CROATIANS accompanied many of the earliest European voyagers to Canada, both as explorers and crew.  Legend persists that Croatians were aboard the third expedition of Cartier and Roberval in 1541-42. There is an early account of a Slavonian miner, Jacques, who accompanied Champlain, 1605-06, on his voyages to Acadia.

Less flamboyant or notable were the Croatian soldiers, miners, and fishermen who arrived in those early years. Croatian soldiers who served the French in Austrian military units helped defend New France in 1758-59.  Croatian sojourners came with the fur trade to the Western interior and to the Pacific Coast and joined the Cariboo gold rush of the 1850s and the Yukon rush of 1898. A group of miners made their way from the United States to Ladysmith on Vancouver Island. Others followed shortly thereafter, settling in Nanaimo, Cumberland, and Wellington. At the same time, Croatians established Canada’s first authentic group settlement around the Fraser River salmon grounds where they quickly adapted themselves to the ways of the Canadian fishing industry.

Croatians who came as part of the massive prewar flow to Canada lived by manual labour in mines, forests,and factories. They showed a remarkable degree of dispersion, settling in almost every region including British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario. In Saskatchewan, Croatian farm families lived near the towns of Bladworth, Hanley, and Kenaston while others established homesteads in Lesack and Duck Lake near Prince Albert. In Alberta, Croatians located in Taber, Lethbridge, and Iron Springs. By 1910, Edmonton was also home to Croatians. During this same period, Croatians who migrated to Winnipeg from the United States formed the basis for later community growth and development. In Ontario, Toronto, as well as smaller centres such as Hamilton, Thorold, Welland, Sault Ste. Marie, Port Arthur, Fort William, and Windsor attracted Croatians to work in industry. Croatian miners sought opportunities in the new mines in both northern Ontario and Quebec. In the Atlantic provinces, by the mid-1920s, Croatians had settled in New Waterford, Reserve Mines, Stellarton, and Sydney in Nova Scotia. The better educated immigrants began coming to Canada during the interwar period and generally sought employment in the industrial cities and towns of central Canada. Most of the post-1945 displaced persons from refugee camps in Austria and Italy – Croatian educators and other professionals, skilled tradesmen, businessmen, and industrialists – were assigned to remote resource towns to work as bushworkers, miners, and railroad navvies. They tended to move south to Canada’s major cities after completing their contracts.

The 1996 Canadian census listed 84,495 Croatians in Canada (single and multiple responses combined).The ethnocommunity group has established itself in Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, Montreal, Vancouver, and Windsor. Croatian communities in the hinterland and resource frontier towns and cities include those in Nanaimo, Rouyn-Noranda, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, Thunder Bay, and Timmins. Croatians usually settled in distinct neighbourhoods in these cities and towns.

Fraternal, literary, and cultural societies, language schools, musical ensembles, sporting clubs, and political organizations were formed that involved large numbers of the immigrant community and provided a framework in which the children of the immigrants could be educated to the dreams and ways of their parents and grandparents. Croatian halls and churches were required. The first Croatian Catholic parish was established in Windsor, Ontario, in 1950. Other parishes and missions were located in Toronto, Mississauga, Hamilton, Sault Ste. Marie, Winnipeg, Calgary, and Vancouver.

Croatians have played an important role in many aspects of this country’s development. Early Croatian migrant work gangs helped build the transcontinental railroad and development Canada’s mining, forestry, agriculture, and fishing industries. During the interwar period, many became hard working factory hands in Canada’s growing industrial sector. The third generation have enjoyed considerable upward mobility, building careers in the service, industrial, private, and professional sectors of Canadian society. They have been active in the visual and performing arts – Nenad Lhotka headed the Royal Winnipeg Ballet during the 1950s and Joso Spralja excelled as a painter, sculptor, photographer, and folk musician during the 1960s.

Croatians have enhanced many professional sports in Canada and the United States. Frank Mahovlich (appointed to the Canadian Senate in 1998), his brother, Peter, Joe Sakic, and Marty and Matt Pavelich have left indelible marks in the National Hockey League. In the boxing ring, George Chuvalo, Canadian and Commonwealth Heavy weight Champion, was inducted into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame in 1992. Football player John Mandarich of Thunder Bay, Ontario, played on the defensive line of both the Edmonton Eskimos and Ottawa Rough Riders in the Canadian Football League during the 1980s. His younger brother, Tony, became an All-American offensive lineman during his senior year at Michigan State. Born in Oakville, Ontario, he was drafted by the Green Bay Packers of the National Football League in 1989. In figure skating, the brother and sister pairs team, Val and Sandra Bezic of Toronto, captured the 1980 World Professional Championship. Sandra subsequently became a highly successful and innovative choreographer for legions of top-ranked figure skaters.

Croatians have also succeeded in the political arena. At the municipal level, Joseph Mavrinac served as Mayor of Kirkland Lake and Frank Krznaric served multiple terms on the Timmins city council. In provincial politics, Peter Sekulic of Alberta, David Stupich of British Columbia, and John Sola of Ontario proved victorious. The 1993 federal election produced four Croatian-Canadian office holders: Janko Peric (Liberal-Cambridge), Jan Brown (Reform-Calgary Southwest), Roseanne Skoke (Liberal-Central Nova Scotia), and Allan Kerpan (Reform-Moose Jaw Lake Centre, Saskatchewan).