A LENS ON VANCOUVER'S PAST

M.S. TABIAN [at Ballantyne Pier]
August 30, 1954
(Vancouver Archives, CVA 447-8448, Photographer - Walter E. Frost)

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For Dutch emigrants leaving for Canada, their transatlantic crossing typically started in the world’s largest port of Rotterdam.

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Emigrants would board one of five former troop transports such as the TABINTA (inset), sister ship of the TABIAN (pictured), the ocean liner NIEUW AMSTERDAM, or the economy liner MAASDAM; all chartered by the Netherlands government. In the summer months, the Saint Lawrence River was not frozen and the immigrant ships having crossed the Atlantic could travel further inland along Canada's International Seaway.

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Arriving at either Halifax's Pier 21 (Canada's Ellis Island), Montreal, or Quebec City as in the case of Wim and Annie Zylmans who arrived on the TABINTA in 1948; Dutch immigrants were met by voluntary service agencies that provided for their immediate needs and arranged for train travel to their new homes across Canada.