German Forces

German POW's in Canada

Gerry Sellars

Thousands of prisoners spent their captivity in smaller transient bush camps, where they worked at outdoor tasks like logging and road-building. Pictured here is the mess at a northern Ontario camp. Ironically many of the skills these men learned in these camps were put to good use when they immigrated back to Canada after the war. I remember as a small boy in Prince George, B.C. that a good number of our neighbors were German ex-POWs. They flooded north to work in the many sawmills and construction projects in the booming north of the 1950's.