Two of the other key figures in the Ukrainian immigration to Canada are Dr. Joseph Oleskow and Sir Clifford Sifton.Â
Dr. Oleskow was a Professor of Agriculture at the Teachers' Seminary in Lemberg (now Lviv). In 1895 at a time when steamship agents and plantation owners were encouraging immigration to Brazil, Oleskow and other members of the "Prosvita" society became concerned about the life awaiting those who migrated to that country. They decided to try to redirect the stream of emigration towards other, more favorable countries. To this end Oleskow published a booklet, Pro Vilni Zemli or "About Free Lands" which warned peasants against Brazil and suggested that they consider Canada instead. To follow this up Dr. Oleskow set out to see Canada for himself in order to give a more complete picture of what the country could offer. To this end he exchanged some correspondence with the Canadian government and then set out with Ivan Dorundiak (a peasant from the Kolomea district) for a three month trip. In London they met with the Canadian High Commissioner before continuing on to Canada to visit with the early settlers in Winnipeg and Alberta.
Upon his return to Ukraine Oleskow published a second book titled O Emigratsii or "About Emigration". In this book he described in great detail the process involved in emigrating to Canada and the conditions that a family would find upon their arrival. He wrote of the vast distances that were to be found in the Americas where "every American country is as big as the entire world we live in" as well as the lack of an established class system, there being no peasants and lords. He described what changes Ukrainian settlers would need to make in their behavior and appearance to more easily fit into their new land and warned against the scams and traps the emigrant was likely to encounter en route to Canada. Having visited the homesteads of many of the early Ukrainian settlers Dr. Oleskow was able to report on their progress as a way of showing what was possible in Canada.
The publication of this book stirred up great interest in Canada and by spring of 1896 he was able to inform the Canadian government that he would shortly be sending some 30 families to Canada. Through his correspondence with the Canadian government we see Oleskow's vision of a well-organized flow of Ukrainian settlers being chosen for their abilities and capability of thriving in the new world and being assisted in the immigration process with funds and transportation from the Canadian government. In this desire Oleskow was driven by nothing more than a hope to see the Ukrainian people prosper as he received no payments for his work until 1900 when he was finally paid $2000 to offset some of the expenses he had already incurred. It is likely that had the Canadian government chosen to work more closely with Oleskow those Ukrainians who made it to Canada would have been in a better position to thrive. As an example of this, in the spring of 1897 two ships arrived in Canada carrying Ukrainian immigrants: the SS Arcadia and the SS Scotia. The Arcadia contained 648 settlers sent by Joseph Oleskow while the Scotia carried 435 settlers sent by the steamship agents. Despite the Arcadia having dealt with some horrific storms which caused two deaths and resulted in the ship taking an extra week to reach Canada, the quality of the immigrants was evident to the government inspectors. James Smart, the Deputy Minister of the Interior wrote to his boss, Sir Donald A Smith that the settlers from the Scotia (the non-Oleskow settlers) were of a "much inferior class" and "possessed of no means whatsoever". It was not uncommon for steamship agents to lure immigrants by promising that the Canadian government would provide them with food and other goods when they arrived which led to great anger when they reached Canada and found nothing forthcoming.
While Oleskow and his requests fell aside during the frequent changes in the Canadian government in late 1896 the next major figure entered the picture: Sir Clifford Sifton became the Minister of the Interior for the Laurier government. While previous efforts by the government had focused on Anglo-Saxon and western European farmers Sifton chose instead to encourage what he saw as hardy Eastern European peasants to settle the prairies.
This was not a popular choice at the time as coming from rural villages in one of the most underdeveloped areas of Europe, the early Ukrainian-Canadians exhibited traits and modes of behavior that appeared as primitive and unsophisticated. They disembarked from hastily converted cargo ships in Halifax, Quebec City and Montreal looking exhausted and disheveled. Many of them still wore the native costumes of their region and some were even barefoot. Their strange clothes, incomprehensible language, lack of personal hygiene and the practice of eating garlic did not endear them to their Canadian hosts. Anglo-Saxon chauvinism reared its ugly head and English newspapers in eastern Canada printed uncomplimentary and abusive articles about the unsuitability of these "Galicians in sheepskin coats". When Sir Clifford Sifton himself was attacked and castigated for encouraging Ukrainian immigration to Canada, he rose in the House of Commons and made his now famous statement. "I think a stalwart peasant in a sheep-skin coat, born on the soil, whose forefathers had been farmers for ten generations, with a stout wife and a half dozen children is good quality."
Sifton also established the position of Inspector of Canadian Agents in Europe based in London and first held by V.T.P. Preston. The job was to spread effective propaganda in Europe regarding emigration to Canada. Hundreds of thousands of pamphlets were distributed in Austrian Ukraine with titles such as "Free land is waiting for you", "Live and work for yourself and your family", "Canada will give you land", "Be your own master husbandman", "Take care of your children's future", "The wondrous Canadian West", "The country called Canada", "Live in Canada", etc. The downside of this was that Preston was behind the scenes of the nebulous and scandalous "North Atlantic Trading Company" which was theoretically used to circumvent laws prohibiting the encouragement of emigration in many countries. The company was to get five dollars for each man, woman and child over twelve that it brought to Canada. While it was intended that these settlers would be capable farmers who were bringing at least a minimum amount of cash the company managed to get paid regardless of its results. While the company claimed to be distributing maps and pamphlets in sixteen languages as well as planting articles in newspapers and generally encouraging emigration to Canada there is little evidence of these claims. At any rate they are credited with sending more than 71,000 immigrants to Canada at a cost of more than $367,000.
Regardless of how the Ukrainians were learning of Canada the fact was that their numbers continued to grow: as of December 1898 there were 500 Ukrainian families in Alberta. The next year another 950 would arrive followed by 1400 more in 1900 and another 3500 over the next three years. In 1901 Ukrainians constituted 6.8% of Manitoba settlers, 4.7% of Alberta and 4.5% of Saskatchewan.