O Canada!
Land of diverse histories and unexpected stories. One such tale comes from the town of Swastika, Ontario, founded in the early 1900s during a gold rush.
The town’s name was chosen long before the rise of Nazi Germany, inspired by the ancient symbol of good fortune used in various cultures, including Indigenous and South Asian traditions.
When World War II erupted and the swastika became globally associated with fascism and genocide, Ontario’s provincial government attempted to rename the town to distance it from the Nazi emblem.
But the residents of Swastika refused. They defiantly restored the original town sign after officials replaced it, declaring, “To hell with Hitler, we had the name first.”
Their stance wasn’t political support for the symbol’s later associations, it was a defense of local heritage and historical context. Today, Swastika remains a small but proud community, a reminder that symbols can carry vastly different meanings depending on time, place, and intent.
Founded in 1908 during a Northern Ontario gold rush, Swastika was named after the Swastika Gold Mine, itself inspired by the ancient symbol of good fortune.
The town quickly became a hub for prospectors and railway workers, sitting at a key junction on the Ontario Northland Railway.
Interestingly, the symbol was so widely accepted at the time that even Canadian military units used it in insignia during World War I, decades before its appropriation by the Nazis.
Another lesser‑known detail is that Swastika’s resistance to renaming wasn’t just about local pride, it was also a quiet stand for historical and spiritual meaning.
The swastika has been used for millennia in Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Indigenous cultures to represent peace, prosperity, and the cycle of life.
Residents saw the wartime push to rename the town as an erasure of that legacy. In fact, they not only restored the original sign after it was replaced with “Winston,” but added a second sign to emphasize their stance: “We had the name first.”
