Experience arriving at Pier 21 in Canada with our app
A band plays as your ship docks in Halifax. You kiss the ground of your new home. Your food is confiscated and you wait. You’re examined by doctors and reviewed immigration officials. Some among you are detained and some quarantined. You buy some strange new food for the long journey ahead. Finally, you board a train that will take you to your new home.
Use the gallery version of the free Pier 21 National Historic Site app at home to feel what it was like to arrive in a new country.
Explore stories of quarantine in the 20th century
You’re not alone in this right now and neither were the thousands of Canadian immigrants who quarantined to help stop the spread of polio, measles and scarlet fever.
The Museum's Carrie-Ann Smith recounts people’s stories of separation, loss, confinement, solitude and perseverance that feel very reflective of this time. A case of the chickenpox delayed one family’s journey and, in a beautiful twist of fate, allowed them to come to Canada. For another quarantined girl, hearing her mother’s voice over the radio an ocean away was thrilling. While she knew her mother couldn’t hear her, she dutifully responded to her questions anyway.
- Party dresses, new friends and other advice for a long quarantine
- Forgetting Danish during a nine month quarantine
- Quarantine at Pier 21 made coming to Canada feel like being put in jail
- Quarantined on the Journey Over to Canada
- Finding Humour and Strengthening the Family Bond During Quarantine
- Learning How to Eat a Banana in Quarantine at Pier 21
- How a Chicken Pox Quarantine Brought one Family to Canada
- The Magical Quarantine Christmas of 1951
- Colour-Coded Quarantine and a Boy at Play
- A Mother and Daughter Recall Frightening Days in Quarantine
- Turning Seven in Quarantine
- A Quarantine Label on the Door Doesn’t Make the Best First Impression
- Quarantine Memories of Chicken Wire and an Uncomplaining Mom
- One Person’s Quarantine Room Divider is Another Person’s Fort
- A Scarlet Fever Quarantine and the Subsequent Adventures of a Spirited Little Girl
Museum Spaces with CEO Marie Chapman
Explore one of our favourite Museum Spaces with CEO, Marie Chapman. Step inside the Gateway and hear what the Museum means to our visitors.
Listen to our podcast Countless Journeys
With a first bold step, a new world unfolded for many people who came to Canada. While abroad they were striving for justice, openness, love, a daring adventure or simply a chance to survive. And they found what they were looking for in their new home.
Join hosts Mark Sakamoto and Kim Thuy as they discuss revealing interviews that explore what it’s like to build a life in Canada.
Discover your family’s immigration journey to Canada
With access to global records, the staff of the Scotiabank Family History Centre are ready to help you trace your roots remotely.
We can help find your family’s arrivals at Pier 21 and beyond and answer genealogical questions.
