“Our little
daughter looked very hungry and miserable.
He took us into his office and sent out for cocoa and fig Newton
cookies.
As long as I live, I’ll never forget how good those cookies tasted to
us.”
excerpt from
article by Denis Gibbons
photo courtesy of Pier 21
For many
years, from the 1920's to the 1970's, Pier 21 in
Halifax, Nova Scotia was Canada's "front door" to over
1,000,000 immigrants. Pier 21 is Canada's
equivalent of New York's Ellis Island. From its
port, Canada welcomed refugees, war brides, soldiers,
wartime evacuees, and their families.
In 1999, funding was provided for Pier 21 to become a
National Museum. Through exhibits, multimedia
presentations, and interactive displays Pier 21 explores
Canada's heritage and tells the story of immigration and
nation building to all Canadians.
Pier 21 has taken on the mission of collecting and
preserving the oral stories of immigrants including
stories told by the children of immigrants. Today, it
has a collection of over 1600 immigrant stories telling
of their hardships and experiences of settling in a new
country. It is continuing to collect stories
from new immigrants to add to its archives.
In
an editorial written for the Winnipeg Free Press,
Rev.
Karen E. Poole said all Canadians should be required to
visit the site.
“It
should be put on our required list in order to be a
citizen,” she wrote.
“If we did, it could well be the
end of prejudice, bigotry and hate;
because we are all
rooted in an entry port,
like the gates of heaven to a
whole new world,
like a paradise, where not one of us
felt at home,
yet every one of us was an immigrant
seeking a home,
unless indigenous and offering
hospitality.”
Photo on the left is a
magazine cover of Canadian Illustrated News dated August, 1880.
Titled, "Come to Stay", it showed a Canadian woman, welcoming
immigrants.
