Aquitania and Czechoslovakia Halifax, Nova Scotia Route

maiden voyage New York: Designed to carry 597 first class passengers, 614 second class and 2,052 third class, Aquitania sailed her maiden voyage to New York on May 30 1914 and her last on November 15 1949, according to Huffington Post Canada. That auspicious final journey brought my seven-year-old mother from the former Czechoslovakia to Halifax, Nova Scotia en route to her soon-to-be adopted home of Montreal, my father taking the same liner and journey only a few months earlier at the age of 10. Born in Scotland and launched on April 21, 1913, the ocean liner was a beauty, boasting accommodations unlike any other found in the water at the time: walls decorated with portraits of Royalty and prints of English seaports, a smoking room elaborately designed using oak paneling and beams and a restaurant bedecked a la Louis XIV. What more, with the Titanic as inspiration, Aquitania was one of the first ships to guarantee enough lifeboats on-board for all passengers and crew. And it was here, at Pier 21, in the Halifax Seaport, where they wearily disembarked, along with a million other passengers between 1928 and 1971, searching for a fresh start, and a more hopeful future. When I decided to embark on this ambitious project -- documenting social change movements in Canadian history for my magazine, I never expected the stories to resonate on such a personal level. Not surprisingly, the place became known as the Gateway to Canada. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.