Tag: Pier 21

52W Mark III – Week 30: Boats

Like many immigrants, my father came to Canada on a boat; in his case, the M.S. Sibajak.

My father holding a Delft tile of the Sibajak, the ship on which he immigrated to Canada in 1954. This one is actually a replacement, as the original one I gave him had chipped. I was lucky to find this, as these tiles are no longer available.

The Sibajak was named after a volcano in Sumatra. it was built for Koninklijke Rotterdamsche Lloyd (Royal Rotterdam Lloyd) at the De Schelde shipyards in Vlissingen, Zeeland. Construction began in 1926 and completed in 1927. Royal Rotterdam Lloyd received the Sibajak in January 1928. At launch, it could carry 527 passengers and had a crew of just over 200. It departed on its maiden voyage on February 8, 1928, leaving Rotterdam for Batavia, Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta, Indonesia).

The M.S. Sibajak when it launched in 1927.

During World War II, the Sibajak ended up in Liverpool after the Dutch fell to the Nazis at home and to the Japanese in the East Indies. The Dutch government in exile seized the ship, which was re-registered in Curaçao. The British navy took control of the Sibajak, but its Dutch and Indonesian crew continued to operate the ship. After modifications were made in Singapore, the Sibajak served as a troop ship during the war. It was capable of carrying up to 2,300 troops. The British returned control of the ship back to the Dutch in 1946.

The original plans for the Sibajak.
Pier 21 in Halifax, which is now a museum that I have visited twice.

The Sibajak was converted back into a passenger ship in 1950. It had the capacity to carry 956 passengers. Its first voyage after the retrofit was in April 1950, transporting Dutch emigrants departing from Rotterdam for Melbourne, Australia. It also served to repatriate Dutch citizens after Indonesia’s independence. In 1952, the Sibajak also carried passengers to New Zealand, Canada, and the United States.

In 1959, Royal Rotterdam Lloyd sold the Sibajak to a company in Hong Kong. The Sibajak’s last voyage as a passenger ship ended in July 1959, travelling from Rotterdam to Melbourne via Curaçao, the Panama Canal, Wellington, New Zealand and Sydney, Australia. In August 1959, the new owners transported the ship to Hong Kong, where it was stripped of all salvageable materials and scrapped. My understanding was that the remains were scuttled somewhere in the waters around Hong Kong. When I visited the city in 1996, I wondered how close I had come to it on the many different boats and ferries I rode on at the time.

This hangs on the wall in front of the seating area in Pier 21 where immigrants waited to be interviewed by immigration officials.

My father and his family departed Rotterdam on May 5, 1954 and arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia on May 13, 1954. Pier 21 is analogous to Ellis Island in the United States. My father’s aunt and uncle came over four months earlier, in January 1954 on the Groote Beer, while another aunt and uncle followed in late May 1954, on board the Castel Felice.

My father with my grandparents and his sisters at the Rotterdam pier on the day of their departure for Canada aboard the Sibajak. My father is standing in the centre, in front of my grandfather. The couple on the right are family friends who drove my family to the pier. At the time, my grandmother was two months pregnant with my father’s youngest brother!
My grandmother, my father, and his two sisters seated on the deck of the Sibajak somewhere on the Atlantic Ocean between the Netherlands and Canada.

From Halifax the family took the train from Halifax to Alberta. On often-told story recounts my grandmother becoming separated from the family and lost during a stop in Montreal. Happily, she found her way back to the train before departure. he train went through Maine, U.S.A., and through Montreal. My grandfather originally planned on settling in Manitoba. However, his sister encouraged him to continue on to Alberta, where she and my great uncle had settled.

They made it!

In the late 1990s, my parents went on an Alaskan cruise on a Holland America ship. During the trip, my father, who loves to talk to people, fell into a conversation with one of the older hands on deck. My father mentioned having come to Canada on the Sibajak. After a few questions from the crew member, my dad learned that the man had been on the Sibajak during my father’s trip, in his first year or two of service.

This is a fascinating short documentary about a voyage the Sibajak made to Australia carrying Dutch emigrants. The video is in Dutch, but the images convey a lot of meaning. My father recognized many of the scenes in this video.

52W Mark II – Week 31: Flew The Coop

This week’s theme for the week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge is “Flew The Coop”. I’m making a real stretch of the phrase to write about my recent visit to Pier 21, where my father and his family arrived in Canada after emigrating from the Netherlands. They arrived on board the Sibajak in early 1954. My father’s aunt and uncle had arrived at Pier 21 four months earlier, in January 1954 on the Groote Beer, while another aunt and uncle followed in late May 1954, on board the Castel Felice.

Entrance to Pier 21

This was not my first visit to Pier 21 (analogous to Ellis Island in the United States), but it had been many years since my last visit. The displays are significantly different; moreover, the museum has strictly implemented privacy rules that means they don’t display ship passenger lists like they used to. I find their policy a little illogical, because the researchers on site will happily use other sources for the same information that aren’t subject to the same rules.

