In 1858, the first group of Polish settlers arrived in Canada. They were Kashubians from Gdansk Pomerania. They settled in Renfrew County, Ontario, about 200 kilometres west of Ottawa. Today, this densely forested area, dotted with picturesque lakes such as Wadsworth, Kuiack, Long, Dam, Franks, Gun and Kamaniskeg in the Madawaska River valley, is commonly referred to as 'Canada's Kashuby' or 'Little Poland in Canada'. It includes towns founded by Polish settlers, such as Wilno, Round Lake Centre, Barry's Bay and Kaszuby.

Kashubian outcrops

"In publications on labour exodus, it is stated that Kashubians left their homeland because of the persecution of Polishness and the Catholic Church by the Prussians. However, this is not the full truth, as the cruel persecution of Poles did not begin until the late 19th century," writes Kazimierz Ickiewicz in his book Kashubians in Canada. The author argues that poverty and... emigration propaganda were important factors in the exodus, and proves that as early as 1848, the first agents of the Hamburg Shipping Association arrived in the Kashubian area, recruiting volunteers to go overseas. This was all the more successful because, until 1860, boat travel for those leaving permanently was free. Agents acted on behalf of and in the interests of foreign industry, agriculture, colonisation or on behalf of ship companies. It should be borne in mind that the carriage of passengers was a highly profitable venture for the ship companies. The agents sought to revive outbound travel by all means, as they themselves earned a large income from it. It was therefore in their interest to get as many people as possible to leave the country. The most significant incentive for the overseas exodus of the Kashubian population was the possibility of obtaining land overseas, mainly in Canada.

The first settlers came ashore at the port of Quebec City after an extremely arduous journey across the ocean. Here, after a short stay, they transferred to the railway. According to a Kashubian story passed down from generation to generation - the Kashubian pioneers had no luck in their new country. On their way to Montreal, in the village of Chambley, they reportedly experienced a terrible disaster. They did not manage to leave the bridge over the Richelieu River and the train fell into the river. Several people died and several were taken to Montreal hospitals. Some of them, having received compensation from the railway company, returned home.

The most persistent, however, ventured further afield and reached Ottawa. Here they changed to a steamer, which took them down the Ottawa River to Farrell's Landing, where the Opeongo Road began, along which parcels of promised land were allotted. The following conditions were required for title: Taking possession of the allotted land within a month, clearing the forest and cultivating five hectares of land within four years, building a house of a certain size and permanently residing on the plot.

The surviving reports of Thomas French, the agent in charge of settlement along the Opeongo Road in Ontario, show that the land allocation to the Kashubians began on 2 September 1859. Thus, this is actually the date from which the history of the first Polish settlement in Canada begins. At that time, Kashubians were allocated land in the following order: Kryszyński Andrzej, Jezierski Józef, Szczypior Maciej, Princ Antoni, Princ Mikołaj and Princ Franciszek. And on 26 September 1859: Kulas Jakub, Kulas Jan, Szulist Tomasz, Sadowski Maciej, Piekarski Maciej and Etmański Walenty.

A total of 14 families with 57 people settled in 1859. The next granting began in January 1860. At that time, 21 people received land, followed by six the following year. By 23 October 1863, 30 plots of land had been granted to 44 families, comprising 182 people. By 1865, 50 families were already located here. Figures from 1881 show 144 families paying parish dues. Six years later, the area was to be inhabited by more than 200 families.

In order to reach their designated plots of land, they had to start by clearing the forest, because the Opeongo Road, which they followed to reach their settlement, was just a narrow track, a sweeping path through the age-old Canadian forest. After 'carving' a small area out of the forest and clearing it of stones, they built log huts and, in time, farmed. Some of the settlers, in order not to starve to death, took to working in the forest to obtain timber. They became lumberjacks.

Today, the descendants of the Kashubian settlers gather around the three Polish parishes of the Roman Catholic Church: Our Lady Queen of Poland in Vilnius, St. Hedwig's in Barry's Bay and St. Casimir's in Round Lake Centre, and the "Chapel under the Pines" in the Kashuby settlement.

