Story of a lifetime in Journal of a Dutch Immigrant

Meet author Francis Ruiter

EDMONTON, Alberta - Writing insurance policies may well be good training for authoring a book of one’s life story, at least if the book A Journal of a Dutch Immigrant is any indication.

Francis Ruiter who arrived in Canada in 1948 as a young man aboard the Kota Inten, received his first Canadian experience as a farmhand on his uncle’s farm in BC’s Bulkley Valley. But why leave the village of Andijk and be satisfied with a still more isolated place in faraway Canada? As it turned out later, Edmonton, his next place of residence, was not big enough either for the wanderlust of this Dutch Canadian. His travel resume includes plenty of other places, including some very exotic locations.

The journal is not a travel guide as such but more a book about life experiences, including very significant challenges starting with life in the difficult pre-war years and foreign occupation in the Netherlands.

Anyone interested in Dutch immigrant experiences and connections which include Andijk and Edmonton will certainly want to meet Francis Ruiter and perhaps want to read his book as well. Recently, he visited Holland Shopping Centre locations in Langley, Chilliwack and New Westminster, to meet old acquaintances, make new friends and sign books.