'This space has many layers of history': The role of Halifax’s Pier 21 during wartime

Sheltering children in wartime Ana Almeida looks at how Canada sheltered children who were displaced during war time.

The Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 has many stories to tell each year on Remembrance Day -- including some a lot of people don’t know about.

The Halifax-based museum was the site of an ocean liner terminal and immigration shed from 1928 to 1971.

But the history of how Pier 21 came to be is a story in itself, says historian Steven Schwinghamer.

“Most of us make the connection to the Second World War history, but of course, this site started being built during the First World War,” Schwinghamer tells CTV Atlantic. “And after the Halifax Explosion in 1917, the beginnings of a big new ocean terminal suddenly became really important.”

Construction would begin on what would become known as Pier 21, with building taking place around significant levels of wartime traffic. According to Schwinghamer, the site itself would soon become critical. New railway infrastructure was created and temporary sheds were built so troops could travel in and out of Halifax Harbour.

“They didn’t expect to have to do that,” Schwinghamer said. “They expected just to build it, but because of the disaster, they had this diversion.”

But, as Schwinghamer explains, the development of Pier 21 is just one story. The people tasked to construct the site tell a story of their own.

“It’s not something you might think about with a site like this, but when they were building this site in 1915 and again in 1916, the construction companies asked to use interned labour from Amherst,” he said. “So people who were interned in the prisoner-of-war camp there were brought here to work on this site.”

With nearly 400,000 military personnel using Pier 21 to go to war and come back, the site was built to accommodate big liners coming in. So when the Second World War broke out and the military needed infrastructure to accommodate the scale of transportation, Pier 21 made sense.

Pier 21 also served as a temporary shelter for displaced children during the Second World War.

In July 1940, a convoy carrying children arrived at the site. The children had been evacuated from the United Kingdom and sent to Canada for safety during wartime.

As Schwinghamer explains, many parents expected their kids would be gone for six months or so. As it turned out, many of them stayed in the country as refugees for five or six years, spending many of their most formative years in Canada. While many returned to the UK after the war, plenty returned to Canada as immigrants when they became adults.

But another part of the convoy --- one that’s often overlooked --- was the safe keeping of wartime gold and various cultural treasures.

“This space has many layers of history,” he said. “Many of us have a lived or personal connection to it. For me, as a historian, I feel invested in the past, but we’re also 50 feet away from where my grandmother and my aunt arrived as soldier dependents after the war. I feel a personal stake in it too.”

While the World Wars may feel distant for younger Canadians, Schwinghamer noted it’s important that youth maintain good education about the nature of Canada’s commitments, both during and after the wars.

“But in a town like [Halifax], this is a living commitment,” he said. “We have community members who are serving, who have returned from service, and placing that in context and understanding how that continues to shape and affect our neighbours is a part of that education too.”

When it comes to remembering Canada’s wartime past, Schwinghamer believes it’s important to view history through several lenses.

“It should be a critical remembrance, because underneath all this, you have the massive scale of human tragedy associated with the war, but you also have Canada’s responses,” he said. “You have the military response. You have, after the war, the beginning of Canada’s ongoing effort to be a humanitarian immigration nation, to open a refugee policy that would be equitable and would provide a safe space, a refuge for people who needed it after displacement and suffering caused by the war.”