Vilnius

Wilno is the oldest Polish settlement in Canada, which is located within what is known as Little Poland, inhabited by the fifth generation of settlers from Kashuby, most of whom speak not only English, but also Kashubian and Polish. The settlement in Renfrew County, Ontario, now with a population of about 500, is situated in a basin surrounded by rocky hills, with numerous lakes, deceptively reminiscent of Kashubia in Poland. Polish settlers, in addition to their emigration bundles, brought with them a commitment to Polish traditions and a deep, centuries-old Catholic faith, inscribed in the Kashubian emblem: "Faithfulness and Faith". The Polish pioneers first shared pastoral care with the Irish in the nearby village of Brudenell. However, they did not have their own Polish-speaking pastor there.

"Confessions are heard by the priest through an interpreter," wrote Tomasz Grabowski in a letter printed in Wiarus. - The priest holds the confessor [by the hand] while the interpreter asks questions from the examination of conscience. If the confessor has committed any sin, he squeezes the priest's hand. This sign, it is understood, remains unnoticed by the interpreter".

The Archbishop of Ottawa, Father Joseph T. Duhamel, understanding the need for Kashubian settlers to pray in their mother tongue, sent two Polish priests to Brudenell: Aleksander Michnowski and Jozef K. Specht, who in 1875 established a religious community - the first Polish parish of the Roman Catholic Church in Canada, dedicated to St Stanislaus Kostka.

The Archbishop's document, issued on 3 February 1876, reads: "On the 30th of the last month of January we consecrated a temporary chapel for the Poles in Hagarty. The people also built a house for Father Joseph Specht, a Polish priest, who will live with them from the beginning of March and from then on will be their parish priest".

Rev. Jozef Specht, however, did not stay long among his own. In 1876, he was replaced by Father Tomasz Korbutowicz, who, together with the faithful, extended the small chapel made of pine logs and the vicarage. And four years later, his successor, Father Wladyslaw Dembski, began the construction of a new temple of real substance on Church Street, about 2.5 kilometres south-east of the centre of Vilnius. As tradition has it, the Kashubian settlement was named Wilno in honour of the then parish priest, a native of Vilnius.

The construction of the church, whose patron saint was the Polish saint Stanisław Kostka, was completed in 1895 by the next parish priest, Father Bronisław Jankowski. Unfortunately, on 2 February 1936, the church caught fire and burned to the ground. Today, there is a chapel of St Stanislaus Kostka on the site and right next to the cemetery, which is the oldest Polish cemetery in Canada.

Among those buried in the cemetery are the former parish priest of St. Stanislaw Kostka, Father Bronislaw Jankowski, as well as the first settlers from Kashubia and their descendants (families of Cybulski, Brzezinski, Afelski, Rekowski, Szulist, Kulas, Etmanski, Piekarski, Szczypior, etc.).

After the fire in the wooden St Stanislaus Kostka church, Father Edward Wilowski, the next parish priest after the death of Father Bronislaw Jankowski, did not delay in building a new church. Later that year he erected the present brick church on the slope of Shrine Hill. It was consecrated on 29 June 1937 with the invocation of Our Lady Queen of the Polish Crown. Thanks to the efforts of this pastor, a faithful copy of the image of Our Lady of Czestochowa - a gift from the President of the Republic of Poland, Ignacy Mościcki - was placed in the church just before the outbreak of the Second World War.

At the foot of the church is a stone grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes, which is a place of worship for local residents, and the so-called 'new Kashubian cemetery', which is a resting place for descendants of Kashubian settlers.

The pastors of the parish of Our Lady Queen of Poland, priests Edward Wilowski, Zygmunt Lewandowski, Stanisław Kądziołka and Rafał Jan Grzondziel, the creator of the Kashuby holiday centre, are buried in this cemetery.A number of Polish scientists (see Outstanding Poles in Canada), distinguished officers of the Polish Army and scouting instructors, who were involved in the creation and running of the Polish scout centres at Lakes Wadsworth and Long in nearby Kashuby, also found their eternal resting place here.

