The unique personal attitude of the author, Stanisław Stolarczyk, to the places he has visited and described, and to the smallest and most touching traces left by the first Poles, has resulted in a publication that vividly describes the Polish heritage in Canada. It is thus a history of graves and churches as well as a story of the fate of thousands of Polish emigrants overseas.

The author presents the history of Polish settlement in Canada in the form of stories about Gdansk merchants from the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, sailors and adventurers, insurgents fleeing the repression of the partitioners, Kashubians brought in to establish settlements in the virgin forest in the 19th and early 20th centuries, as well as Hallerczyks - volunteer soldiers from the First World War.

Often the only material traces of the lives of these people are the churches they built, crosses in village cemeteries, gravestones and mausoleums. The book presented here is the first study of the history of Poles in Canada created from the perspective of the heritage preserved in cemeteries.

The author, travelling for many years across the Canadian provinces, documented the surviving traces of Polish settlement. He photographed, often at the last minute, deteriorating churches and tombstones in abandoned settlements lost in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Quebec. He painstakingly transcribed the meagre inscriptions from the local graves, not only bearing witness to the origins and fate of the Polish settlers, but also preserving their language. He also searched for archival material documenting the history of the settlements.

Author: Stanisław Stolarczyk

Language editing: Jolanta Różalska, Anna Ekielska

Translation: Anna J. Golabek-Asikainen

Year of publication: 2023

Number of pages: 218

Binding: hardback, album

Format: 210 x 270

ISBN: 978-83-66172-59-3