About the Author

My name is Michael O’Hagan and I am a historian interested in Canadian environmental, digital, and military history. As you may have gathered from this site, my primary research focus is Canadian Internment Operations during the Second World War.

I received my PhD in History from Western University and my dissertation, “Beyond the Barbed Wire: POW Labour Projects in Canada during the Second World War,” examined German POWs in labour projects in Canada, primarily in Northwestern Ontario, Alberta, and Manitoba. I focused on a series of case studies of POWs working for the Riding Mountain Park Labour Project (also known as the Whitewater Lake POW Camp), Ontario-Minnesota Pulp & Paper Co., Abitibi Power & Paper Co., Donnell & Mudge Ltd., and those employed on farms.

My research now focuses on POWs in Canada more generally, although I have a special interest in POWs employed in bush camps. As much of Canada’s prisoner of war history remains unpublished, this site started as a way to share some of my research. Today, the purpose of the site has shifted to become a resource where people can learn more about Canadian Internment Operations of the Second World War and what life was like for both prisoners and guards.

I am always looking for more information about POWs in Canada so if you have any stories, photographs, or information that you would be willing to share, please let me know.

Selected Publications

PhD Dissertation

O’Hagan, Michael, “Beyond the Barbed Wire: POW Labour Projects in Canada during the Second World War” (2020). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 6849. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/6849

Articles

O’Hagan, Michael. “Waiting out the War on the Shore of Lake Superior: Camp 100 and Neys Provincial Park”. Ontario History 115, no. 1 (2023) : 114–139. https://doi.org/10.7202/1098787ar

O’Hagan, Michael. “ Held Captive: Prisoners of War and their Pets in Canada During the Second World War.” The Otter. NiCHE (April 2020).

O’Hagan, Michael. “Freedom in the Midst of Nature: German Prisoners of War in Riding Mountain National Park” Forest History Today (Fall 2017). 56-62.

O’Hagan, Michael. “The View from Behind the Wire: Prisoner of War Art in Canada during the Second World War” in Behind the Lines: Canada’s Home Front During the First and Second World Wars. McIntosh Gallery. 2017. 235-249. (Request a copy)