Held on the west coast: the history of Albert Head and William Head Quarantine Stations (1884-1958)

In the nineteenth century, entire populations were at risk of widespread illness, which could be bubonic plague, cholera, smallpox, tuberculosis, or others. At the same time, immigrants were on the move from elsewhere to the Dominion of Canada. It’s beyond the scope of this post to discuss the racial and political implications of world health, but the point is that Canada built large quarantine facilities. The better known station was at Grosse IÎe, Québec (1832-1937), serving the Port of Québec and Atlantic traffic. There were at least two more at Halifax. The western counterpart was William Head Quarantine Station, serving Pacific traffic (but not until a few other options had been exhausted).

Albert Head Quarantine Station (1884-94)

The Dominion of Canada seemed to develop its ideas for a western quarantine station slowly. Before William Head, there were at least four locations for persons detained under quarantine: Holland Point, McAuley’s Point, Thetis Cottage, and Albert Head. In 1872, the City of Victoria was sued for its treatment of quarantined passengers from the Prince Alfred, which arrived in June with one case of a child carrying smallpox.¹ The city had disbursed 70 detainees: three to the Pest House [sic] at Nias’s Point; 56 to McAuley’s Point; and eleven to Thetis Cottage. Nias Point is known today as Holland Point. By summer, 1884, the B.C. Board of Trade had resolved to select a suitable place near Victoria for a quarantine station and hospital.² Against some opposition, Albert Head was chosen over First Nations land at Plumper Bay, Esquimalt. The cost was estimated to be $7500 [$247K in 2025].

Current map of Albert Head, now a military reserve, Google Maps

In April 1892, medical inspectors at Albert Head detained five hundred Chinese passengers from the Empress of Japan when one was diagnosed with smallpox. The facilities were unable to cope and passengers were housed in tents.³ Due to overcrowding and inadequacy, the government chose a new location: William Head.

William Head Quarantine Station, Metchosin, Greater Victoria (1892-1958)

Few today know the impact of the William Head Quarantine Station,⁴ once as well-known as Ellis Island. On 2 Dec 1892, B.C. Premier Theodore Davie announced that William Head had been chosen as the replacement site for Albert Head.⁵

For the below summary, I am grateful to Peter Johnson’s Quarantined: Life and Death at William Head Station (1872-1959).⁶ I wanted to know what it was like for an immigrant to come to Canada, and particularly for immigrants of Chinese or Japanese ancestry. I’ve seen dozens of passenger lists, gleaning the details of a ship’s arrival, but never before have I dug into what happened between arrival and being cleared by the medical inspectors. I missed the few manifests that showed a ship was quarantined, like the RMS Monteagle, which arrived at William Head on 30 Mar 1913.⁷ A total of 377 passengers were quarantined, including several outraged first class passengers. Here is the manifest (click on the image to see larger).

Today, there is a minimum security prison at William Head, where once there was a quarantine station, a Chinese Labour Corps training and muster camp (First World War), and First Nations land.⁸ In the buildings once known as the “Chinese Steerage Berths,” and the “Japanese Steerage Berths,” are now trade shops where inmates learn carpentry, electrical, plumbing, and mechanical.⁹

Williams Head Quarantine Station setup

During its time as the Dominion Quarantine Station, William Head had 42 buildings, including two hospitals,¹⁰ staff residences, bunkers, and disinfecting sheds.¹¹

The wharf was huge – 500 feet long by 42 feet wide – large enough for the CPR’s Empress ships. By 1925, at its peak, the William Head Quarantine Station could process one thousand passengers. The image below is hard to see, but you can make out the pilings under the wharf to the right of the big white building.

Fumigating ships and people

Before 1918, ships were fumigated against bacteria, pathogens, and vermin with sulphur dioxide gas at one pound of caked yellow sulphur per thousand cubic feet of space. Yellow sulphur is corrosive. Agents took care to place the fumigants correctly, else risk burning a hole in the hull. Fumigation took up to 12 hours, with a further 24 hours needed for ventilation. The smell of rotten eggs permeated items for weeks after fumigation. After the First World War, William Head changed its fumigating agent, from sulphur dioxide gas to hydrogen cyanide gas (Zyklon B), but it was so toxic, its use was restricted to the summer months.

The fumigation for people involved removing all clothing, then placing their belongings into carts, which would be processed in a steaming chamber. People then showered in a solution containing bichloride.¹²

Quarantine sheds

There were three main quarantine sheds – one each for Caucasians, Chinese, and Japanese. There was a marked difference between the accommodations for [white] first-class passengers, where care was taken to provide surrounds somewhat approaching the luxury experienced on board. The rooms were more intimate, with beds four to a room, and there was a common room with a fireplace.¹³

The sheds for Orientals were located at the extreme western edge, furthest from the complex. The facilities, although planned with some comforts, were built with none. The shed for Japanese steerage passengers held 300, while the shed for Chinese steerage held 800. Oriental steerage passengers also carried their own mattresses to their sheds. The buildings had bare floors and contained steel-sprung bunk beds or cots. There were no carpets underfoot nor bedding for the beds. When the number of passengers exceeded the number of beds, tents were provided, or they slept on the floor. There were common cooking sheds and group showers. Food consisted of a small portion of rice and a few vegetables. Too often, there was so little food, detainees foraged for whatever they could eat: birds, clams, fish, seaweed.

Deaths at William Head

There is a cemetery at William Head.¹⁴ Researchers have located 49 names. About half of the burials at William Head were Chinese.

