When Forrest Pass, curator for Library and Archives Canada (LAC), first dug into the history of Filipinos in Canada, he was only expecting to find some isolated or unusual cases of individuals migrating from the Philippines.  

But listed among early 20th-century log records that accompanied the Canadian Pacific steamship services between Victoria, B.C., and Manila, Philippines, Pass says, were glimpses of the lives of people who lived at that time, including the first dozen recorded Filipinos in Canada.

“Certainly, we know about the migration that began in the 1960s and the vibrant community that exists today,” he says. “But to look for some of the antecedents, to look for some of the earliest Filipino settlers in Canada. I wasn’t expecting to find as much as I did.”

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