2008 marks an important milestone
 for the Polish Kashub Culture in Canada
as it will be the 150th Anniversary of the
arrival of the first Kashubs in Canada in 1858.

An account of their arrival in a Canadian Government Report of the Select Committee on Emigration [1860], details a few of the many difficulties and hardships they faced:

"In 1858, 76 Poles (16 families) landed here by the Heinrich from Bremen.  They had been told by a passage agent for the Bremen shipping interest, that they would receive 100 acres of land on going to Canada, free of any expense or pay. They sold their little cottages and few acres, and landed here paupers. They had not as much as the value of a loaf of bread in money amongst them. They said the agent at home had deceived them, in telling them the cost of removal from Prussian Poland to Quebec was a great deal less than they afterwards found out.  These people were much more to be pitied, on account of their not speaking anything else but Polish.  I shall never forget their bitter, despairing cries, when they found here on the other side of the ocean how awfully they had been misled. I procured free passages for them from the Chief Agent to Renfrew, and although late in the season, I saw them all, except one family,  for whom I could not get employment, provided for, with the farmers in that neighbourhood. They were considered a burthen on their arrival, but in one year they have already elicited honorable mention from the Ottawa Agency.

Details of special events planned for 2008 will be posted soon.