Road to Canada
When the first Latvians came to Canada in the 1890s, it was in search of a better life, and for some to avoid conscription in the Imperial Russian army. The first Latvian settlements were in Alberta and Manitoba. At that time, Latvia was still part of the Russian Empire and not an independent country—still largely controlled by a Baltic German land-owning gentry class, as it had been since the thirteenth century, when it was conquered by North German crusaders. More arrived as political refugees after the 1905 Revolution, fleeing brutal persecution directed at revolutionaries, social democrats, and nationalists. A few continued to come to Canada during the 1920s and 1930s, even though immigration policy was very restrictive at that time because there was a fear of socialists following the 1917 Russian Revolution. In 1940, there were fewer than 1,000 Latvians in Canada.
At the end of World War II, there were 1.2 million people in Western Europe who were unable or unwilling to return to their homelands. Of these, up to 200,000 were Latvian, Estonian, and Lithuanian. These were designated Displaced Persons—a special category of refugees.
Canada opened its doors to approximately 187,000 Displaced Persons between 1945 and 1951 and considers their arrival a National Historic Event. A commemorative plaque at Pier 21 in Halifax marks this as a significant event. Historian Marlene Epp notes this marked a new, more generous position on the acceptance of refugees and immigration in general. Among these were about 12,000 Latvians. Another 8,000 (also originally 1944 refugees) officially arrived as immigrants via other countries in the coming years. By 1960, there were approximately 20,000 individuals of Latvian origin living in Canada. In 2021, more than 28,000 individuals in Canada identified themselves as having Latvian ethnicity.
In 1947, the Government of Canada decided to offer labour contracts to young and healthy individuals, both to meet labour shortages in industry and help alleviate the refugee burden in Europe. As a result, the first ships carrying Latvians began arriving soon. Those accepted underwent a lengthy screening process and made the eight-day journey across the Atlantic Ocean by ship. Those with dependents had to leave their families behind in refugee camps in Germany, where hunger and deprivation were widespread.
After years of occupation and war, people were grateful for the opportunity to be in Canada, and they expressed heartfelt gratitude and loyalty to Canada. Kanādas Vēstnesis, a new formed Latvian community newspaper in 1949, included the motto "For Liberation of Latvia; For Loyalty to Canada" on their masthead. Still, the early years were hard. Most were contracted for physical labour in mining, forestry, agriculture, or heavy construction, regardless of their training or education. Some lost their lives to these jobs. Only a few were able to identify employment related to their areas of specialization. Very few spoke English.
The Latvian community felt the loss of their homeland deeply and considered its ongoing occupation by the Soviet Union a gross miscarriage of justice. They also committed to taking every opportunity to remind their fellow Canadians of Latvia's existence and the wrongs it was suffering. Canada, like other Western democracies, never recognized the Soviet occupation of Latvia de jure. There were occasions when this policy became a serious issue for the government of the day.
Between Latvia and Canada
The road from Latvia to Canada was a long and treacherous one. Most refugees fled Latvia westward in advance of the second Soviet occupation of Latvia in the fall of 1944. The first Soviet occupation from 1940 to 1941 had been traumatic one, full of violence and hardship, culminating in mass deportations to Siberia. Many made their way to Germany, where they were interned in Displaced Persons camps. A minority crossed the Baltic Sea to Sweden in fishing boats. Refugees were housed in Displaced Persons camps in Germany and Austria along with other Baltic and Eastern European refugees.
During the DP years, Latvians did their best to continue with their lives as best they could. Schools were established for the children along with extra-curricular activities. Adults were offered vocational training and church life resumed. There was a tremendous emphasis on sport and culture. Many camps had choirs, theatre groups, folk dance groups, but performances by professionals also took place at regular intervals.
Life Between Latvia and Canada
Boats From Sweden
Balts living in Sweden did not have access to the Displaced Persons program that offered the ordinary route to immigration to Canada. There was a great fear of extradition to the Soviets, because Sweden had recognized the illegal annexation of the Baltic states in 1940. In 1945, the Soviet embassy began a repatriation campaign and called for the return of people the Soviet Union considered its citizens.
The Balts remembered well the terror and tragedy of the first year of Soviet occupation of 1940–41. It was the reason they had fled the return of Soviet occupation. Many felt they had to get as far away from the "Russian" as possible.
As a result, Estonians and Latvians with marine experience took matters into their own hands. They refurbished old boats or small ships and sailed to Canada without the benefit of visas. It was the second time they had to flee the Soviets. Vabamu, the Museum of Occupations and Freedom in Estonia, has documented eleven ships that sailed from Sweden to Canada between 1948 and 1950 in its online exhibit Free Winds: Journeys to Canada. Some carried entirely Estonian crews and passengers, some Estonian ships carried Latvians and other nationals, but several were Latvian owned. One Latvian-owned boat was in such poor condition that she didn't make it past Ireland although the passengers did manage to reach Canada. In reality, none of these boats was really seaworthy.
Read about the voyages of Latvian refugees aboard the Capry, S.S. Walnut, Brilliant, Pärnu, Amanda, and the Sarabande on the Vabamu website.
Valda Zvanītājs wrote about her voyage on the Sarabande to Canada in her 2009 memoir Journey to Freedom. A brief synopsis is available on the Vabamu website. Mariss Vētra, head of the Latvian Relief Association in Halifax, describes receiving a call late one night in 1949 from Immigration Canada alerting him that a ship carrying Latvians was being towed into Halifax Harbour and being told that he should find accommodations immediately for the unscheduled arrivals. Typically, unauthorized arrivals such as these were interned for several months while they underwent a screening process. The vast majority were allowed to remain in Canada.
Some ships set sail but did not succeed in arriving in Canada. One such ship was the Latvian-owned Victory, which ended its journey in Cork, Ireland due to its state of disrepair. Its passengers, however, did eventually arrive in Canada with the assistance of the Lutheran World Federation. There are very likely other boats that we do not know about.
The decision to make a life-threatening journey over the ocean in inappropriate and often unseaworthy vessels can only be taken as an indication of the magnitude of the fear felt by these people. Pēteris Brauns of Ottawa tells the story of his journey on the Capry, a 48–foot boat that braved 100–foot waves on its way to Canada in the fall of 1948. His parents were desperately afraid of deportation to Siberia and of their children being compelled to become Russian. For them, the peril of an ocean voyage was preferable to the prospect of extradition to the Soviet Union.
Arrival From the United Kingdom and Other Countries
While most post-war Latvian immigrants to Canada arrived via the DP route from refugee camps, approximately 4,000 accepted similar labour contracts as European Volunteer Workers (EVWs) in the United Kingdom and arrived later via ordinary immigration. Initially, EVWs were to be excluded from immigrating to Canada, but LNAK played a large role in lobbying the federal government to allow them entry. LNAK also lobbied the Canadian government for an expansion of immigration from European DP camps, as well as for the admission of orphans, older individuals, and veterans to Canada. Konrads Dobelis was well known to government officials in Ottawa for his representation efforts, as was Mariss Vētra, who earned the moniker "The Crazy Man from Halifax" for his trouble. LNAK vice-president Osvalds Breņķis was also
Throughout the 1950s, Latvian refugees continued to arrive in Canada through immigration via the United Kingdom, Sweden, Australia, Argentina, and other countries. By the 1960s, the Latvian Canadian community numbered approximately 20,000.