Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 is a must visit for the people visiting Halifax. This is the place from where immigrants were granted admission to Canada in 40's and 50's. Many now well settled Canadians can relate to the stories about their parents and grand parents who travelled from across the oceans, mainly from Europe in search of a better life.
The museum offers a view on how immigrants were processed by Canadian Boarder Agency. A guided tour is available, incidentally, the guide's parents were one of those immigrants. There are some personal belongings on display what the immigrants were bringing with them.
Highly recommended if you want to learn about early immigrants travels and tribulations.

Anyone who visits this museum will definitely have a better understanding of what it was like to leave your life behind and start a new one here. On our tour there was a lady who actually came through here when she was a little girl, and hearing her stories were especially touching. I strongly recommend stopping in the archive office if you have family that came to Canada in any port of enrty. I now have a copy of my grandfathers ship log where you can see his name written down and info of his ship. I also managed to get my grandparents marriage certificate from the mid 30's.

The museum displays in detail all the steps that pre-1971 immigrants to Canada went through when they arrived in Halifax. There is also a thorough exhibit on the history of immigration and related public policy from the first Europeans to set foot in North America to the most recent immigrants. But the museum is strongest on the emotions and personal experiences of those who leave their homelands behind to move to Canada. It lauds diversity while acknowledging discrimination.