Spirit Lake Internment Centre – 1000th Visitor Welcomed

La Ferme (Amos), Quebec:  Camp Spirit Lake Internment Interpretive Centre, the first such internment centre to open in Canada, has welcomed its 1,000^th visitor in only 33 days of being opened to the general public as of June 28.  He was Mr. Luc Gilbert of Matagami, Que. who entered the doors with his family.

With Quebec‘s summer tourist season in full swing, visitors are coming from the United States, across Ontario including Thunder Bay, Cochrane, Sudbury, and from all over Quebec such as Sherbrooke, Montreal, and Quebec City.  With wheel-chair accessibility, tours for the elderly and for handicapped youth have been conducted in groups of twenty in either French or English, making the museum a welcoming and people-friendly place to all.

A special guest book signed by all visitors to the Centre indicates where visitors are from.  Their written comments express what an impact the little-known story of the second largest internment site set up during Canada’s First Internment Operations 1914-20 is making.  The Spirit Lake internment site was open from January 13, 1915, ironically the day of Ukrainian New Year’s Eve according to the Julian calendar, and remained open until January 28, 1917, when this site, with an adjacent cemetery, was closed and many of its prisoners, mostly Ukrainians, were shipped to other existing internment camps.

The exhibit is reawaking interest in the early history of settlement in the area and makes visitors ask who and why those arrested were unjustly interned. Most are learning about internment for the first time and find it hard to believe this ever happened.

The organizers of the Centre have just had confirmed, that the lower base of the original church, now converted into this Centre, is actually made with the large stones taken from the dismantled walls of the original Spirit Lake internment camp. Amazingly, a part of Spirit Lake is still physically a part of this unique museum.

Letters of congratulations for establishing this museum with its information and educational exhibits have been received from the Quebec National Assembly, surrounding municipalities and Quebec tourist centres. 

After many years of research and building the facility, with substantial financial support from the Shevchenko Foundation and the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund, the Spirit Lake Centre, its interactive displays, documentary films, and boutique are open from 9 am to 5 pm daily, seven days a week. For further information, e-mail campspiritlake@cableamos.com or call 819-727-2267.

The next objective to be completed by the Camp Spirit Lake Board of Directors is the restoration and preservation of the Spirit Lake internment cemetery, which was first filmed in the early 1970s and can be seen in the documentary “Ukrainians in Quebec” by Montreal filmmaker Yurij Luhowy. The cemetery has fallen into even more neglect and completion of its repairs is a priority for integrating the grounds into the overall Spirit Lake project.

James Slobodian, Board Chairperson of Camp Spirit Lake Corporation is inviting everyone to the official opening of the Centre to be attended by dignitaries, which will take place in the fall of 2011 with a possible late October date. Details are still to follow and will be made available soon.

PHOTOS

1 - Andrew Hladyshevsky (second from left), President of the Shevchenko Foundation with  Camp Spirit Lake Corporation board members, prior to the Centre’s opening to the general public on June 25

2 - Interior view of Camp Spirit Lake Internment Interpretive Centre