page_title: Kapuskasing
section_title: Internment camp
hierarchical_section_title: Kapuskasing / History / Internment camp
caption_attribution_description: English: Ukrainian Cemetery of Kapuskasing Internment Camp, Kapuskasing, Ontario, Canada
context_page_description: Kapuskasing is a town on the Kapuskasing River in the Cochrane District of Northern Ontario, Canada, approximately 92 kilometres east of Hearst. The town was known as MacPherson until 1917, when the name was changed so as not to conflict with another railway stop in Manitoba.
context_section_description: During World War I, the town was the site of one of the largest internment camps in Canada. The camp held over 1,300 German, Austrian, and Turkish prisoners, though the majority were Canadian residents of Ukrainian descent who had emigrated from the provinces of Bukovina and Galicia, their homeland, which at the time were part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, in the first wave of Ukrainian emigration to Canada prior to 1914.  Prisoners were employed in the construction of buildings and clearing of land for a government experimental farm on the west side of the Kapuskasing River. Isolation provided ideal security for the minimum security camp, as the railway was the only access to the remote location. Prisoners who attempted to escape into the bush were turned back by endless muskeg and clouds of mosquitoes or minus-40 degree temperatures in winter. In 1917, most were paroled to help relieve labour shortages. Afterwards, the camp was used briefly for prisoners of war and political radicals until its closure in 1920.
  A small cemetery is all that remains of the internment camp near the Kapuskasing Airport where victims of the 1918 influenza epidemic were laid to rest. An Ontario Historical Plaque was erected by the province to commemorate the Kapuskasing Internment Camp's role in Ontario's heritage.
caption: Ukrainian Cemetery of Kapuskasing Internment Camp
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