Century-Old WWI Internment Camp Chair Acquired by Canadian War Museum

A handcrafted wooden chair made in 1915 by a prisoner held at the Spirit Lake internment camp near Amos, Quebec, was acquired by the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. The chair, intricately engraved with grapevines, oak leaves, and acorns, represents the largely forgotten history of over 80,000 people of 'enemy alien' origin interned in Canada during WWI—most of them Ukrainian immigrants from Austro-Hungarian territory. Canada operated 24 internment camps between 1914 and 1920 under the War Measures Act. The craftsman, identified as Sofian, was released in 1916 and later emigrated to North America; the chair's journey to a national museum on the 109th anniversary of the battle of Vimy Ridge was described by CBC News as a symbolic full circle for the wartime internment story.