We began with watching in Canada/au Canada. It’s an excellent and moving short film weaving together the stories of many immigrants from countries all around the world and who have settled in all sorts of places, big and small, across Canada. We then participated in a guided tour. The tour was available in English and French. I felt bad for the fellow offering the tour in French – he had no takers at that time. I told him that my wife and kids would have gone with him if it weren’t for my lack of proficiency in French.

Our tour guide began by asking if anyone had family or friends who had come through Pier 21. Most of us on the tour raised our hands. One woman in our group had come through herself, at 18 months old, with her mother who was a war bride. The tour guide immediately welcomed her back and gave her a gold “Alumni” sticker to wear.

This hangs on the wall in front of the seating area where immigrants waited to be interviewed by immigration officials.

The tour began with at this model of Pier 21 as it was at the time it was in operation. The building on the left no longer exists. The guide showed the path of the immigrants as they disembarked from the ship and the steps they went through before being able to leave. We were told that if everything went without a hitch, people could be off the ship and on the train in four to six hours. However, most people were usually in and out within a day.

There were many displays recreating the immigrant experience. One was of the interior of typical tourist class accommodations and amenities. On the opposite wall were photos of many of the immigrant ships that landed at Pier 21.

The SS Sibajak, the ship that brought my father, his parents, and his siblings to Canada.
My son and I sitting on the benches in the waiting room where my father would have sat with his family upon arriving in Canada almost 70 years ago.

The museum has something for visitors of all ages, with lots of interactive and immersive displays. I think our youngest must have watched every video that accompanied the exhibits. There were also lots of crafting and other hands-on activities for the kids.

One of the activities was to decorate a baggage tag showing the name of your immigrant family member and stringing it from their point of origin to their destination. Our youngest made one honouring his grandfather.

A temporary exhibit we were lucky to see was “Destination: Canada”:

In 2022, the Consulate General of the Kingdom of the Netherlands published a graphic novel called “Destination: Canada”, telling the story of ten Dutch immigrants, illustrated by ten comic book artists. The Museum has adapted two of these stories for a special exhibit, presenting the story of George Zwaagstra, a Pier 21 immigrant and volunteer, and Tayebeh Farooqi-Wahedi, a refugee from Afghanistan and immigrant from the Netherlands.

From the Pier 21 page, Destination: Canada
One of the panels of Destination: Canada on display on the wall at Pier 21.

Needless to say, being the son of a Dutch immigrant I had to buy my own copy!

52 Weeks – Week Two

Favourite Find

When I was in my early twenties, I had it in mind to get a Dutch passport and spend a year or two living and travelling in the Netherlands and the EU. I had hoped that the fact my father was born in the Netherlands would enable me to do so. While he came to Canada with his parents when he was a child, he was still a Dutch citizen when he married my mother.

Image of the Sibajak on display at Pier 21. This is the ship that brought my father to Canada.
My dad was here!

Unfortunately – for me – six weeks before I was born my grandfather got my father to get his Canadian citizenship. He was adamantly opposed to the idea that his first-born grandson would be anything other than Canadian. He had gotten his Canadian citizenship as quickly as possible. I’m pretty sure he probably tried the second he landed at Pier 21.

Because my father had been naturalized as a Canadian at the time of my birth, the rules at the time for me to get a Dutch passport required me to produce the passport my father held when he came tot Canada. Of course, he did not hold his own passport when he emigrated, he came under his parents’ passport. I was told that my grandparents’ passport had been long discarded or lost. So much for my plans, thanks grandpa.

Imagine my surprise many, many years later, when this came into my possession. Needless to say, by then life had gone on and my plans had changed. Moreover, the rules for getting a Dutch passport had become more restrictive.

The passport of my grandparents, Adrianus (Arie) van der Fluit and Christina (Tiny) Komen. They both shared the same document, with their photos on separate pages.
The inside back cover.
They made it!

One thing that I discovered may have made my life more difficult had this been in my possession at the time I was hoping to obtain my own Dutch passport. My father and his younger siblings are all named in the passport, but it misnamed my father. It gives his first name as “Adrianus”, which is not his name. It’s his father’s. (I have birth records showing my father’s actual name, so I know it wasn’t really Adrianus.)

Me with my grandfather, Leo Burgess. If there is any doubt, he is the one on the left.

I will share one other thing that has come into my possession. My mother’s father worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway for many years, first as a brakeman and later as a conductor. His claim to fame was being part of the crew on the train that teenage Clark Kent raced in Superman: The Movie. My grandfather was always proud to talk about meeting Glenn Ford, one of his favourite actors, at the time.

Looking at this photo, it astounds me how much my grandfather looks the way I look now. When I was younger, I always thought I more resembled my father’s side of the family.

My mother gave me some of the items he used in his work as a conductor.

Some of the items my grandfather used for work. I believe – hope! – that one of my cousins has his pocket watch. One of my brothers has one of my grandfather’s hats, but I don’t recall if it’s a brakeman’s hat or a conductor’s hat.

I thought this week’s challenge would be difficult, because at first nothing came to mind for favourite find. Turned out to be easier than I expected. Next week will be a challenge: “Favourite Photo”. I have dozens of photos that all could hold that title.