When the first Latvians came to Canada in the 1890s, it was in search of a better life, land, and adventure as well as to avoid conscription in the Imperial Russian army. At that time, Latvia was still part of the Russian Empire and not an independent country. It was also 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. In 1940, there were fewer than 1,000 Latvians in Canada, with about half living in Manitoba.
After World War II, Canada opened its doors to Displaced Persons—a special category of refugees. These were people unable or unwilling to return to their homelands after World War II. Canada opened its doors to approximately 187,00 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 immigration and the acceptance of refugees. Among these were about 12,000 Latvians. Another 8,000 arrived as immigrants via other countries. 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.
The Government of Canada began offering labour contracts to young and healthy single individuals in 1947, and the first ships carrying Latvians began arriving that summer. Those who were married had to leave their families behind in refugee camps in Germany, where hunger and misery continued to prevail.
After years of occupation and war, people were grateful for the opportunity to be in Canada, and they expressed heartfelt 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.
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, so Estonians and Latvians with marine experience took matters into their own hands and refurbished old ships or boats and sailed to Canada without the benefit of visas. 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 crew and passengers, some Estonian ships carried Latvians and other nationals, but several were Latvian owned. 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 from Immigration Canada in the middle of the night about this ship being towed into Halifax Harbour and being told that he should find accommodations immediately for the unscheduled arrivals.
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 because it was not seaworthy any longer. Its passengers, however, did eventually arrive in Canada with the assistance of the Lutheran World Federation. There are very likely others 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 sign of the magnitude of the terror felt by these people. Pēteris Brauns tells the story of his arrival on the Capry, a 48–foot boat that braved 100–foot waves on its way to Canada in the fall of 1948. 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, a significant percentage 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 and Mariss Vētra played a large role in lobbying the federal government to allow them entry. LNAK likewise lobbied for older individuals and veterans to be admitted to Canada. In Ottawa, Mariss Vētra earned the moniker “The Crazy Man from Halifax” for his efforts. Most of these people wanted to come to Canada because they were afraid of the Russians and wanted to get as far away from them as possible.
Throughout the 1950s, Latvians continued to arrive in Canada through immigration from the United Kingdom, Sweden, Australia, Argentina, and other countries. By the1960s, the Latvian Canadian community numbered approximately 20,000.