A Chance to Start Again 

The year was 1870.

Sofie folded her dresses gently and placed them in her bag. She recalled the conversation she had earlier with Mama: "We will be leaving in the morning, Sofie. And we won't be coming back." Sofie knew why they were leaving:

Years before Sofie was born, her Mama and Papa had moved to Russia from Germany. The Manifesto published by Czar Alexander I in 1804 encouraged Germans to move to Russia. They were promised freedom of religion, free land, and exemption from military service, among other rights. Inge and Raimund Schaefer immigrated to the Black Sea area in 1852, when Sofie's brother, Gottlieb Raimund was just a baby. In 1853, Sofie Catherine was born, and Erich Dietrich followed in 1856. As the years passed, the Russians became more domineering. The German people began to be oppressed by their hosts, in an attempt to 'Russia-fy' them. The times had been especially hard for her family - yesterday their farm had been confiscated by the Russian authorities.

The stories which had so easily drifted into her thoughts now faded from her mind. Sofie checked her room over once again to be sure she hadn't left any of her belongings behind. She cast a hesitant glance out the window and noticed the sun setting over the still landscape. She heard the hushed tones of her parents in the adjoining room, but couldn't make out what they were saying. Abruptly, she turned her attention to their barn in the distance where Gottlieb and Erich were cleaning. Sofie sighed quietly.

Feeling exhausted, she lay down on her bed, rolling onto her side so she could see into the ever-growing darkness of her room. Realizing she was succumbing to sleep, she uttered a quiet prayer, and closed her eyes.

Sofie awoke the next morning to the rough touch of her mother's hand against her cheek. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, allowing a brief yawn to slip from her lips.

"Sofie? Are you ready to leave?" she asked.

" Ja, Mama. I am ready." Sofie replied. She sat silently on her bed for a few moments, and then opened her mouth to speak. "Mama? Where are we going?"

Her mother looked sorrowfully at her. "To Canada, my liebling. A chance to start again."

Sofie had heard about Canada before. Gottlieb's sweetheart left a few weeks earlier with her family. She had left each of Sofie's family with a tender kiss on the cheek, and the promise that she'd write.

The light began to stream in Sofie's window and she hurriedly smoothed the wrinkles out of her skirt. She snatched up her bag and joined her family in the kitchen. Papa was sitting at the table fingering a few loose sheets of paper. Sofie noticed a couple biscuits remaining untouched in the center of the table. She grabbed one and bit into it, crumbs tumbled down her chin, falling precariously to the floor below. A train whistle cut the solemn atmosphere in the house like a knife. Papa looked up from his papers and nodded to Mama.

"We must be leaving now. Everyone get your bags - make sure you leave nothing behind," he said. Sofie lifted her bag from its place on the floor beside the table. Holding it tightly by the handle, she walked to the door and took her coat off its hook. Draping it casually across her shoulders, she made her way out the front door and into the bright sunlight. The landscape was brown and dry. Dust clouds danced across the empty fields, catching up bits of dead grass and tossing them a distance, before they landed a few feet away. In the distance to her left, she could catch a glimpse of the train station. It was small, but suited their community purposes well. To her distant right, she could see the steeple of the local Lutheran Church. Her church. She had been raised Lutheran, baptised Lutheran - the thought of leaving her little church behind was devastating; but perhaps, in Canada, there would be other churches. Sofie could only hope.

The shuffling of bags and feet behind her thrust her back into reality. The sad actuality was they were leaving and weren't coming back. Mama and Papa had prepared Sofie and her brothers for the trip by telling them it would take a few months to get from Russia to their destination in Canada.

The family started the short trek towards the train station. Gravel crunched beneath their shoes and left trails of dust floating behind them. The autumn wind tugged at Sofie's skirts, pulling her along the path. By the time the Schaefer family reached the train station, the arriving train was slowing, puffing to a stop. Hundreds of people were congregated on the platform; some waiting for those on the incoming train, but most waiting to board the train when it departed. Thousands of people were leaving Russia for Canada every month. Papa had mentioned that immigrants going to Canada could buy 160 hectares of land in the West for $10 - which to most was a small fortune. After three years of farming, the property would become theirs, if certain conditions were met. Sofie tried to imagine what Canada would look like. On the way to the train station, she asked her papa how the New World would look. He said that he had heard that the Prairies of the west looked like the steppes of southern Russia. Sofie felt content knowing that she wouldn't have to adapt to the landscape as much as she initially thought.

