Pier 21

Between 1928 and 1971, nearly one million immigrants landed in Canada at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. During those years, it was one of the main ocean immigration facilities in Canada, including when it welcomed home nearly 400,000 Canadians after service overseas during the Second World War. In the immediate postwar period, Pier 21 became the busiest ocean port of entry in the country. Today, people across Canada still enjoy connections to Pier 21 through family history and stories of arrival at the site. Since 1998, researchers at the Pier 21 Interpretive Centre and now the Canadian Museum of Immigration have been conducting interviews, reviewing archival materials, gathering written stories, and acquiring photographs, documents, and other objects reflecting the history of Pier 21. Pier 21: A History builds upon the resulting collection. It presents a history of this important Canadian ocean immigration facility during its years of operation and later emergence as a site of public commemoration. Published in English. Also available in French: Quai 21: Une histoire.

Between 1928 and 1971, nearly one million immigrants landed in Canada at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia. During those years, it was one of the main ocean immigration facilities in Canada, including when it welcomed home nearly 400,000 Canadians after service overseas during the Second World War. In the immediate postwar period, Pier 21 became the busiest ocean port of entry in the country. Today, people across Canada still enjoy connections to Pier 21 through family history and stories of arrival at the site. Since 1998, researchers at the Pier 21 Interpretive Centre and now the Canadian Museum of Immigration have been conducting interviews, reviewing archival materials, gathering written stories, and acquiring photographs, documents, and other objects reflecting the history of Pier 21. Pier 21: A History builds upon the resulting collection. It presents a history of this important Canadian ocean immigration facility during its years of operation and later emergence as a site of public commemoration. Published in English. Also available in French: Quai 21: Une histoire.

In a globalizing world, frontiers may be in flux but they remain as significant as ever. New borders are established even as old borders are erased. Beyond lines on maps, however, borders are spatial zones in which distinctive architectural, graphic, and other design elements are deployed to signal the nature of the space and to guide, if not actually control, behaviour and social relations within it. This volume unpacks how manipulations of space and design in frontier zones, historically as well as today, set the stage for specific kinds of interactions and convey meanings about these sites and the experiences they embody. Frontier zones organize an array of functions to facilitate the passage of goods, information, and people, and to define and control access. Bringing together studies from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, Europe, and North America, this collection of essays casts a wide net to consider borders of diverse sorts. Investigations of contemporary political frontiers are set within the context of examinations of historical borders, borders that have existed within cities, and virtual borders. This range allows for reflection on shifts in how frontier zones are articulated and the impermanence of border emplacements, as well as on likely scenarios for future frontiers. This text is unique in bringing together a number of scholarly perspectives in the arts and humanities to examine how spatial and architectural design decisions convey meaning, shape or abet specific social practices, and stage memories of frontier zones that no longer function as such. It joins and expands discussions in social science disciplines, in which considerations of border practices tend to overlook the role of built form and material culture more broadly in representing social practices and meanings.

Diverse Spaces: Identity, Heritage and Community in Canadian Public Culture explores the presentation and experience of diversity and belonging in public cultural spaces in Canada. An interdisciplinary group of scholars interrogate how ‘Canadian-ness’ is represented, disputed, negotiated and legitimized within spaces, media and institutions. The volume begins with contributions that draw attention to contested and exclusionary places within official public culture, and then offers alternative narratives that assert voice and remap public spaces. Contributors take a close look at actually-occurring engagements with culture, heritage and community, and the erasures, conflicts, compromises, failures and successes that have emerged. Special attention is paid to ‘multiculturalism’ as a central concept in the ideal of ‘diverse spaces’ in Canada, and the perspectives of people from many cultural backgrounds who seek to engage with cultural, historical and social knowledge within these spaces. The authors in this book examine, analyze and theorize why and how Canada’s diverse peoples have publically expressed or contested different histories, different identities and different forms of community. Places of official culture inspected in this volume include national, provincial and local museums and monuments including the Canadian National Museum of Immigration and Windsor’s Underground Railroad monument. Alternative spaces addressed by contributors look at (re)presentations and (re)mappings through public art and performance, both individual and community-based, such as the photographs of Jeff Thomas, the personal narratives at the Sikh Heritage Centre, and the chalk memorializing of politician Jack Layton. These chapters will resonate with a broad range of scholars examining how nations and citizens address culturally the liberty, equality and solidarity implied by the concept of ‘diverse spaces’. Though primarily intended for graduate students, researchers and professors in cultural studies, sociology and Canadian studies, the interdisciplinary nature of the questions raised will also appeal to international scholars in cultural policy, arts and cultural management, performance studies, museum and heritage studies, and cultural geography. Importantly, this book will be of interest to professionals and practitioners in institutions, agencies and associations of the public arts and culture sector both in Canada and internationally.

In 1948, a small ship carrying Estonian refugees arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax. In this absorbing work, anthropologist Lynda Mannik analyzes the refugee experience through the photographic record of those who made that harrowing voyage. Drawing on a collection of photographs taken during the voyage and at Pier 21, Mannik asks surviving passengers to describe their journey, their reception in Canada, and to what extent the photos reflect their experiences as they remember them. The photographs in the SS Walnut collection, she argues, bear witness to the refugee experience even as the meanings attached to them have changed over time and in shifting contexts.

Take an eclectic journey across Canada to seek out our world-renowned natural and historic landmarks, such as the relics of a famous gold rush, North America’s only walled city, indigenous deep heritage, spectacular landscape features, and awe-inspiring feats of engineering.