The readings throughout the class on the introduction into Canadian history made me knowledgeable as to how Canada was created. It made me realize of how evolved we are and how difficult times were for anyone to have lived in those days. We red about the First Nations and their fights to keep their lands and religion against white people. How slaves fought for their rights to be treated as people. How our French woman were sent to lands unfamiliar to them to help colonize new Canada. Out of all these readings A Fille du Roi’s Passage is the one my family can relate to the most. Adrienne writes to her long past ancestor Jeanne about the hardships they had in common with one another. Jeanne was shipped off to a land she did not know and the traveling was not one of comfort. She was to wed a man of different cloth and living. She would have three children and go on to live her life in Canada. Later on Adrienne shared the same fate marrying Jeanne’s decedents. How I think this relates to my family is how my Oma and Opa arrived to Canada. During World War Two Rudolph was forced to fight in the war wile his wife and two children were to stay at home with no man to help them. Being Austrian, we all know that they were the ones that lost. Rudolph wanted to be a pilot you see and thank the Lord that he did not for they were all shot down. Once the war was over 2,000 prisoners were taken. After a couple weeks in prison life was starting to dwindle for Rudolph, he said the bread they were given would crumble with their touch and the water they drank was as brown as mud. They were so weak that they had to dig a hole beside them just to go to the washroom. As all this was happening Rudolph’s wife Victoria and his daughters were being sent away on a train to Canada. My poor Opa was lucky, they let go only a couple hundred prisoners and he was one of them. Starving and weak they all tracked on to where they believed their families would be. Only finding green corn in fields as food along the way, Rudolph explained it as feeling like bombs going off in your stomach. Once my Opa found that my Oma was sent away with his children he had to chase them until he found them. I don’t know the rest of the story for he only talks about it when he drinks and the alcohol was wearing off at this point. But how great and hard of a story it was for my family to find each other to their arrival to Canada. That is why I feel they can relate to Jeanne’s story so much. For what they went through are only words we can understand, but never could we comprehend what it actually felt like to have made it to Canada in those times. For this reference to A Fille du Roi’s Passage go to, A Fille du Roi’s Passage. By: Leduc, Adrienne, Beaver, 00057517, Feb/Mar2001, Vol. 81, Issue 1

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