Current map of William Head, Metchosin, BC, Google Maps

Afterword

In this post, I looked at the iterations of Canada’s west coast quarantine stations, where medical inspectors inspected incoming immigrants to Canada for disease. As a genealogist, I want to fill in the bare bones of facts with ideas about what life was like, and this post was by turns enlightening and horrifying. This work grew of its own accord – I was researching Chinese Immigration Sheds, and then asked, What if, for the Chinese, quarantining was its own separate process from immigrating?

In the nineteenth century, the Dominion of Canada managed world pandemics with the tools it had: isolation, medical treatment, fumigation, and regulation. The goal seemed to be protecting the population, but too often only after widespread infections had killed people. Not mentioned but still a factor was vaccination, where passengers were inoculated before being permitted to board. Vaccinations were being discussed in England as early at 1800, the U.S. in 1801, and Upper Canada in 1805.

Next post: The Chinese Immigration Sheds, an update

Update: sorry folks. I fell down a deep rabbit hole researching sheds. I’ll have to put this on hold until it’s ready.

Thank yous

Thank you to the members of Genealogy for Asian Canadians, who offered so many ideas, links, and pages about William Head.

References

1. The Quarantine claims, Victoria, 24 Dec 1873, monograph online, Canadiana (https://n2t.net/ark:/69429/m0kd1qf8p98k: accessed 28 Nov 2025). See also, Liesel Jakeman, “Three of Victoria’s Important Points of Land,” Victoria Historical Society Publication, no. 35, Spring 2013. ↩︎ ↩︎
2. British Columbia Board of Trade, Fifth annual report of the British Columbia Board of Trade, 6th July, 1883, to 4th July, 1884, Victoria, BC, 1884, Canadiana (https://n2t.net/ark:/69429/m0f47gq6vv9k: accessed 28 Nov 2025). ↩︎
3. “It is a case of smallpox,” 19 Apr 1892, Victoria Daily Times, Victoria, BC, 518 Chinese passengers detained at Albert Head, tents provided, Newspapers.com, accessed 26 Nov 2025. ↩︎
4. Canada, Dept of Public Works, “Quarantine Station [showing] wharf, William Head, B.C,” images online, B.C. – WILLIAM HEAD – BUILDINGS, ref. no. RG11, accession no: 1966-090 NPC, box no.193, T-1827, item no. 3309071, Library and Archives Canada (https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=fonandcol&id=3309071&lang=eng&ecopy=a046412-v6: accessed 26 Nov 2025). ↩︎
5. “Vancouver verities,” Victoria Daily Times, p1, col. 6, Davie said quarantine would be moved from Albert Head to William Head, Newspapers.com, accessed 26 Nov 2025. ↩︎
6. Peter Johnson, Quarantined: Life and Death at William Head Station (1872-1959) (Heritage House Publishing Company Ltd., 2013), Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/quarantinedlifed0000john/page/n5/mode/2up?q=Chinese. ↩︎
7. “Canada, Incoming passenger lists 1865-1935,” database online, image 16 of 179, ships manifest for the Monteagle, arrived Vancouver Apr 15 and 18, 1913, Ancestry.com, accessed 26 Nov 2025. ↩︎
8. Marion I. Helgesen, Quarantine Station, undated, Metchosin Museum Society (https://metchosinmuseum.ca/heritage-sites/quarantine-station/: accessed 26 Nov 2025). ↩︎
9. Cpl. J.H. Armstrong, “The William Head Experiment,” 1960, digital images, images 34-36 of 88, Royal Canadian Mounted Police Quarterly, Canadiana (https://n2t.net/ark:/69429/m0862b858k6w: accessed 26 Nov 2025). ↩︎
10. Canada, Dept of Public Works, “William Head, B.C. hospital buildings,” images online, B.C. – WILLIAM HEAD – BUILDINGS, ref no. RG11, accession no: 1966-090 NPC, box no: 4837, item no. 5064599, Library and Archives Canada (https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=fonandcol&id=5064599&lang=eng&ecopy=e011213489: accessed 26 Nov 2025). ↩︎
11. Madge Robertson Watt, The Southmost Districts Vancouver Island: Colwood, Metchosin, Sooke, 1910, digital images, image 40 of 66, Canadiana (https://n2t.net/ark:/69429/m0sb3ws8jm31: accessed 26 Nov 2025); Dept of Mines and Minerals, Surveys and Mapping Branch, Ottawa, ON, 1952, Maps of the National Topographic System of Canada, 1:50,000, “National Topographic System, 1:50,000 : Canada : Sooke (East), British Columbia,” Canadiana (https://n2t.net/ark:/69429/m0fb4wh2k09x: accessed 26 Nov 2025). ↩︎
12. Bichloride is probably mercuric chloride, once widely used for disinfecting. It is extremely toxic. See Mercuric Chloride, 2025, website dictionary, ScienceDirect (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/pharmacology-toxicology-and-pharmaceutical-science/mercuric-chloride: accessed 26 Nov 2025). ↩︎
13. Canada, Dept of Public Works, “First class passenger detention building, Quarantine Station, William Head, B.C,” images online, B.C. – WILLIAM HEAD – BUILDINGS, ref. no. RG11, accession no: 1966-090 NPC, box no: No.193, T-1827, item no. 3309074, Library and Archives Canada (https://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=fonandcol&id=3309074&lang=eng&ecopy=a046448-v8: accessed 26 Nov 2025). ↩︎
14. William Head Cemetery, undated, website, Old Cemeteries Society of Victoria (https://oldcem.bc.ca/cem/william-head-cemetery/: accessed 28 Nov 2025; Find a Grave, William Head Cemetery, Metchosin, Capital Regional District, BC, cemetery ID no. 2559600, Find a Grave: accessed 28 Nov 2025; Dave Obee, Destination Canada: a genealogical guide to immigration records, 2019, ch.7, “Pacific Ports 1858-1935,” Dave Obee: Victoria, BC. ↩︎