• Eminently Suitable for Our Purposes: Official Commemoration of Immigrant Arrivals in Canada, 1949-1972
    … by Jan Raska, PhD, Historian (Updated October 26, 2020) Introduction During the early postwar period, Canadian officials attempted to commemorate immigration milestones. These … Eminently Suitable for Our Purposes: Official Commemoration of Immigrant Arrivals in Canada, 1949-1972 …
  • "Might Be the Best of the Lot": Baltic Refugees, Canadian Immigration Policy and the Arrival of SS Walnut
    … by Jan Raska, PhD, Historian (Updated October 14, 2020) Introduction Since Confederation, Canadian immigration officials have considered many factors in determining whether an individual was ‘admissible’ and would be granted entry to … passed an Order-in-Council permitting approximately 3,000 Polish Free Army veterans to enter Canada after refusing to be repatriated …
  • Mark Sakamoto in Conversation with Jeanne Beker
    … NS Forgiveness, Family and Canadian identity: Mark Sakamoto in Conversation with Jeanne Beker Woven together through interviews with his maternal grandmother, Mitsue Sakamoto, and paternal grandfather, … A Q&A and book signing will follow the presentation. This is a free event, presented in English. Space is limited. Those interested …
  • The Beginning of a Story Museum
    … by Carrie-Ann Smith, Vice President, Audience Engagement The Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 is a story museum. We … empathy goes back to long before Pier 21 was declared a National Historic Site or anyone dreamed of its evolution into a national … The Beginning of a Story Museum …
  • Canadian Immigration Facilities at Victoria, BC
    by Steve Schwinghamer, Historian (Updated July 21, 2021) “Conditions are so much different out here from what you have in the East” Immigration Facilities at Victoria, British Columbia The history of immigration facilities at the port of Victoria, British Columbia, extends from the mid-nineteenth …
  • The Gold Rush in British Columbia and the Yukon
    … wealthy American ladies, Mary Hitchcock and Edith Van Buren, who had come to Dawson City not to make their fortune, but to experience … their impact on Aboriginal peoples all shaped the region for years to come. The excitement of the Klondike Gold Rush attracted a wide variety … only an estimated 30,000 actually made it to Dawson City. [14] Newcomers looking to strike it rich found themselves living in tents in …
  • Patricia Norlander and son Stanley
    … I met my "husband to be," Albin Carl Norlander outside the YMCA in Sheffield whilst he was on a visit to relatives of an army … yet possess, I pretended I was older than my seventeen years. Much to his surprise I hadn't aged any when he returned two years later and I was still only nineteen. …
  • Canada’s Refugee Determination System
    … by Jan Raska, PhD, Historian (Updated August 21, 2020) Origins of Canada’s Refugee Determination System The origins of Canada’s refugee … system can be traced back to 1922, when the League of Nations (a predecessor to the United Nations (UN)) established the Nansen Passport which provided refugees with an …
  • Szigetvari
    … At the time of our escape, my family was: Father: Janos Szigetvari 26; Mother: Ilona Barath-Szigetvari 25; Brother: Elemer 5; and myself, Zsolt 5-months. Imagine! Escaping with no language, no money, no idea of what lay ahead -- a toddler, and a babe-in-arms with … 1956. They didn't have the luxury to choose a symbolic date for any maudlin reason - they chose that specific time because it was when …
  • Port of Entry, Process and Gatekeepers – A History of Immigration at the Port of Quebec during the Great Depression
    … institutions, trade and modes of transportation. All three aforementioned areas shaped the city’s port area. In turn, the Port of Quebec … ship, in the immigration building or up river at Rimouski to prevent any possible delays with a stop at Quebec City. In the 1930s, … Canadian immigration officer Fenton Crosman, described the edifice as “a low concrete building, at least one-eighth of a mile in length, with …