Passage Through Pier 21
Steaming into Halifax aboard the SS Stavangerfjord in January 1946 is an experience Patricia McLean will never forget. The Sudbury, Ont., resident was a 21-year-old war bride and she remembers holding her infant son in her arms while looking at the bright lights ringing the harbour. It was a far cry from blacked-out, war-torn Britain.
Once inside the terminal–at Pier 21–she and her compatriots enjoyed the warm welcome they received from the Canadian Red Cross, and the seemingly endless supply of food. "It was like a dreamland. You could have anything you wanted."
That sense of optimism pervades the recollections of many people who first set foot on Canadian soil or who reacquainted themselves with their homeland at Pier 21 after years away at war. From ...