This remote location marks the first deployment of Canada’s only segregated Black unit: The Number 2 Construction Battalion. After heavy losses during the first years of World War One, Canada relaxed its rules of racial exclusion for visible minorities, including Black Canadians. Eventually hundreds of Canadian Black men would join the battalion’s ranks after being turned away by recruiters earlier in the war.
Notably, Black New Brunswickers and Nova Scotians showed up in large numbers. In the spring of 1917 a contingent of 250 men from the No. 2 travelled to New Brunswick, namely Edmonston, Moncton and here in Napadogan to tear up rail way ties to ship to Britain for use on the Western Front.
Feature image:
Gallaery Images:
No. Construction Battalion For Coloured Men of Canada. c 1916. Poster. Source: Esther Clark Wright Archives, Acadia University.
Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia, 0116SU265x7(2)