The history of the first Polish settlement in Canada is commemorated by a plaque that was sponsored by the Ontario government (The Archaeological and Historic Sites Board of Ontario) and the Centre for Polish-Canadian Pioneers and ceremonially unveiled on 24 July 1971 on St. Mary's Hill.

Barry's Bay

Barry's Bay is popularly known as "Polish Town" due to the number of Poles living here and the businesses they run. However, the official name of the town is associated with the head of McLaughlin's Lumber in Arnprior, James Barry, who located the headquarters of his company on the shores of Kamaniskeg Lake. Local lumbermen, including Kashubians, named the site 'Barry's Camp on the Bay'; hence the name Barry's Bay. The settlement, which now has a population of about 1,300, was granted a town charter in 1933 and the first chairman of the town council was Kashubian by descent, Henry J. Chapeskie. The town has a Polish symbol in its coat of arms. When the town fathers decided to design its coat of arms, the task was entrusted to a descendant of Kashubian settlers, Frank J. Ritz. On 27 December 1961, the design was approved and the coat of arms was officially registered. It features a white eagle, representing the Polish settlers, next to a harp, symbolising the Irish settlers. The rising sun signifies a bright future for immigrants of all nationalities and their descendants in Barry's Bay.

According to Canadian historians, the first settlers of Irish and Polish descent arrived here in 1860 to build roads, including a forest tract that in time connected the stagecoach station and post office at Cuthbertson's Inn on Bark Lake to Barry's Bay. By 1895 there were several dozen Polish families living in and around Barry's Bay. This number grew year by year as Kashubians began arriving in Canada, having previously made their way to the United States between 1840 and 1900. At that time, Kashubians settled in Michigan (Parisville and Posen), Wisconsin (Portage County) and Minnessota (Winona area). Fishermen settled on Jones Island, along Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, and in South Dakota, Missouri and Nebraska. As some of them found it difficult to assimilate into the American community, some - wishing to preserve their language and traditions - began to leave to join their countrymen in Canada. This is how they arrived in the area of today's Barry's Bay.

Initially, like all Catholics settling along the so-called Opeongo Trail, they received pastoral care at the Polish Church of St Stanislaus Kostka in Vilnius. However, with the arrival of more Kashubian families from Webster, Massachusetts, in the Barry's Bay area, the Polish colony in the area grew to such an extent that it was considered too far to walk to the church in Vilnius every Sunday (about 10 kilometres) and a separate church should be built in the village of Siberia (today at the junction of Siberia and Karuzy roads), located 2 miles south of Barry's Bay. Construction was dealt with very quickly and already on 15 August 1896, through the efforts of Father Bronislaw Jankowski, a small wooden chapel dedicated to the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was consecrated, which was unfortunately destroyed by fire on 4 August1940. A cemetery was created next to the temple, where the deceased parishioners were buried. The first burial took place in 1896, when John Kulas was buried. The last burial, that of Franciszka Romlewski, took place in 1926. Today, there are only a few graves of the first Polish settlers in this cemetery, including families such as: Kulas, Gutowski, Cybulski and Etmanski.

In time - after a large brick church was built in Barry's Bay, dedicated to St Jadwiga - the Siberian church became a mission church, but continued to serve the local Kashubians until 1940. Only a stone foundation remains today. There are only a few graves in this cemetery, as well as a stone obelisk with a plaque commemorating the site of the first chapel, founded by one of the descendants of Kashubian pioneers Don Etmanski of Syracuse, USA, and a monument erected on the 100th anniversary of the chapel's construction. It commemorates the 101 Polish pioneers mentioned by name who rest in this, one of the oldest Polish cemeteries in Canada.

