where the internees themselves were laid to rest, where their friends and family members stood and cried and prayed," said Luciuk. "Why do we have to move this?"

Symbolic value

Pierre Pawliw says relocating the cemetery would be a shame.

"It's a dark page of our heritage, but it's still part of our heritage and it should be noted and commemorated," said Pawliw, who has acted as a liaison for the CFWWIRF since 2018.

He and Luciuk were supposed to travel to Abitibi in the spring of 2020 to meet with Trépanier and his wife, but the meeting was postponed due to the pandemic.

Pawliw, who lives in Sherbrooke, Que., understands the farmer doesn't want people traipsing across his property to get to the cemetery as there could be insurance and liability issues.

"They didn't want it to become a tourist attraction," said Pawliw.

However, there was a clause in the deed of sale that said the purchaser was supposed to respect the cemetery's historical significance and grant access to the public.

Pawliw says the property owners claim their notary did not make them aware of this.

After years of inaction, Pawliw believes, like Luciuk, that the federal government needs to step up. He says it's similar to an oil and gas company that has to clean up after an oil spill.

"They are responsible for it. They have to take care of it afterward," said Pawliw. "This is similar."

For Pawliw, there is also a personal connection. When his mother, Stephania Mielniczuk, was just a baby, she and her family were sent to the Spirit Lake internment camp.

Before the war, Pawliw's grandfather was working for CP Rail in Montreal and his grandmother managed a boarding house. "Everything was confiscated. They lost everything," said Pawliw.

After the camp closed, his grandfather had to periodically report to the local police station in Montreal.

The stigma and trauma of their experience proved to be too much. After a year or two, the family returned to Europe and eventually settled in what is now Ukraine.

Pawliw's mother returned to Canada when she was 18. When she first told her children about the camp, they didn't believe her.

"We'd say come on, this is Canada, we didn't intern these individuals," said Pawliw.

It also didn't exist on any map. The name had changed from Spirit Lake to Lac Beauchamp. It wasn't until the mid-1980s that they discovered where Spirit Lake was.

Pawliw doesn't know if his mother's family knew any of the people buried in the cemetery, but that's not the point. In his view, the site has symbolic value and should be protected.

"I do think that future generations, I would think historians, maybe anthropologists or archaeologists, would maybe, in the future, like to have access to the site and have the site stay intact," said Pawliw.