In 1933, three in 10 Canadians were unemployed and there was little government assistance for single, jobless men. Pictured here, an unidentified man on a cot in a Government Hospitality Office. (National Archives of Canada, C-020594)

"I learned of the life of the transient unemployed," Liversedge wrote in his published memoir. "I learned of freight riding, of life in the jungles, cooking mulligan stew with a chunk of bummed meat, and stolen potatoes, of being hounded by police from town to town. The freight trains, the long, cold, hungry rides on box cars, oil tankers, lumber cars, any place that was available. We were not professional hoboes, but unemployed men, many recent immigrants, the beginning of a mighty army."

Nearly one hundred thousand men made up this jobless army at the height of the Depression. In 1933, the unemployment rate was 30 per cent and there was no national unemployment assistance program. The men moved across the country, looking for work, which didn't exist, and food and shelter, which was increasingly scarce.

Most of these transients were young, single men. Some of the men, like Liversedge, arrived in Canada near the start of the Depression to escape the harsh times in Europe.

"I landed in Canada, a refugee from unemployment and want in England with the youthful naive idea of finding work and prosperity in the new country. It soon became apparent that there were no jobs and for a couple of days I hung around the CPR depot, dozing on benches."

In Sudbury, Ontario, Liversedge and other recent arrivals were confronted by the harsh surprise of the Canadian winter, and by the crowded conditions of the local jail when they were picked up for vagrancy.

After serving 30 days, they sought refuge in the city's only soup kitchen. It was in a dimly lit basement and the men stood around tables to eat.

"The atmosphere was like that in a chilly mouldy crypt. The tables were covered with ice and beans and pieces of wet bread. The meals were always the same. The exception was the shooting of a bear by a Sudbury businessman who gave the bear to the city who then sent it to the soup kitchen with the result that a few hundred men suffered violent diarrhea."

Liversedge continued west. He took a train to Winnipeg, but couldn't find work there. In Saskatchewan, he found a farm job for the summer then went on to Calgary.

As the Depression deepened, unrest grew among this jobless army. The federal government seemed indifferent to their plight. And financially strapped local governments refused aid single homeless men between 1932 and 1936.

Prime Minister R.B. Bennett became so concerned about their mounting anger that he established a system of voluntary work camps in 1932. Liversedge ended up in a work camp in northern British Columbia. But the camps only fuelled the flames of frustration and soon Liversedge and thousands of other jobless transients would organize and demand the government's attention.