As the number of Poles, no longer only Kashubians, began to arrive in the Barry's Bay area, the church on Siberia Road proved too small to accommodate all worshippers at Sunday services. So in 1914, the people of the settlement decided to build a new, more spacious church. This duty was entrusted to the young vicar of the Polish parish in Vilnius, Father Piotr Biernacki, a native of Barry's Bay. Construction did not take long, as the consecration ceremony of the church dedicated to St Hedwig took place as early as 2 June 1915. The choice of "St Jadwiga of God's grace the Queen of Poland" as the patroness of the Kashubian church in Canada was not a coincidence, but a testimony to the deep attachment to the church and to the country they had to leave. After all, St Jadwiga is the "Lady and heiress of, among others, the land of Pomerania". Polish accents were not forgotten in the decoration of the church either. One of the stained glass windows, funded by Antoni Kulas, with white and red flags and the emblem, implores with the inscription: "God save Poland". Here, the church overlooks Karol Wojtyla Street, which was given a new historical dimension on 4 May 1980 by Bishop Joseph Raymond Windle, a testimony to the attachment of successive generations of Kashubians to the traditions and faith of their ancestors. Next to the church is an obelisk with a White Eagle and a Pomeranian Griffin. Its top is crowned by the episcopal coat of arms of Karol Wojtyła, with an "M" for the Blessed Virgin Mary and the motto: "Totus Tuus". A commemorative plaque informs: "To honour the first Pope of Poland - John Paul II they dedicate this street in his name". The monument to Pope John Paul II, erected by the hands of descendants of Polish Kashubians, was created thanks to another representative of the Polish community, Father Ambrose R. Pick.

Round Lake Centre

The settlement popularly referred to as the "third apex of the triangle of Kashubian settlement in Canada" is located on Round Lake in the Killaloe-Hagarty-Richards district of Renfrew County. It was established as a result of the planned settlement of Kashubians along the Opeongo Trail in the mid-19th century. Today, Round Lake Centre is home to more than 600 people, about half of whom are of Polish descent.

The youngest Polish parish in the Kashubian settlement area owes its foundation to Father Bronislaw Jankowski. It was he who founded a small mission chapel in 1910, with St Bronislaw as its patron saint. In 1928, Bishop Ryan changed the status of the Round Lake Centre community from a mission to a parish; its first pastor was Father Pawel Jolkowski, who two years later erected a brick church dedicated to St Casimir. The cemetery, which adjoins the church, also dates from this year. Descendants of the first settlers - Kashubians - rest there: the Cybulskie, Borutskie, Dombroskie, Pecoskie, Kubusheskie, Yantha, Coulas... Only a few tombstones in this cemetery have Polish epitaphs, including: former parish priest, Father Pawel Jolkowski (1898-1940), twenty-year-old Ksawery Lipinski (1922-1942), or "Hanka" - unnamed because she has no surname. The granite slab is decorated with a photograph of a smiling and happy woman, holding a tiny child in her arms, and an inscription: "Here lies our dear Hanka, she was a noble person who survived many misfortunes, she was always kind and affectionate to everyone and was a favourite auntie to every child. She served the Lord God faithfully and was a good protector of his great creation. She lived a life of humility and kindness. Lord God bless our dear Hanka and keep her and all those like her in your good grace always. Faith makes everything possible. Love makes everything easier. In the Lord God our hope. In the Lord God we trust."

Was the mysterious Hanka a Kashubian? What was her name? What did she do? When was she born? When did she die? This grave hides, it seems, the secret of a woman who was certainly not spared by the hard fate of emigration....

Kashuby

This is a small settlement on Lake Wadsworth in Renfrew County, which is the so-called 'Heart of Ontario's Kashubia'. It is currently inhabited by several farming families, immigrant cottage owners from Toronto, Ottawa or Montreal and Polish Girl Scouts in the summer. The name Kashuby was approved on 9 June 1960.

The settlement on Lake Wadsworth is considered the largest enclave of Polishness in the world, due to the number of Polish monuments there and the universally perceptible climate of Polishness.

