Castle Mountain Internment Camp - Legacy

Legacy

In 2008, a settlement was reached with the Ukrainian-Canadian community on the matter of acknowledgement and redress for World War I internment. An important part of the settlement was funding for educational purposes. Parks Canada, the government agency responsible for national parks, is working with an understanding to create an interpretive centre at the Cave and Basin site that will highlight and underscore the nature and significance of the experience. Currently interpretive panels are on site. In 1995, a statue commissioned by the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (www.uccla.ca), memorializing the historical event, was erected near the original Castle Mountain camp-site. On 5 June 2012 the internment camp monument was visited by Sviatoslav, Patriarch of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, who held a requiem service at the actual camp site to hallow the memory of those confined as "enemy aliens" during Canada's first national internment operations.

More information about the redress settlement and the endowment created to commemorate what happened is available at the website of the Canadian First World War Internment Recognition Fund (www.internmentcanada.ca).

For a recent article on the site see, "First World War internment camps a 'difficult scar' for Canadian Ukrainians," by Bill Graveland, The Canadian Press, 2 September 2012.