The Grain Lake Ukrainians

​In eastern Alberta during the 1920s and 30s there was a small group of Ukrainians that were notorious for their behavior. They were so notorious and dangerous that the Alberta Provincial Police would not acknowledge them because they could not control them and if they could not control them then the RCMP, who were not in Alberta at that time would come in to take control. This was something that the Alberta Provincial Police did not want. 

​The Grain Lake Ukrainians were considered an outlaw society by the Alberta Police, but this was kept secret from the mainstream media and public. Nevertheless the outlaw society was known throughout the Ukrainian community in Alberta. The Grain Lake Ukrainians were considered a anarchist communist community that existed both their own laws and rules. They lived in an area that was surrounded by a large lake and massive rocks, where men with rifles would watch for intruders or the police. The Grain Lake Ukrainians were even outsiders from the regular Ukrainian community as their rowdy parties and brawling ways were simply too much for the average person. And if you wanted to drink the best moonshine in the province of Alberta you would have to buy it from them at a steep cost. Gambling was also rampant in Grain Lake and many Ukrainians travelled from all over the province to try their luck but many of them lost all of their money and then received a beating and wound up naked on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. 

Several times the Alberta police tried to conduct armed raids on the community but it failed miserably as a heavy gunfight ensued and police officers were badly wounded. After these failed attempts at raiding the Grain Lake Ukrainians the Alberta police attempted a different approach as they tried to turn bitter Ukrainians against the Grain lake community. Unfortunately the Grain Lake people were too savvy and could sniff out a rat or an informant from miles away. So the police just left the community alone to do it's own thing as there were just too many violent people and guns in Grain Lake to take a chance. 

The police wondered where the Grain Lake Ukrainians had gotten their ever increasing arsenal of weapons. Through information from covert sources the police had found out that Soviet communist and anarchist groups had been supplying guns and financing the Grain Lake Ukrainians to wage a revolutionary war against the Capitalist system in Canada.

Once the police got word of this they teamed up with the RCMP to perform a series of counterintelligence operations to spread misinformation and cause dissention in the Grain Lake Ukrainian community. After four years the community once so strong became fragmented with infighting and continued splintering. Eventually they were eliminated as a revolutionary threat and the police did it without firing a bullet.

Today the Grain Lake Ukrainian community is empty, except for the communist hall that has been left behind deep in the bush. This was the place where the secret revolutionary meetings took place and also the building that was continually watched by the police. If only the walls of this building had eyes and ears, oh!, what stories it could tell.