SUBSTANTIAL Czech immigration to North America did not begin until after 1860. In its initial phases, it was not motivated to any great extent by political discontent over the fate of the Czech nation within the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but more so to escape poverty and embrace opportunity. Czechs leaving the provinces of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia mainly went to the United States and established communities in Nebraska, Texas, Oklahoma, Minnesota, and Illinois. Czech immigration to Canada began on a small scale only towards the end of the nineteenth century. Most of the early immigrants settled on the prairies, establishing small farming communities in southeastern Saskatchewan, including Kolin in 1884, and, later on, Derdard, Glenside, and Dovedale. In 1900, a few Czech families who came via the United States founded Prague (Viching) in Alberta. The first urban settlements to receive prewar Czech immigrants were Edmonton, Kingston, and Windsor. Toronto attracted only a small transient group of Czechs at this time, Winnipeg emerged as the early centre of Czech activities in Canada. The Czechs worked as artisans, entrepreneurs, construction workers, and railroad navvies.

The first significant emigration from Slovakia (then situated within the framework of the Kingdom of Hungary) occurred in the early 1870s and was the direct result of the numerous work opportunities to be found in the coal mines, steel mills, and oil refineries of the United States. Almost a decade later, many of these same immigrants moved from the United States into western Canada. Some were attracted by the heady prospect of obtaining free homesteads while others hoped to earn a better living in the coal fields of Alberta in the Crow’s Nest Pass area near Blairmore and at Lethbridge. In 1885, immigration agent Paul Esterhazy brought a group of Slovaks and Hungarians from Pennsylvania to settle the Minnedosa district in Manitoba and, in 1886, the area north of the Qu’Appelle River in Saskatchewan. In time, many began the trek eastward to Fort William and other small urban communities in northern Ontario. The end of the First World War and the founding of the Czechoslovak state brought many changes to the Czech and Slovak peoples, but the immigration of both groups continued.

While a small percentage of the Czechs who began coming to Canada around 1921 were farmers who specialized in sugar beet production and would establish large agricultural concerns near Lethbridge, Alberta, and Chatham, Ontario, the vast majority of postwar arrivals came to the cities, particularly to Montreal, which quickly replaced Winnipeg as the largest Czech settlement area in Canada until the Second World War. Still others were attracted by the possibilities of work open to them in the mining and smelting areas of Quebec and Ontario, especially in Timmins, Sudbury, Noranda, and Arvida. After the Nazi occupation of the Czechoslovak state in 1938, many refugees fled the country and settled in Canada. In 1939, businessman Thomas J. Bata relocated staff from the Bata shoe factories in Moravia to Canada, thereby establishing a safe haven and the town of Batawa near Frankford, Ontario. With “liberation” in 1945 and a Moscow-dominated regime, free exit from Czechoslovakia ended but not until thousands of Czech and Slovak exiles and refugees had settled in Canada between 1947 and 1958. This well-educated group of immigrant professionals chose to settle in cities, especially those in Ontario and Quebec. An exodus of Czechs and Slovaks to Canada began again after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, an invasion that came to be known as “Prague Spring.” This group of young professionals settled in central Canada as well as in Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver. Their economic and social integration has been successful. The 1996 census figures, based on self-declared ethnic origin rather than place of birth, recorded a total of 71,915 Czechs (single and multiple response), 45,230 Slovaks and even 39,185 persons who were content to be labelled Czechoslovakian. Czechs and Slovaks have formed a multitude of ethnocommunity organizations in Canada. Some are fraternal and mutual benefit societies, others are cultural, political or social groups. Organizational homes or halls, the meeting place of choice for both communities, soon dotted the Canadian rural and urban land-scapes. Events celebrated include religious, historical, and patriotic anniversaries and special days.

Czechs and Slovaks have contributed in many different fields in Canada. Many Czechs have been attracted to business and industry. A relatively large group have established factories of their own, thus introducing new products and methods and providing many employment opportunities. The Bata family’s shoemaking empire, for instance, made and sold one million pairs of shoes per day during the 1960s. Czechs have also contributed much to the world of the performing arts through the talent and efforts of conductor Walter Susskind, composer Oskar Morawetz, pianist Antonin Kubalek, and singer/actor Jan Rubes and his actor wife, Susan Rubes. And émigré writer Josef Skvorecky played a pivotal role in helping to save, preserve, and enhance Czech language and literature. Slovak immigrants have also played a significant role in the life of Canada as businessmen, political figures, professionals of all walks, and sporting and cultural figures. Stephen B. Roman achieved meteoric success as the owner of the richest uranium mine in the world (Denison Mines). An outstanding Catholic layman, Roman was greatly responsible for the building of the Cathedral of the Transfiguration near his estate in Unionville, Ontario. Notables in journalism include George Gross, former sports editor, Toronto Sun, and Robert Reguly, former writer for The Toronto Star. Both Stan Mikita and Elmer Vasko of St. Catharines played hockey for the Chicago Blackhawks during the Golden Era when the National Hockey League consisted of only six teams. Slovaks have also taken their place on the Canadian political stage. Politicians of note include William A. Kovach, who sat as a Social Credit member in the Alberta legislature from 1948 to 1966. In Ontario, Toronto alderman George Ben was elected as a Liberal member in the Ontario Legislature in 1965. He was followed by Peter Kormos, who was first elected to the legislature in 1987 as a member of the New Democratic Party. Finally, in the federal arena, Anthony Roman was elected to the House of Commons as an independent in 1986 and Paul Szabo was elected as a Liberal to the House of Commons in Ottawa in 1993.