Monument honours Polish immigrants
HALIFAX — A monument honouring the Polish-Canadian community has been erected in Halifax.
Dominik Barcz, a fur merchant from a Polish city on the Baltic coast, was the first recorded Polish immigrant to arrive on Canadian soil in 1752, leading many generations of Poles who later found a new home in Canada.
The monument, displayed outside the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, is built with a large piece of natural sandstone from southern Poland, mounted on a granite base from Nova Scotia. A plaque on the front of the monument reads: “A stone from Poland in honour of emigrants from Polish lands who contributed to the creation and development of Canada, which in return offered them shelter and new prospects.”
The idea for the monument came from Jan Skora, Honorary Consul of the Republic of Poland, who says while the monument might look simple, it’s symbolic of the long-standing relationship between Canada and Poland.
According to Statistics Canada, around one million Canadians claim full or partial Polish ancestry.