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Firebird explores a period in our history—one year in particular (1915-1916)—when a massive number of newcomers were deemed “enemy aliens,” arrested and put into internment camps set up all across Canada. A directive of the War Measures Act allowed police to pick up any immigrants from middle Europe whose papers were not in order, who were perceived to be “loitering” (trying to subsist without means), or who tangled in any way with the law. The abuses perpetrated under the act are now difficult to believe—men subjected to slave labour without proper clothing, food and medical attention, sometimes driven to suicide or madness, many running away at the first opportunity even though it could well mean being shot by soldier pursuers or, if caught, being put into solitary confinement (the “hoosegaw”) where they lived on bread and water for weeks and sometimes emerged crippled from the confinement. A large percentage of those arrested were Ukrainians who had gone to great effort to flee the Austro-Hungarian Empire rather than supporting it in any way.