It was almost impossible to push through the crowds, as Sofie soon noticed. Keeping up with her parents was proving to be a difficult task. In a sudden instant, Sofie lost sight of her family. Her breath caught in her throat, and she turned her head from side to side anxiously. Not knowing where to go or where to look, she pushed forward. As she pressed onward, the seconds seemed like minutes, and the minutes like hours. No matter which way she looked, nobody seemed to resemble her family. In fact, all the faces, clothes, and voices seemed to run together to become a big blob of confusion and chaos. Maturity told her to keep her emotions in check, but though she tried to hold them back, tears began rolling down her cheeks, uninvited. In a desperate attempt to find her parents, she opened her mouth and cried out, "MAMA! PAPA! GOTTLIEB! ERICH!" Some people on the platform stopped to look at her. Some looked at her in condescension, some in pity. Without warning, Sofie felt someone grab her hand and pull her a short distance through the crowd to a small clearing of platform. Her parents and brother, Erich, were huddled in a circle talking. When Sofie reached the opening, she looked up at her rescuer. It was Gottlieb: his face was coloured with worry and concern. She wrapped her arms around his muscular chest, and cried softly into this jacket. The fear that moments ago felt so real was being erased by the love and compassion she felt with her brother's arms around her. Papa had their tickets, and once the conductor called for their passes, they boarded the car and found a place to settle. The compartment was so compact; it barely held the five persons in their family. Sofie took one of the window seats, and while feeling like she was in a can of sardines, she felt that the beautiful landscape would make up for their cramped quarters.

The train was taking them across Europe to the Atlantic Coast, where they would take a boat across the ocean to Canada. The trip seemed to take forever. The locomotive was busting at the seams with passengers, which made it extremely difficult to do anything. For a long while, the landscape was monotonous and drab. But, one morning, the scenery outside the window changed. Rich oranges, reds and yellows coloured the countryside. The landscape was clothed with tall trees, thick shrubs and bushes, and large stretches of meadow. Occasionally, she saw white frost on the trees and grass. And sometimes, in the early morning, she awoke to see heavy fog settling over the terrain, covering the scenery in a cloudy blanket.

The train made frequent stops along the way, picking up and dropping off passengers. They passed through Austria-Hungary, Switzerland and France.

Finally, they stopped at Brest, on the coast of France. Inge, Erich and Sofie waited at a local inn, while Gottlieb and Raimund bought the boat fares for the family. When they returned they informed the rest of their family that the ship left the following morning at eleven o'clock. Erich suggested they stay at the inn overnight, and leave to board the boat in the morning.

Sofie and her family left for the docks the following morning. The air was heavy and humid; the sky - dark and grey. Ominous clouds congregated in the skies above them. Sofie looked uneasily across the harbour to where a huge ship was docked. She had never been on a boat in all her seventeen years. The apprehension that filled her caused her stomach to flip-flop in a way that made her incredibly nauseous. Far out on the water, a red buoy tossed back and forth in the waves. Ship horns sounded long and sombrely simultaneously in the distance. Sofie looked up from the water and back at her family. Her brothers were situated on the grassy knoll off to the left, her parents talking quietly in front of the hill. Another horn sounded, this time from the large ship at the end of the pier. Sofie's parents looked up and beckoned to her brothers. They gathered their things and began strolling in the direction of Sofie. She joined her family as they walked past towards the gangplank.

The crowds were getting denser by the minute, as the Schäfers entered the ship. Sofie, her family and most of the other travellers were third class passengers. Once on board, they were directed below deck to small cabins with multiple bunk beds affixed to the walls. Some rooms had tiny portholes in the walls, where one could see the salty sea water tossing and churning for miles. Sofie glanced around the cramped living quarters. She thought back to when she got on the ship. The Captain had met them upon boarding and said that the trip to Halifax, Nova Scotia would take approximately two weeks. Until then there were no exceptional amenities on the ship, and therefore, the passengers would have to entertain themselves for the remainder of the voyage. The vessel would depart in an hour, and Sofie wanted to get accustomed to the layout of the boat. The interior walls were made of a dingy coloured metal, and the whole ship had an overall salty smell. Sofie wandered up onto the deck and found herself in the middle of an extremely large area. She walked to the railing, and gripped the top bar with her hands. Leaning out to see past the ends of the ship she noticed that travellers were still slowly boarding. Most went immediately below deck to lay claim to their bunks. The wind whipped her loose hair around her shoulders, and thunder rumbled in the distance. In that instant, a sense of urgency filled the air surrounding the craft. Sofie rubbed her arms in an attempt to smooth the goose-bumps that dotted her arms. She looked up and saw clouds gathering and swirling in the sky right above the vessel. Following her initial instincts, Sofie went below deck, back to her room to wait for departure, praying they would have a smooth trip.

