Kapuskasing Internment Camp 1914-1920

Photo by Alan L Brown - July 29, 2006

Plaque Location

The District of Cochrane
The Town of Kapuskasing
At the southeast corner of Government Road and McPherson Street, temporarily in the Ron Morel Memorial Museum

Plaque Text

When the First World War began, Canada established internment camps to detain persons viewed as security risks. Prejudice and wartime paranoia led to the needless internment of several thousand recent immigrants. The majority were Ukrainians whose homeland was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. One of the largest camps was built across the river from here at a remote railway siding. Despite harsh conditions, some 1,300 internees constructed buildings and cleared hundreds of hectares of spruce forest for a government experimental farm. In 1917 most were paroled to help relieve wartime labour shortages. Thereafter the camp held prisoners of war and political radicals, including leaders of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike.

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