Hundreds of old-fashioned luggage tags adorn two walls in the Museum. They are left by visitors and covered with drawings and handwritten messages in different languages.
During Pier 21’s years as an immigration shed, suitcases and bags would have had luggage tags just like these. But sometimes, people wore the tags too. Jan Raska, a historian at the Museum explains, “The tags were used to help identify Displaced Persons and political refugees as they were transported to Canada.” If these newcomers couldn’t understand or speak English or French, the tags displayed key information. This helped officials and voluntary service organizations get people on the proper ships or trains.
Nowadays visitors write notes to their families, thanking them for their sacrifice, they write messages for the Museum staff thanking them for a tour, they draw ships, or airplanes, or the flag of their family’s country of origin.
Not only do the tags link visitors to the building’s past, they are also a way to communicate through time to the future. A message might be read by visitors months later. One visitor, who arrived in Canada from Algeria on July 10th of this year, started his note: “Dear me in 2025,” pledging to work hard and then come back to find his letter in a year’s time. Another visitor, Richard, promised to come back in 2030 on the 100th anniversary of his mother’s arrival in Canada.
Another message, from a visitor named Georg, begins, “This is an emotional place.” That is true for a lot of people. The Museum can symbolize many things - hope, new beginnings, heartbreak, love of family or a mixture of all of those.
“The luggage tags are the heart and soul of the Museum,” says Kristine Kovacevic, Curator of Core Exhibitions. “It’s why we exist in the first place. Because it means so much to people. That’s where they pour their hearts out. It makes me cry every time I look at them.”
When you come to the Museum, we hope you share your story with us and with all those who will see it in the future.