The voyage lasted twelve days. The first five days were tumultuous - lightning, thunder, aggressive winds, and surges of water. This type of weather was especially common. However, on the sixth day, the waters became still and the sky was absent of clouds. The sun shone brightly causing the water to glimmer and sparkle. Many passengers became violently seasick during the trip and some people died as a result of serious disease. Mama was very seasick for the first week of the journey and Sofie spent the days putting cool cloths on her forehead, while spoon-feeding her soup. After the initial seven days, Mama made a miraculous recovery and spent much of her time up gazing out the porthole, watching the waves swell and collapse. On the twelfth day, the ship pulled into port at Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Upon arrival, they travelled about one-hundred seventy kilometres to the small town of Digby, all the way across Nova Scotia. From there they boarded a ferry across the Bay of Fundy to the Canadian Pacific Railway station at St. John, New Brunswick. Then they took the CPR across Canada to the Prairies. A couple of weeks later, the Schäfer family got off in Calgary. Papa, Gottlieb and Erich immediately left on foot for the Hudson's Bay Company office to purchase and receive a deed to a plot of homestead outside of Calgary.

When they returned, Sofie noticed that they were followed by a young man and woman. Papa triumphantly raised an envelope over his head and pulled Mama into an embrace. Papa introduced the young couple behind him. Kristof and Sigrid Biermann were also from Russia, but spoke German and some English. This proved to be helpful as Papa only spoke German, and could not communicate with the English-speaking officials at the HBC's office. Kristof had translated for the officials, and Papa was able to purchase his property. As it turned out, Kristof and Sigrid had bought the deed for the plot of land directly beside Papa's. Papa told his family that the Biermann's would share their horse-drawn wagon and take them to their new property.

Suddenly, Mama spoke up.

"Raimund! What about goods? We have no food or tools. We will need to purchase these before we go to our new home."

Sofie pondered this. Their home in Russia seemed very distant and forgotten now. It had been many weeks since she had been at home. Most nights she missed her room and her bed. Those were the nights when she was sleeping propped up on her brothers' shoulders on a train, or when she was resting on an incredibly firm bunk on a ship. However, as much as she missed her old home, she couldn't deny that the Prairies were very similar in appearance to the steppes in southern Russia, as her Papa had said. This could be home, Sofie thought to herself.

The next few hours were spent in the local general store shopping for everything from flour and sugar to shovels and nails. Once their purchases were loaded in the back of the wagon, they set off - a few hours before dusk, to see their new land.

Upon arrival, they saw that their homestead was surrounded by trees: both coniferous and deciduous. Otherwise, it was a blank slate. It was just an exceptionally large expanse of fertile soil, grass, and trees. After an hour of planning for the future, Sofie and her family piled into the Biermann's wagon to return to Calgary for the night. As they drove off into the sunset, their land distanced itself from them, until it became a small speck in the distance.

Making a living, however, was never easy. They had arrived with little money, few possessions and no ability to speak English. The land they chose was large and the Canadian environment unpredictable. Despite these challenges they persevered. Over the next three months, the Schaefer family worked tirelessly to build a home, a barn, and a well on their property. They purchased a few cattle and horses in the following weeks, and began preparing the land for crops come spring. The Schaefers were only partially prepared for the brutal Canadian winters, and during the cold months they lost a heifer to hypothermia. Sigrid Biermann also died during the winter from pneumonia.

In the spring, the Schaefers planted their first crops and eighteen-year old Sofie married Kristof Biermann. It was a season of celebration and new beginnings. And even though things were hard, nature was their challenge; not unreliable governments and cultural inequalities.