Tents were set up to house the influx of people, but many new arrivals were left lying on the ground without shelter. Due to the lack of space on Grosse Isle, Dr. Douglas required healthy passengers to stay on ship for fifteen days once the sick had been removed, by way of quarantine. In 1983, Mines Seleine began excavating the salt at Rocher-du-Dauphin on the dune linking Grosse Île Island to Pointe aux Loups Island. It is ten miles long by one mile wide making it about ten square miles in total. The History of Grosse Ile IslandFest . Later taken under British rule after 1763, the island was not settled by European Americans until after the United States achieved independence in the American Revolutionary War. Chief Emigration Officer Alexander Carlisle Buchanan failed to report concerns to the Canadian government because it was "not within the control of [his] department".

Salt is mined at a depth of 300 metres in tunnels that extend over a diameter of 1.6 km under the dune and the sea.

When a priest, Father O'Reilly, visited this area in August, he gave the last rites to fifty people. The dead were dragged out of the holds with hooks and 'stacked like cordwood' on the shore.Even those passengers who escaped typhus and other diseases were weakened by the journey.

Those with fever cases on board were required to fly a blue flag. On June 5, 25,000 Irish immigrants were quarantined on Grosse Isle itself or waiting in the ships anchored nearby.By mid-summer 2500 invalids were quarantined on Grosse Isle, and the line of waiting ships stretched several miles. Douglas believed that washing and airi

For better understanding of the database, the references have been grouped by the following type of records: Baptisms recorded at the Grosse Île Quarantine Station. Dr. Douglas attempted to enlist nurses and doctors from among the healthy female passengers with the promise of high wages, but fear of disease meant none accepted. The population was 10,371 at the 2010 census. The Island Beacon asked candidates a few questions about their views and asked why they feel they are the best fit for Grosse Ile Township government.
During the crossing itself, bodies were thrown into the sea, but once the ships had reached Grosse Isle they were kept in the hold until a burial on land became possible. Technically, Grosse Ile is actually two islands divided in two by the Thorofare canal.

In the week leading up to August 18 alone, 88 deaths occurred among the 'healthy'.On June 8, Dr. Douglas warned the authorities of Quebec and Montreal that an epidemic was about to strike. Grosse Île and the Irish Memorial National Historic Site were twinned on May 25, 1998, with the The Voyage of the Naparima by James Magnan, published by Carraig Books in 1982. The Colonial Land and Emigration Commissioners published their seventh report without any mention of the approaching crisis. ... Grosse Ile, MI 48138.

Grosse Ile is the largest island in the Detroit River, and north to south, it stretches from Wyandotte to Gibraltar. On the previous Sunday between 4,000 and 5,000 'healthy' had left Grosse Isle, of whom Dr. Douglas estimated two thousand would develop fever within three weeks.

One ship, the On June 1, the Catholic archbishop of Quebec contacted all Catholic bishops and archbishops in Ireland, asking them to discourage their diocesans from emigrating. However, in 1847 the island was quickly overwhelmed. By Tammy Travis-Taylor, President of the Grosse Ile Historical Society . His new instructions were that the healthy would be released after a cursory check by the doctor. It all began with an azalea. Robert Whyte records seeing 'hundreds... literally flung on the beach, left amid the mud and stones to crawl on the dry land as they could'.Accommodation was found in the sheds, which were filthy and crowded, with patients lying in double tiers of bunks which allowed dirt from the top bunk to fall onto the lower. Ice blocks the St. Lawrence and immigration ceases.

Dr. Douglas, believing 10,600 emigrants had left Britain for Quebec since April 10, requested £150 for a new fever shed.

Thousands were being discharged into Montreal, weak and helpless, some crawling because they could not walk, others 'lying on the wharves, dying'. Immigrants in Quebec were described as 'emaciated objects' huddled 'in the doors of churches, the wharves and the streets, apparently in the last stages of disease and famine'.From 1847 to 1848, an estimated 3,000 to 6,000 Irish died from ship fever in Other cities, including Kingston and Toronto, were anxious to push immigrants on. Dr. George Douglas, Grosse Isle's chief medical officer, recorded that by mid-summer the quarantine regulations in force were 'physically impossible' to carry out, making it necessary for the emigrants to stay on board their ships for many days. The Senate Committee of the United States on Sickness and Mortality in Emigrant Ships described the newly disembarked emigrants as 'cadaverous' and 'feeble'.

However, conditions on other Irish emigrant ships were still worse.

Whyte recorded seeing one family sheltering under boards by the side of the road and commented that 'there is no means of learning how many of the survivors of so many ordeals were cut off by the inclemency of a Canadian winter'.One immigrant who did survive was the grandfather of A national memorial, the Celtic Cross, was unveiled on site on August 15, 1909.On February 19, the medical officer in charge of the quarantine station at Grosse Isle, Dr George M. Douglas, requested £3,000 to assist with an expected influx of Irish immigrants.

The disinfection building features the original showers, waiting rooms and steam disinfection apparatus, as well as a multimedia exhibit about the island's history.
It also includes references to immigration workers and their families who were living on the island.