Pier Perspectives Blog

Newcomers often concealed their food products from Canadian customs officers for fear of losing their beloved meats, nuts, fruits, bread, and other cherished food items. Customs officers were tasked with confiscating contraband, discarding alcohol and cigarettes, if their respective duties were not paid, and sending other non-permissible items such as meats and soils for incineration, to protect Canadian agriculture from disease. This often led to interesting exchanges between customs officers and immigrants at Pier 21.

Last places seen: Warsaw, Poland and Versailles, France
Last known destination: Canada

The Scotiabank Family History Centre needs the public’s help reuniting childhood friends. Irene and Maja, Holocaust survivors from the Warsaw ghetto, were separated in France in 1947 when Irene’s family left the country and Maja’s family came to Canada.

One of the greatest things about my job as a Visitor Experience Interpreter here at the Museum is helping people imagine the experience of being an immigrant during the time that Pier 21 was open as an immigration facility. Sometimes I even do this on my own.

During the Second World War, curators evacuated a collection of cultural treasures from Wawel Castle in Poland. After a perilous and round-about journey, they arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax in July of 1940, bringing the items for safekeeping in Canada. When the war ended, the Canadian government resisted participating in repatriation of the treasures for more than a decade, in part because of the ideological tensions of the Cold War.

In 1966, the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees and Canadian officials began discussions about permanently resettling Tibetan refugees, who were living in India and Nepal, to Canada. In 1971-1972, a group of 228 Tibetans were brought to Canada. After initial struggles in adjusting to their new environment, the Tibetan refugees were able to provide for themselves and their community. Several years later, community organizations were established to support Tibetan cultural and linguistic traditions.

We get many research requests here at the Scotiabank Family History Centre and none more challenging than looking for living relatives. Most of the records that we would use to trace people, like birth, marriage and death records, are not available due to provincially or federally legislated privacy laws. This means that we have to use other ways, which tend to be less detailed and can lead us down the wrong path or to “dead ends.” However, not every search in this case results in such a fate. The following, story is a good example of that. It all began when I came to work one day in May 2012 to discover this lovely email from a gentleman in England:

During research for our 2013 travelling exhibition, Position As Desired – Exploring African Canadian Identity, I came across federal government records pertaining to the deportation cases of two African Canadian women. This brought forward questions of immigration, citizenship, expatriation, and heavily underlined the racial, ethnic, and gender norms of the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century. What role did identities (African Canadian, women, mentally ill, and a public charge) play in their cases?

We hear innumerable stories about seasickness from our Museum visitors who crossed the Atlantic and first arrived at Pier 21. They all laugh about it now, but frequently add that they haven’t been on a ship since and have no interest in repeating the nauseating adventure. Although it begins with a seasick girl, this is not one of those stories.

Between 1928 and 1971, nearly one million immigrants arrived at Pier 21 before setting out across the country to begin their new lives in Canada. The experience of leaving Europe and crossing the Atlantic Ocean for North America garnered a multitude of diverse reactions from individuals and families who sought to resettle in Canada. Many immigrants remember their arrival as a positive encounter with Canadian immigration and customs officials, and volunteer service agencies.