Canada’s Greeks share their stories

"And your husband? How had you met him?" asks the researcher. "At our best man's house. My husband and my best man, they became acquainted on the ship on which they were coming to Canada [in 1963]. They said that whoever marries first, the other would be best man." Avgousti Polyxeni was born in the village of Stafidokambos in Ilia in the Peloponnese and immigrated from Greece to Canada in 1965. The couple live in Montreal. The black-and-white photograph that is posted beside her interview shows another woman, Aliki Vallianos, getting ready to walk down the aisle in Montreal in 1957.

A man from Hania in Crete, who wished to remain anonymous, says in his interview: "In that period all the people wanted to leave Greece, all the people wanted to go to the ships. All the youth wanted to go somewhere. The years back then were difficult as well… And I liked the ships. I wanted to...