Travel
THE
JEWISH LIGHT
On A Jewish Tour Of Northern Ontario, Small Spaces Convey Decades Of History By Robert Walker
A view of Lake Superior on Robert Walker's tour through northern Ontario. (Robert Walker)
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(JTA) — I was definitely lost, of that I was sure. I had turned off the main highway — if you could call a two-lane road a highway — and onto a dirt road, and after 10 minutes of driving, having seen nothing but lumber workers and a lone fox, there was no way that I was going to find what I was looking for. But I continued driving down the dirt road until I came to a small white sign that read “Hebrew cemetery” and knew I must be close, after all. But I still couldn’t find it anywhere. So I stopped the car on the side of the road and approached a small barn, where I asked a lone farmer if he knew where the Jewish cemetery was. “Right across the street,” he answered. I looked around, seeing nothing but forest and fields. “Where, exactly?” I asked. “There,” he said, pointing directly across the street. Perplexed, I crossed the road, through a small forest, and walked for hundreds of feet. I came to a small building, not much larger than a shed, with a modest sign that read “Northern Chevra KadishaKrugerdorf,” and a small clearing with about 60 graves, some of which dated back more than 110 years. The first grave and a number of others are the markers for the original Jewish inhabitants of the area, who died when their canoe overturned on the cold river rapids. They were buried almost two weeks later in an empty field donated by
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(Robert Walker)
36 Passover 2021
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Simon Hanarousky, a Jewish farmer nearby. Knowing that this cemetery sees virtually no visitors, it seemed appropriate to offer the traditional Jewish prayer for the dead and leave some stones — a traditional Jewish practice upon visiting a graveyard — before heading on my way. The last burial in this cemetery hasn’t been for a year. Before long it will likely see its final Jewish burial, as very few Jews remain in the area. Here I was in the rugged barrenness of northern Ontario, six hours north of Toronto, saying Kaddish and reciting tehillim (psalms) knowing that but for a brief moment in time, there was Jewish life in this most isolated of locales. Ontario is the most populous of the Canadian provinces, with nearly 15 million people, including about 220,000 Jews. Although the province is nearly as large as Texas and California combined, most of its population lives in the Greater Toronto area, Ottawa and other midsize cities like Hamilton and London. I had been looking forward to a road trip of exploring northern Ontario for many weeks. Having grown up in Toronto, the vastness and mystery of the rest of the province was always intriguing. So I headed out in mid-October from my home in Toronto hoping to see the changing leaves, some natural beauty and, if I had time, the Jewish cemetery in Krugerdorf. I had no idea it would become a Jewish history tour. When the first Jewish immigrants came to Canada in significant numbers in the 19th century, larger cities like Toronto were largely inhospitable due to antiSemitism and poor job prospects. So they headed directly north to towns like Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie, North Bay and others, seeing work in lumber, mining and the construction of the Trans-Canada Railway. This is where small JewSee ONTARIO on Page THE
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JEWISH LIGHT
