Edmonton

Community Organizations:

Portuguese Canadian Multicultural Society * Portuguese Cultural Centre

EDMONTON’S POPULATION: 1,519,000

STATISTICS FOR THE PORTUGUESE IN EDMONTON

AS MOTHER TONGUE	AS MOST SPOKEN	KNOWLEDGE OF THE LANGUAGE	BORN IN PORTUGAL	ETHNIC ORIGIN
4,630 0.3% of population	1,915 0.1% of population	6,100 0.4% of population	2,575 0.2% of population	10,710 0.7% of population

A DYNAMIC COMMUNITY IN REVIVAL MODE

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Portuguese immigration to Canada was officially started in 1953 after the ship Saturnia docked in Halifax with 69 countrymen aboard. The years that followed saw a few thousand others arrive and scatter across this vast land. It did not take long for them to settle in Western Canada, either in major urban centres or in rural areas of Alberta and British Columbia. Edmonton, although not the main destination for most, witnessed the settling of many of those who arrived here from Portugal during the 1950s and the decades that followed.

According to the site of Edmonton’s main Portuguese Catholic Parish, the church of Our Lady of Fatima, there were forty-four people who immigrated to Alberta from Portugal between 1948 and 1956, followed by 236 in 1957. Out of these, 116 started working at the CN Rail and became the pioneers of the Portuguese community in Edmonton. The first community celebration occurred in 1971 with the inaugural procession of Our Lady of Fatima at the Sacred Heart School and, a year later, the first mass in Portuguese was celebrated at the Sacred Heart Church, which initiated the Portuguese Mission of Edmonton. In 1979, the community made the last mortgage payment on the current church. (Source: https://ourladyoffatima.caedm.ca/about/history/, last accessed on August 18, 2022).

In Edmonton, the community settled in the downtown area. What happened next is akin to what occurs in other large cities across Canada: we tend to follow the Italians. Virgilio Lopes, who arrived in Edmonton in 1978, recalls that he found a large Portuguese community here. “When I arrived in Edmonton, the Portuguese area was downtown. What happened is that the Italians left, and the Portuguese purchased homes there. The Portuguese kept on following the Italians,” he said during a conversation held in May of 2022.

Virgilio Gonçalves Lopes, who is the current vice-president of the local Portuguese Cultural Centre, arrived in Canada in the winter of 1977 to work at an aunt’s farm in southern British Columbia, near the border with the United States of America. After recognizing the scarcity of job opportunities in the area, he took the advice of a friend and moved permanently to Edmonton four months later. “I came to a place near the United States called Oliver. I had an aunt there who sponsored me. I worked in the farms for four months, but there was no industry there at the time. A friend came over to spend Christmas and New Year’s [with us] and asked me if I wanted to go to Edmonton, that there was a lot of work there. I came [to Edmonton] on January 8, 1978. I arrived and, the next day, I started working. There were a lot of Portuguese people, mostly from the Beiras region and from Minho. It was not only the fact that there were a lot of Portuguese, but there were also a lot of them who were involved in the community. It was different in those days,” Lopes recalled.

Back then, the community was already well organized in terms of social and cultural organizations, as well as establishments that served the Luso-Canadians who resided there, as Virgilio Lopes recounted: “In those days, we had two or three Portuguese cafés, we had a small church, then we had a daycare and an association – Associação Portuguesa de Edmonton – but they both shut down in the mid-1980s. We had two small restaurants but later we had a large restaurant, a good restaurant. It was called Spago. Maria Nobre and Joaquim Nobre were the owners. Maria had health issues and they closed and returned to Portugal. Joaquim, unfortunately, already passed away. We also had two soccer teams, folk-dance groups, and a filarmónica.” Recently, another traditional restaurant by the name of “A Taverna” owned by Elza Silva and Fernando Silvado, and the Pardal café also ceased operations.

Currently, the community is served by the upscale restaurant Sabor Divino, located in the city centre, and Charcutaria Micaelense, an establishment that is divided into supermarket, restaurant and pub. There are also a number of bakeries that include The Portuguese Canadian Bakery, Handy Bakery, and Popular Bakery.

The Gil Vicente Portuguese School is one of the oldest organizations serving the community in Edmonton. Founded in the distant year of 1971, it currently offers classes for children and adults, starting with Pre-Kindergarten ages. In the early 80s, it reached its peak with 200 students enrolled but, over the years, it has been able to maintain an average of 100 students (source: gilvicenteedmonton.com/ourschool, last accessed on August 17, 2022).

It was during the 1980s that a large community movement took place. Rancho Folclórico Caravela – Portuguese was founded in 1986 and, in 1987, the Portuguese Canadian Multicultural Society (PCMS) came into the fore, eventually harbouring the folk-dance group under its umbrella. The organization became the cultural and social centre of the community for the next decade, until another group was founded near the turn of the millennium. It was at the PCMS that members of the Caravela folk-dance group formed another rancho to represent the Minho region. Eventually, this new group separated from the original organization and formed an entirely new association, officially founded in 1997 under the name of Portuguese Cultural Centre. This organization has gone through major changes recently and has established itself as a major community hub for the Luso-Canadians who reside in Edmonton.

Currently, the Portuguese community of Edmonton is witnessing a resurgence, as the recent involvement in its associations seem to indicate. The newest generation of Luso-Canadians continue to show interest in their heritage and are partaking in various leadership roles within the local community organizations. This is a sign of sustainability and maintenance of our culture for many years to come.

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