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EATON INTERNMENT CAMP

Under the War Measures Act (1914), 8,579 enemy aliens — nationals of countries at war with Canada — were interned in Canada during World War I as prisoners of war. Sent to prisoner of war camps located in the Canadian hinterland, the civilian internees were used as military conscript labour, working on government work projects as well as for private industry. Toward the end of the war, the internees were gradually released into Canadian society. This led to some camps being dismantled and internees relocated.

As part of the relocation process, in October 1918, sixty-five internees were sent to Munson, Alberta. However, shortly thereafter, an outbreak of the 1918 Spanish Influenza and disciplinary issues forced the relocation of the Munson camp to a hastily constructed camp on the site of the railway siding at Eaton, Saskatchewan. The move, on February 25, 1919, intended to placate an increasingly hostile inmate population, resulted in little change attitude. The growing resistance among the internees and lack of confidence in the military guard prompted authorities to abandon the Eaton siding location for more secure facilities. On March 21, twenty-four days after the facility had been established, the internees were transported by rail to a military installation at Amherst, Nova Scotia. The Eaton Internment Camp was dismantled shortly after that.

One of twenty-six internment facilities created in Canada to accommodate prisoners of war during the period 1914-20, the Eaton Internment Camp was the only facility of its kind in the province of Saskatchewan. Renamed Hawker in 1919, the Eaton siding is located at the junction of Highway 60 and the Canadian National Railway, four km southwest of Saskatoon. As part of a national campaign to seek official acknowledgement and redress, the Prairie Centre for the Study of Ukrainian Heritage, an acdemic unit at the University of Saskatchewan, in association with the local community, commissioned and unveiled a bronze and tindal-stone memorial, sculpted by Saskatchewan artist Grant McConnell.

SOURCES

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukrainian_Canadian_internment

Bohdan Kordan, Enemy Aliens, Prisoners of War: Internment in Canada during the Great War. Montreal-Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2002.

Bohdan Kordan and Craig Mahovsky, A Bare and Impolitic Right: Internment and Ukrainian-Canadian Redress. Montreal-Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004.