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Settlement

Chris's First Days in Canada

It was Saturday morning and the CNR offices were closed until Monday. Chris sat on a bench, surrounded by his luggage, and wrote a letter to his family. As he would often do over the years, he left out the details of his hardship. He recalled later that he watched people moving in and out of the station, and no one asked him what he was doing there.

I finally got down to the office but it being Saturday it was closed and they were not expecting anybody. So I sat with my baggage at the station and I didn't know what to do.

Chris Bennedsen to Anna Bennedsen, November 27, 1951.
(CMC, Christian Bennedsen Collection, Correspondence series, Box P-29, 12th group, translated from Danish by Chris Bennedsen)

View of downtown Toronto, 1948.
(City of Toronto Archives, Fonds 1231, Item 142)

Chris’s First Days in Canada

That evening, as he contemplated his dilemma and with only five dollars in his pocket, a “rough-looking character” sat down beside him. First, the man began speaking to him in English. When Chris didn’t answer, he switched to German, and then Danish. Chris told his story to the stranger he later learned was a Danish–American bricklayer, and they immediately struck up a friendship.

Listen to an interview in which Chris describes being dumped unceremoniously in Toronto by the "wrong" Beamsville family and meeting the Danish–American bricklayer.
(CMC, Christian Bennedsen Collection)

The Danish Good Samaritan took Chris under his wing for the rest of the weekend, and, on Monday morning, brought him back to Union Station, where he waited for the CNR offices to open.

I get the impression that Canada is a wonderful free country, one can come and go as it pleases without signing out and in at 117 different places.

Chris Bennedsen to Anna Bennedsen, January 7, 1952.
(CMC, Christian Bennedsen Collection, Correspondence series, Box P-29, 11th group, translated from Danish by Chris Bennedsen)

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