• Toon and Trees Maas
    … in a civil ceremony in Oosterhout on September 16, 1952 and then (as per Dutch tradition) before the Catholic Church on September 20, … in separate quarters, and were advised, by the Canadian immigration officials, to move onto Flin Flon, Manitoba for employment. At this point Toon, with a railway ticket issued by the Canadian Embassy in …
  • Johanna Schel
    … Families March 1954 – Waterman My name is Johanna Schel. I left Rotterdam on March 2, 1954 with my husband, Johannes, whom … known as Jan Willem. I vividly recall boarding the S.S. Waterman. I can still see my mother standing between many people as I was thinking … Canada. My husband was a blacksmith by trade and had been working in his father’s blacksmith shop selling and repairing farm machinery and …
  • Quarantine at Pier 21 Made Coming to Canada feel like being put in Jail
    … we were not to continue our journey as planned,” wrote Shelly. “An official mistakenly suspected that the fever of the youngest was a …
  • Naturalization Act, 1914
    … in Canada, an immigrant could bring an application before a court official and receive a certificate of naturalization if they were …
  • Canadian Multiculturalism Act, 1988
    … Multiculturalism Act of 1988 provided a legislative framework for the official policy of multiculturalism adopted by the government in 1971. …
  • Salvatrice Liota
    … Sister Salvatrice Liota was born in Hamilton, Ontario, the daughter of Italian immigrants, Sr. Liota has devoted her life to welcoming newcomers to Canada, easing their … Halifax. As a representative of Sisters of Service, she attended the official opening of Pier 21 on July 1, 1999. It was a time to reconnect …
  • Life in the Early Days at Vidivollum by Oli
    … house on the farm, back in the good old days in 1925 in the Minerva district near Gimli. When the Icelanders immigrated to Canada they were … no refrigeration. It wasn’t until the railroad came in, that the dairy companies came out and offered producers the opportunity to ship whole … quite successful. Just because of being in the business, I became an official judge of dairy cattle. Through that, I went to other …
  • One World, No Borders by Saeid
    … west northern part of Iran, the country mostly known as Persia in the history. Iran is a multinational and diverse country consist of different “nations” … we are used to live in a diverse society. I started learning Farsi, official language of the country and my second language, since the …
  • Alexandros Dimitreos Sourtzis
    … Alexandros Dimitreos Sourtzis was born in a small village of Frantzi, Ftheotida, Greece on April 2, 1928 to parents that were farmers. He was … during the Second World War when the Germans and Italians occupied his village and country. As a young man, he pursued his passions of …
  • Herman and Grada Blom
    … Our family left Rotterdam aboard the Groote Beer on Apr. 8, 1953, with $100 in the family coffers. Making … itself been a trial. Under Nazi occupation, my father, Herman, had become involved in Resistance activities, a risk which was finally … in Halifax. However we were not to continue our journey as planned. An official mistakenly suspected that the fever of the youngest was a …