Context: The Dominion Lands Act
In 1872, Canada passed the Dominion Lands Act, allowing for the sale of land within the newly-acquired North-West Territories. Intended to facilitate the settlement of the Canadian west, the act was heavily inspired by American legislation with the same goal of western expansion. Immigrants from America and Europe were incentivized to claim land in the prairie provinces, while the government began the Dominion Land Survey that divided the lands into claimable parcels.
The Canadian government invested heavily in advertising the newly available land, and soon attracted large numbers of Poles, Germans, Americans, Norwegians, and Ukrainians to the prairies.
Mazeppa Family and early homestead life
In 1904, Stefen “Steve” Mazeppa left his home in the Austrian territory of Galicia and arrived in Strathcona, Alberta. After locating a suitable homestead for his family, Steve brought his wife, Olena “Helen” Mazeppa, and eight children overseas to Canada. Stefan and Helen had three more children in Canada, for a total of eleven.
The Mazeppas reached their homestead south of Evansburg in 1908. The family slept in a tent, with the children in a lean-to, until their two-room log cabin was constructed. The cabin had two main rooms and faced south, in typical Ukrainian fashion. As well, the outside of the structure was originally covered in sod, mimicking building techniques common in Ukraine. It was finished in 1911, with four large rooms and two floors, a luxury in this period.
Around 1930, Steve and Helen’s son Bill took over the homestead alongside his wife, Minnie. The pair maintained the land and home until 1933, when they purchased their own homestead. Another son, Joseph, and his wife, Albina, took over the homestead at some point, although the exact dates are unknown. The building, along with the outhouse that went with it, were donated to the museum after the last residents moved out.
identity in a new land
When the first wave of Ukrainian immigrants arrived in Canada, they were not identified as Ukrainian. Ukraine in the early 1900’s was split between the Austrian and Russian Empires, and Ukrainians themselves had no organized national identity.
Passenger lists and immigration records reflect this, with Ukrainian immigrants being recorded as Ruthenian, Carpathian, Russian Carpathian, Russian, or Austrian. Austrian Ukrainians were sometimes recorded using the region they had come from: Galicia or Bukovina.
On this passenger list, the Mazeppa family is listed as “Aust Ruth” or Austrian Ruthenian. The surname has been spelled “Mazepa”
This application for homestead entry shows the family listed as being from “Galicia,” with their surname spelled “mazeba”.
Photograph from Alberta Homestead Records, University of Alberta collection.
In the 1926 census the family is finally listed as “Ukrainian”. Their surname is spelled “Mazeppa”
Photograph from the Library and Archives of Canada.
In July of 1914, Austria-Hungary attacked the Kingdom of Serbia, igniting the powder keg of European alliances that would result in the British Empire declaring war against Germany and Austria-Hungary, and the beginning of World War One. Since many Ukrainian immigrants were citizens of Austria, they were considered “enemy aliens.” Many were detained in internment camps during the war, despite having no allegiance to Austria.
As a result, families commonly ended up with many different spellings of their surname. The Mazeppas had three main variations: Мазпа, the traditional Ukrainian spelling, Mazeba, and Mazeppa. Some families had their surnames changed so that all members of the family shared one surname, as opposed to systems such as patronymic naming.
virtual tour of the mazeppa house
mazeppa house
The house as it stands at the museum today with an outhouse that was brought from the homestead.
walking up the front door
The house did not have the porch when it was moved to the museum. The porch was recreated in 2020.
welcome in!
It is a Ukrainian superstition that you should exit from the same door you enter from, to avoid “crossing your threads” and causing bad luck. It is also considered unlucky to re-enter the house to grab something you forgot; if you must do so, you must look in a mirror before you leave to cancel out the bad luck.
the first room
This is the view of the kitchen as you cross the threshold. In a traditional Ukrainian house this is the “mala khata”, or the “small house”. The mala khata would typically be the west most end of a house. Traditionally, this room is where most of the daily activity takes place; cooking, eating, washing, and sleeping. Ukrainian settlers that put clay ovens, or a “pich”, inside of their houses would have built them in this room.
aLong the west wall
These artifacts are set up in an anglo-Canadian style. Without interviews or photographs inside the house, we can’t know for sure how the Mazeppas would have set up their homestead.
Ice box
This is an ice box, the precursor to the electric fridge. Ice boxes kept food cold by placing a block of ice inside the box along with food that needed to stay cool.
Wash day
This ringer washer would have been advanced technology for its time, and required a person to manually pump and wring excess water out of clothing. While modern washing and drying machines can finish a load in one to two hours, these older machines could take all day– it depended on how fast the operator could work!
looking north in the mala khata
east wall, looking into the Velyka khata
the heart of the home
The kitchen in the Mazeppa house currently features a beautifully decorated cast iron wood-burning stove. This house may have originally featured a clay oven that was upgraded to a cast iron stove once the family had saved enough money. The kitchen stove would have heated the entire house. Traditionally an entire family would have slept in this room to be near the heat of the stove.
Velyka khata
To the right of the stove is the doorway to the velyka khata, or “big house.” In traditional use, this room would have only been for special occasions as the mala khata served as the space for all daily living needs. The velyka khata was traditionally the east end of the house and would feature iconography on the far wall. Holiday meals would take place in the velyka khata. In the winter this room would have been quite cold as usually there was only a stove in the mala khata. The velyka khata could have also served as a space to store certain items. This room would have traditionally kept all of the family’s most treasured possessions: wall hangings, embroideries, carved trunks, sunday clothes. We are uncertain if the Mazeppas observed these practices on their homestead.
Looking north east
The velyka khata was traditionally used as a sleeping area for guests.
cozied up
Here, we have staged a rocking chair next to a wax cylinder phonograph. The Mazeppas were a very musical family, with some members being involved in a band.
Looking south east
one last look
a second floor
Unlike other houses from its era, the Mazeppa House has a second floor. This would have been considered a high luxury, adding a layer of privacy in an otherwise crowded home. The museum is working on making the upstairs open to visitors.
out the back door
Goodbye!