A British Columbia author is trying to mine Canada’s rich Ukrainian heritage before it disappears.
Danny Evanishen of Summerland is looking for Ukrainian folk and fairy tales to add to his collection of 22 books. He also wants to publish funny stories from the pioneer days.
The chances are getting slimmer that any of the Ukrainian immigrants who came to Canada in the 1930s are still alive, which makes his job of preserving the stories more difficult.
“I can’t remember the last pioneer I talked to,” he said.
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“The stories I need have to come from the older folks, but because there aren’t many of them left, it would be the children and grandchildren of the pioneers.”
Some may remember the tales of pioneering hardship told by their parents or grandparents, but finding Ukrainian folk and fairy tales is more difficult.
“Those are really hard to find because people don’t remember them any more.”
Another problem is that few grandchildren spent time talking with their grandparents about their early life or listening to old folk tales.
“In the old days most of what the children learned came from what their grandparents told them. If we could get the stories from the grandparents, we could learn a lot from them.”
All four of Evanishen’s grandparents came from Ukraine. One immigrated to the Star area of Alberta in the 1890s and the rest came later to Saskatchewan. He became interested in collecting their stories when he saw his father translating stories in a book given to him by his father.
“I hadn’t seen them before and thought they were something worth preserving. I started collecting them and pretty soon I had a few books out.”
Evanishen said he’s collected 300 to 400 stories. He thinks that’s only one tenth of the stories and folk tales that exist.
When Evanishen began collecting 20 years ago, he travelled to Ukrainian folk festivals and dance festivals across Canada trying to convince people their stories were worth preserving. Recently, he has found better success putting the word out through the media.
“People read the story of the search and start offering stories.”
One of Evanishen’s favourite stories is about a little frog that jumped into a bucket of cream and started swimming and splashing but couldn’t get out. The frog kept swimming, hoping he wouldn’t drown. Eventually he felt something under his feet and he jumped out. All the swimming had churned the cream into butter. The moral of the story is never give up.
Ukrainians can share their stories on Evanishen’s website at www.ethnic.bc.ca.
