• Humanitarian Gesture: Canada and the Tibetan Resettlement Program, 1971–5
    by Jan Raska, PhD, Historian In 1966, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) lobbied Canadian officials to accept a small number of Tibetan refugees for permanent resettlement. Initially, Canadian immigration officials disagreed over the resettlement of …
  • “Young Man, You Take Yourself Far Too Seriously”: The Memoirs of Immigration Officer Fenton Crosman
    by Steve Schwinghamer, Historian (Updated January 28, 2022) Canadian immigration history can be researched using a staggering variety of sources . There are ship logs and passenger manifests, architectural plans and harbour maps, photographs and paintings, letters and telegrams, tweets and emails, …
  • “The Immigration Act a weapon”: Panama Maru and the Exclusion of Immigrants, 1913
    by Steve Schwinghamer, Historian (Updated January 28, 2022) On 17 October 1913, Panama Maru arrived at Victoria, British Columbia . The ship was a regularly-scheduled passenger liner of the Osaka Soshen Kaisha Line, carrying 56 passengers identified by immigration authorities as “Hindus,” although …
  • Journey of Wawel Treasures to Canada
    by Steven Schwinghamer, Historian (Updated January 28, 2022) The Royal Castle of Wawel in Krakow, Poland. The Royal Castle of Wawel in Krakow, Poland, housed a state art collection that included some of the most precious cultural artifacts of the nation. In the spring of 1939, the staff of Wawel …
  • Lawlor's Island Results
    Lawlor's Island Results …
  • Lawlor's Island Results
    In the previous post , I mentioned how Lawlor’s Island is uniquely unknown among Halifax’s harbour islands — it’s overlooked in public discourse and seems to be absent from public memory. We took on a very basic survey of the island to establish what features of the quarantine island still exist. …
  • Lawlor’s Island Survey
    Abandoned well, Lawlor's Island, September 2011. Credit: Photo by Steven Schwinghamer Historians tend to pay close attention when a public site seems “silent” in public memory. This is true of a place quite close to Pier 21 in Halifax Harbour. Lawlor’s Island is next to McNabs Island, close to …
  • A Scarlet Fever Quarantine and the Subsequent Adventures of a Spirited Little Girl
    Scottish immigrant Christina McKay Liness Murchison didn’t let a little scarlet fever get her down. Her family’s home was quarantined due to her illness in the early days after their arrival in 1930 on the Duchess of Richmond . “Mostly I remember…the time my second brother arrived…I had scarlet …
  • One Person’s Quarantine Room Divider is Another Person’s Fort
    Vita Seidler contracted the measles shortly after emigrating from Russia with her mother and siblings in December of 1928 to join their father in Montreal. “…my dad met us in Montreal…Ah, the excitement! I got off and we went to another cousin that we stayed with,” Vita explained. “They had one …
  • Quarantine Memories of Chicken Wire and an Uncomplaining Mom
    His sister’s case of the measles landed six-year-old Mike Sumner’s family in quarantine after they arrived in Canada in March of 1963. “I spoke to my dad and he thinks it was around 3 to 4 weeks that we were there,” Mike recalled. “The brick walls and the bars on the windows. “My sister actually …