Joseph Oleskiw

Dr. Joseph Oleskiw or Jósef Olesków (September 28, 1860 – October 18, 1903) was a Ukrainian professor of agronomy who promoted Ukrainian immigration to the Canadian prairies. His efforts helped encourage the initial wave of settlers which began the Ukrainian Canadian community.

Ukraine Joseph Oleskiw was born in the village of Nova Skvariava (Nowa Skwarzawa), near Zhovkva, in the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia (now western Ukraine). His father, a Greek (Eastern) Catholic parish priest, was a member of the rural élite. Oleskiw studied geography and agriculture at the University of Lemberg (Lviv, Ukraine). He was appointed professor of agronomy at the teacher's college in Lemberg.

Early immigration Ukrainian immigrants who had travelled to Brazil and Argentina, enticed by the free transportation they had received, sent back word that conditions there were worse than in their homeland. After hearing of the struggles of Ukrainian immigrants in Brazil, Oleskiw investigated alternative choices. He determined that the Canadian prairies were the most suitable for the Ukrainian farmers. This led to Oleskiw writing two pamphlets in Ukrainian – "On Free Lands" (Pro Vilni Zemli, spring 1895), and "On Emigration" (O emigratsiy, December 1895) – and one in Polish. Oleskiw sought and obtained the endorsement of the Prosvita Society that a non-commercial, non-profit effort to help the immigrants should be implemented.

The journey Oleskiw left for Canada along with Ivan Dorundiak, a representative of the farming community, on July 25, 1895 on a fact-finding journey that would span three months. Along the way, at length he met with Sir Charles Tupper, at that time Canada's High Commissioner in London. Because of Oleskiw's efforts, on the one hand, and the Canadian government's direct involvement, on the other, the flow of Ukrainians to Canada was much more targeted and organized than that to the United States.

Canada On August 12, 1895, they arrived in Montreal. On reaching Winnipeg, Oleskiw met with H.H. Smith, Commissioner of Dominion Lands under the Dominion Lands Act, who assigned Hugo Carstens, who spoke German, to act as an interpreter and guide for Oleskiw and Dorundiak's tour of Western Canada. Following an inspection of Vancouver Island, he returned to Winnipeg and then travelled to Ottawa via the United States. Genik preferred Stuartburn, a district not recommended by Oleskiw; as it was close to the large Mennonite settlement near Gretna, and commercial farms in North Dakota and Minnesota, where those Ukrainians who needed cash might earn some extra money. Fifteen families from Galicia settled in an area recommended by Oleskiw, northwest of Dauphin, Manitoba. As the Riding Mountains resembled the Carpathian foothills, some families also found their way into this area.

Thus began the massive, continuous influx of Ukrainian immigration to Canada. Although Oleskiw promoted emigrants based on their assimilationist tendencies, the mass of Ukrainians that followed them tended to retain their cultural heritage.

Later life Oleskiw was married twice and had two sons and two daughters from his first marriage. In 1900 Olesków was appointed principal of a teacher's college in Sokal. The departure from Lemberg, political pressure and the death of his first wife led him to withdraw from emigration promotion after his move. Three years after the appointment to Sokal, he died suddenly at the age of 43.

Today, Oleskiw Park and the Oleskiw neighbourhood in Edmonton, Alberta are named after him.