Things to Do at Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21

The Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 fills a cavernous brick warehouse where ocean liners once tied up and a million immigrants first set foot on Canadian soil. When you cross the yawning customs hall, you catch faint salt air mixed with floor wax, and the echo of your own footsteps seems freighted with decades of anticipation. The wooden floors still groan in the same spots where Italian leather soles and Scottish brogues once waited, nerves taut, for their turn at the desk. This is no ordinary gallery of glass cases and plaques—the museum leaves the building's raw bones exposed, so you walk through living history instead of skirting it. Most staff are descendants of pier immigrants, which lends the stories an uncanny intimacy. You'll find yourself stalled beside the re-created ship's bunks, where diesel and wool still cling to the upholstery, or rooted to the floor at the medical inspection station where doctors once hunted trachoma with cold metal tools.

From downtown, follow the waterfront boardwalk for 15 minutes—you'll smell the harbor before the museum's red brick wall comes into view. The #1 bus from Barrington Street stops at the corner of Marginal and Lower Water, a two-minute walk. The museum lot fills by 11am on weekends, but the pay lot across the street almost always has a bay. A taxi from most downtown hotels costs less than a latte and pastry.