Caranguejeira Pioneers

Six young men from a village in Portugal called Caranguejeira decided to embark to a distant and unknown land called Canada with the objective and great courage of starting a new life. They are: Manuel Rodrigues, Martinho de São José, Jaime Teotónio, Manuel Brígido, Faustino Gaspar and Luís Ribeiro.

There were no job opportunities back home except working on the fields for family survival. They were brave to come especially when they first arrived and could not understand anyone including the immigration officers. They were led to different rooms until they were separated to go to different destinations. They became very isolated wondering where each other was. Weeks later they received from their families back home the address where the others were, as per their letters to family.

When they resumed communication, they started to collect ideas and they moved around to better jobs and gradually for a better life to a point that they decided that living in Canada was going to be their future.