Give us your poor, your tired, your huddled . . . tourists

Published Monday August 4th, 2008

Former archivist says Saint John, and by extension the province, has enormous potential as a genealogical tourism destination. Story by Kate Wallace

SAINT JOHN - Ellis Island is the symbol of American immigration. It is estimated that half of all living Americans can trace their lineage to at least one relative whose new life in the New World began there.

Now, a hundred years after America's immigration boom, the island is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the National Park Service.

"Ellis Island has taken on an iconic status in the U.S.," says Peter Murphy, a project executive with the New Brunswick Department of Tourism and Parks. "Who can't think of that familiar image of the Statue of Liberty with the immigrant family gazing up at it?"

Murphy says the Port City - and New Brunswick, by extension - has great potential to develop its own genealogical tourism industry.

More than 2.5 million people have immigrated through Saint John, which means that today there are masses of people with a relative who first set foot on North American soil in the small New Brunswick city.

"It's not out of the question that we're talking about hundreds of millions of people," Murphy, a former archivist for the Diocese of Saint John, says. "There's no reason we couldn't have an entire industry based on Saint John's role in immigration."

Proximity to market is a key factor, especially with the price of gas on the rise. And no market is more alluring than New England, most of which is less than a day's drive from Saint John. According to 2000 figures, the last year the U.S. conducted a census, more than 13 million people live in New England .

The New England Historic Genealogical Society is one of the largest and oldest groups of its kind in the U.S. In its annual poll of what interests its members, "Atlantic Canada is way up there," Murphy says.

Other Canadian provinces are prime markets, too. Scores of Eastern Europeans passed through Saint John on their way west to Alberta and Saskatchewan, provinces now awash in oil and gas revenues.

"I could foresee in the future some kind of collaboration," Murphy says. "Saint Johners are famous for wanting to wax eloquent about the city's glory days. But in terms of immigration, there really is no comparison."

Out-migration "has always been our problem," Murphy says. "Why not make it a positive? People left? Well, they have ancestors who want to come back."

Pier 21 in Halifax, home to Canada's Immigration Museum, can't compete with Saint John's immigration story. The number of people who passed through there - 1.5 million - is far lower, while the dates of immigration - 1928 to 1971 - are less significant historically than those of Saint John, whose immigration story began in earnest in the late 1700s, when waves of Loyalists began to arrive.

One of the first priorities is marketing the city as a genealogical destination.

"The level of awareness about immigration to Saint John is very low," Murphy says, adding that a tourism campaign could start at the same place most genealogy enthusiasts do: online. Genealogical research accounts for 12 per cent of all Internet research, second only to pornography, he says.

"When you think about it, everyone has a family history."

While in the past, those stories would have been passed from generation to generation, the mobility of contemporary life has changed that.

"People do not tend to grow up where their grandparents did," Murphy says.

Those old oral histories have been replaced in large part by online records.

New Brunswick has a great resource in its provincial archives, and Murphy thinks it's the best website in the country. With 1.7 million records online, it receives more than 2 million hits a year without any promotion.

He sees great potential in linking archival data with tourism information. If a woman in Boston was researching her great-great-grandmother who immigrated from Ireland to Saint John in the 1800s, a link to the city's tourism website would come up with a records search.

And while genealogy is the draw, those tourists would want to enjoy the same amenities any other visitor would.

"I don't want pictures of tombstones coming up, I want beaches," he says. "There's no reason we can't market it among our other offerings."

Murphy says he doesn't define genealogical tourists as just the hard-core researchers who spend days sifting through records, "but as anyone who is motivated by an awareness of their personal connection to New Brunswick."

"Saint John would probably have the most to gain, but there isn't a rural community in New Brunswick that wouldn't benefit."

Murphy says there are opportunities to market to day visitors, too, such as the thousands of cruise ship passengers who visit Saint John each year. He says he has heard anecdotally that many passengers ask for genealogical information when they disembark.

While they may not have time to visit the house their grandmother was born in or to spend hours in the archives, more generalized tours may suit their schedules.

"Most people define themselves according to some ethnic-religious category such as Irish Catholic," he says. Offering programs tailored to these groups is an option. Some resources are already at least partly in place, he says, such as the Jewish Historical Society, which runs a museum, or the Irish Canadian Cultural Association of New Brunswick, which has a virtual tour on its website.

"Maybe they could develop a real tour, too," Murphy says.

Developing Partridge Island, Saint John's quarantine station from 1785 to 1942, as a destination for tourists and citizens would be a huge undertaking and is likely years away, Murphy says, but it is something he dreams of.

That dream may be a reality sooner than he thinks.

Bill MacMackin, vice-chair of the Saint John Waterfront Development Partnership's board of directors, says his group hopes to approach the federal government, the island's owner, about access and ownership. MacMackin says the government is looking to sell the property as part of a larger divestiture plan that includes transferring ownership of the coveted Coast Guard site at the foot of King Street.

Last year, the partnership undertook a feasibility study of how the island could be made accessible to the public. Transportation is one of the first issues they examined, MacMackin says. Consultants in the past had always stressed that Partridge Island could only be reached by boat. But advice from other contractors suggested that a permanent concrete walking bridge could be built above the rock breakwater that connects the island to the city's west side.

The group is waiting for reports and bids from engineering firms on what it would take to build a concrete trail, expected in October or November.

The partnership is also waiting to hear from the federal government, hopefully by September or October, to get approval to pursue the project and begin talks on transferring ownership of the property.

From there, "the intention is to go to the public with what we find."

If there is enough community interest in the project, the partnership would start looking for private and public money from all three levels of government to build the walkway and make the island welcoming to visitors.

"There is not a lot out there, besides the remains of some military buildings," MacMackin says.

Rebuilding the hospitals, houses and other structures that have stood on Partridge Island is not part of the group's plan. Instead, the partnership would likely focus on making the remaining structures safe and restoring the graveyard, relying heavily on "high level" interpretation to tell the story of Partridge Island's history.

MacMackin says Murphy's project with the Department of Parks and Tourism "has opened our eyes to genealogical tourism" and the island's role in that story.

"It shows the key role that Saint John played in the history of the development of Canada," MacMackin says. "We were a pivotal city.