"Kaszuby" is a region in Renfrew County settled by Polish immigrants (Kashubes) from the Kaszuby region in the Gdańsk district of Poland.

In recent years, over one million Canadians have claimed Polish heritage - a significant population increase since the first group of Poles came from Prussian-occupied Poland and settled in Wilno, Ontario, west of Ottawa in 1858. For over a century, descendants from this community thought of themselves as Polish, but this began to change in the 1980s due to the work of a descendant priest who emphasized the community’s origins in Poland’s Kashubia region. What resulted was the reinvention of ethnicity concurrent with a similar movement in northern Poland. Creating Kashubia chronicles more than one hundred and fifty years of history, identity, and memory and challenges the historiography of migration and settlement in the region. For decades, authors from outside Wilno, as well as community insiders, have written histories without using the other’s stores of knowledge. Joshua Blank combines primary archival material and oral history with national narratives and a rich secondary literature to reimagine the period. He examines the socio-political and religious forces in Prussia, delves into the world of emigrant recruitment, and analyzes the trans-Atlantic voyage. In doing so, Blank challenges old narratives and traces the refashioning of the community’s ethnic identity from Polish to Kashubian. An illuminating study, Creating Kashubia shows how changing identities and the politics of ethnic memory are locally situated yet transnationally influenced.

The Kashubian people began arriving in Canada from north-central Poland during the early 1860s, the majority of them settling in Renfrew County, Ontario. The function and meaning of the principal daemons in their folklore are studied in relation to the Canadian context and the author examines the adaptations made in form and content.

Focusing on these and other thematic issues, Bohdan Kordan assesses the policy and practice of civilian internment in Canada during the Great War and provides a clear yet critical statement about the complex and troubling nature of this experience. Period photographs and first person accounts augment the text, helping to communicate not only the layered and textured character of the experience but the human drama of the story as well. A comprehensive roster identifying those interned in the frontier camps of the Rocky Mountains is also included.