Ukrainian Canadians: 200 Years of History – The War of 1812

By Andrew Gregorovich

The following is an excerpt of a lecture delivered by Andrew Gregorovich at St. Vladimir Institute, Toronto, in October 2011 in celebration of Ukrainian settlement in Canada.

On September 7, 1891 Vasyl Eleniak (1859-1956) and Ivan Pylypiw (1859-1936) stepped onto Canadian soil and became the first two officially recorded Ukrainians in Canada. They were the pioneer founders of the Ukrainian community in Canada. Ukrainians were known in the early days as Austrians, Galicians, Ruthenians, Rusins, Rusnaks, Bukovinians, and Lemkos. Today, there are over one million Ukrainian Canadians (1,250,000).  

Some immigrant groups, such as the Icelanders, Mennonites and Russian Doukhobors, received government aid. However, Ukrainians did not receive government aid and they slowly built their community by their own resources and enormous voluntary work by dedicated people. The first Ukrainian immigrants in Canada were desperately poor and had to work hard to survive the first very difficult years. They encountered much bias and prejudice from their Anglo-Saxon neighbours.

Wheat from Ukraine, it has been said, was “the first Ukrainian immigrant to Canada” and since 1842, it became the ancestor of all of Canada’s successful wheat varieties such as Red Fife and Marquis. Ukrainian wheat is the ancestor of the finest wheats in the world.

The greatest achievement of Ukrainian Canadians was the pioneering of the wild, virgin prairies at the end of the 19^th Century and cultivating millions of acres of golden wheat. It has been estimated that the Ukrainians pioneered ten million acres of the Prairies or forty per cent of all the wheat land, which is more agricultural area than the French cultivated in Quebec.

Just as the French pioneered Quebec and the British pioneered the Maritimes and Ontario, it was the Ukrainians who played a major role in pioneering the Prairies of Canada, and were founders of Canada and the Provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan.  Canada had only seven provinces when the Ukrainian mass immigration started in 1891, so they arrived in time to become one of the founders of the Canada we know today. Ukrainian Canadians are not an immigrant group since up to 98% are born in Canada.

If Eleniak and Pylypiw were the first Ukrainians in Canada, how can there be “200 Years of History?” The reason is that the community has a pre-history before 1891.

In about the year 1608, Ivan Bohdan from Kolomiya was brought to North America by Captain John Smith (1580-1631). Smith is famous because of Indian maiden Pocahontas who saved his life. Before he came to North America, Smith was a military adventurer fighting in Eastern Europe. He was captured by the Turks and was sold as a slave in Eastern Ukraine. He escaped and crossed westward across Ukraine, noting Ukrainian hospitality. He eventually brought a group of Polanders (Poles) including Ukrainian Ivan Bohdan to Jamestown, [Virginia then an English colony in] North America to make tar to waterproof wooden ships.

WAR OF 1812

In the War of 1812 between the United States and Canada [then British North America], there were Ukrainian soldiers in the De Watteville and De Meuron Regiments of the British Army defending Canada from American invasion.  [NP - The majority of the British soldiers stationed in Upper Canada (now Ontario) were local recruits, and primarily British in Lower Canada (now Quebec)]. If they had lost the war and the United States conquered Canada, we would all be Americans today, not Canadians. [June 18, 2012 will mark 200 years since the War of 1812 started. It ended on February 18, 1815.] 

Prof. Alexander Royick at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon researched the earliest Ukrainians to come to Canada and found examples from the early 1800s. Ukrainians were on the Canadian Prairies sixty years before the Sioux Indians of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull arrived from the USA. This was after US Army Lt. Colonel George Custer’s “Last Stand” at the Battle of Little Bighorn on June 25, 1876.

In an article on Alexander Royick and the War of 1812, Prof. Zenon Pohorecky reported on two Ukrainians Ivan Ruchkovskay and Andriy Sankovskay.  Ivan Ruchkovskay was from Shchuriv in Western Ukraine and enlisted in the De Watteville Regiment on September 28, 1810 which fought with the British Army in the War of 1812. He was killed on September 5, 1813 at Kingston defending Upper Canada (Ontario) against the American Army.

Andriy Sankovskay was from Ternopil in Western Ukraine. He enlisted on October 21, 1811 in the De Watteville Regiment when he was age 23.  Lord Selkirk was the founder of the first permanent settlement, the Red River Colony, in what later became the Province of Manitoba. Selkirk awarded 100 acres of land at Fort Douglas on September 2, 1817 to Andriy Sankovsky.

Toronto, then known as York and Fort York, was captured [and the Parliament and other buildings in town] were burned by the American Army during the war. In retaliation, the powerful British Navy captured the American capital of Washington and burned the President’s residence making it black. The Americans painted the building white and it became the White House we know today. 

There were Ukrainians in the invading American Army and they had also fought in the American War of Independence.

Ukrainians have fought for Canada in five major wars: the War of 1812-14, the Boer War (1899-1902), 10,000 in World War I (1914-18), 40,000 in World War II (1939-45) and the Korean War (1950-53).  Many Ukrainian Canadians died in battle for Canada.

The Canadian government has announced a $28,000,000 fund to commemorate the War of 1812. The Ukrainian community should see if a grant is available to research Ukrainians in the War of 1812.

Andrew Gregorovich is a Librarian Emeritus of the University of Toronto. Currently, he is President of the Taras Shevchenko Museum in Toronto, and President of the Ukrainian Librarians Association. He is also former Executive Director of the Ukrainian Canadian Research & Documentation Centre, former Chairman of the Toronto Historical Board, and a past President of the Ontario Library Association.