Legacy in the Land

My paternal grandparents immigrated to Canada in 1910 from Galicia (from a region now located in Ukraine)  and central Ukraine. They were part of a "first-wave" of immigration from these regions, attracted to the so-called "new world" via posters created by the Canadian government and distributed across European countries (written in Ukrainian and various other languages), promising parcels of land (up to 160 acres) in exchange for labour to help set up infrastructure and agriculture across the "uninhabited" or "virgin" wilderness. Playing on the psyche of oppressed or poverty stricken peoples, these promises attracted approximately 180,000 Ukrainian settlers by the beginning of WW1.

※※※ So much is held in the "legacy" of the land ~ layers upon layers of pain, deceit, silence, willful denial, genocide... ※※※

All we need look to are the phrases "new world" (versus "old world), and "virgin wilderness" ~ words used to promote these lands as new, open, uninhabited, and that First Peoples were (are) somehow invisible or inconsequential.

Indigenous peoples were already (literally) "locked away" on reserves for 60 years (though the foundations for this system were being laid since the 1600's and earlier), and confined through a pass-system for 25 years, when my grandparents arrived.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.3454022

https://www.ictinc.ca/blog/8-first-nation-reserve-faqs

As I attempt to look through my grandparents' eyes upon arrival, I wonder, what did they see, what did they know, what did they willfully choose not to see or know in lieu of their own survival?

In 1914, with the beginnings of WW1, 8579 people (majority being men, plus some women and children) ~ considered enemies of the state ~ were interned in Canada.  Of these, approximately 5000 were Galician-Bukovynian-Ukrainians.  Those confined were used as forced labour to continue the building of infrastructure across Canada. Another 80 000 people, the majority being Ukrainian, were declared "enemy aliens" and were subjected to a different pass-and-reporting-system.

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/ukrainian-internment-in-canada

http://www.infoukes.com/history/internment/

Again, I attempt to see through my grandparents' eyes... During internment and the pass-and-reporting system, were they aware of the living-legacy held in the lands? Did they sense that internment was a ripple ~ a living echo ~ of the ongoing cultural genocide of the First Peoples and their ancestors? When they stepped onto these lands, were they aware they would participate in this legacy ~ be affected by it, contribute to it?

...Each day, in my prayers and offerings, I extend my heart to the ancestors of this land as well as my own ancestors.  It is never far from my awareness that I live where I do because others were displaced, in both lines. I am privileged. I am a beneficiary of the history and legacy held in these lands. Privilege comes with responsibility ~ one that can not be ignored.

One night in my prayers, I felt that my roots and prayers could only go “so deep.” It was as if I hit a barrier that I was not permitted to go beyond. I touched a deep layer of trauma held in the land, under which lay a knowledge that was not "mine" to root into or touch without permission...

It is from this felt reality ~ this legacy, this memory held in the lands ~ that I write and explore within the Trilogy: The Land Speaks... While I can only speak to my own experiences and those of my ancestors, it is my hope that the books encourage other settlers to look deeply to their own histories, stories and the shared "legacy" we all have responsibility to lay witness to, acknowledge, upturn, dismantle and re-write (-right).