Canada’s last active seaport immigration shed closed 50 years ago — a look back at Pier 21
A sign welcomes arrivals at the Pier 21 dockside in 1950. Photo: Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 (DI2013.839.32)
March 8, 2021
For close to half a centry, the immigration administration centre at Pier 21 was the first stop on Canadian soil for almost one million new international arrivals. In the decade following the Second World War, around 500,000 people entered Canada here on the Halifax shore. One-fifth of the new arrivals had been displaced by the war or were political refugees fleeing oppressive regimes.
“The hope in Europe was far less than the hope in Canada, and so people came here to stake their claim to make a new life,” says Marie Chapman, CEO of the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, now housed at the former administration site.