After the war, the area was popularised by Polish scouts. Founded on 1 October 1950 by Scoutmaster Jerzy Grodecki, the 'Tatra' Senior Scout Circle organised an expedition to Vilnius and Barry's Bay in 1951. The scouts were so enchanted by the area that in 1952 they organised, together with scouts from Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa and other Ontario cities, the First Old Scout Rally in Vilnius. In the meantime - in September 1952 - Franciscan Father Rafal Jan Grzondziel, known as Father Ignatius, arrived in Canada from the United States. Enchanted, like the Scouts, with the area around Vilnius and Barry's Bay, he purchased land on Lake Wadsworth and established a Catholic Youth Centre, and a year later, with the help of local Kashubians, built a chapel which he named Our Lady of the Angels Chapel. It is a simple wooden building, the interior of which is decorated with handmade finishes. In the main nave of the chapel, Father Grzondziel placed an image of Our Lady of Swarzewska, the patron saint of Kashubian fishermen.

In 1955, the Committee for the Development of Scout Centres purchased land for their own scout stands. Thus, in 1957 the Carpathian Scouts' lodge was opened and since 1959 there has been the "Bucze" lodge for male and female scouts of the "Watra" troop.

Another chapel was erected in Kashubia - the so-called "Cathedral under the pines" with a picture of Our Lady of Częstochowa. The consecration ceremony of the shrine took place on 9 July 1961. It is a place where scouts and tourists traditionally gather every Sunday during the summer to attend Mass. Among the tall pine trees, often accompanied by songs performed by choirs that have come especially for this purpose from Ottawa and other cities, the participants in these Masses have the opportunity to experience the unique moments that make this cathedral well known not only in Canada but also in Europe. Above all, because of the unique atmosphere of this open-air cathedral, it is widely regarded as the place where "the heart of Kashubia beats". Today, the grounds of the cathedral are managed by the Franciscan Order of Montreal, which also owns the adjacent land.

Next to the "Chapel under the Pines" stands the Monument to the Millennium of Christian Poland. It was built with his own hands in 1966 by Bolesław Rączka, a social activist and founder, among others, of the Combatants' Circle No. 1 in Ottawa and of the first Polish choir in the Canadian capital. The name POLONIA SEMPER FIDELIS on the monument proclaims the glory of the Polish nation "for ever". On the plaque below are important dates in the history of Polish Christianity.

Thanks to the indefatigable Father Grzondziel, in 1960 the Canadian Board of Geographical Names in Canada formally approved the name Kaszuby. The priest felt that the creation of a post office with this name would best perpetuate it in the minds of Canadians, and a year later Father Ignatius became the first postmaster at the post office he created, which he also named 'Kashuby'.

On the site of the post office, which does not exist today, scout instructors erected an obelisk dedicated to Father Raphael Grzondziel, who died on 22 December 1998 and is buried in the new cemetery in Vilnius. Unveiled in 1999, the plaque recalls his contributions both from the war time and from the period when he created the Catholic Youth Centre. "A friend of the local Kashubians" is the last sentence of the epitaph.

The Second World Scouting Rally organised in Kashubia in August 1976 was another milestone for the popularisation of the area. Thanks to this rally, the whole world learned about the Kashubian settlement. Today, this is the Millennium Stadium, where there is a field altar and the Grey Ranks Monument, which was created on the initiative of the scouting movement and erected through the efforts of the scouts. It was consecrated on 9 July 1995 on the 50th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising. The monument symbolises the 10,000 scouts of the "Grey Ranks" killed in the uprising, as well as those scouts who died in German extermination camps during World War II. The chairman of the Monument Building Committee was Hm. Marek Jagła, and the designers were: Antoni Gardynik, Henryk Jaworski-Jerome, Roman Jagła.

Kashubia's unique Polish colour is added by numerous chapels and the Hill of Three Crosses, where three crosses have been erected and unique Stations of the Cross have been set up along the path leading to the top.