From Polders to Prairies is a project organized and sponsored by the Canadian Embassy to the Netherlands and developed through a partnership among institutions and research centers devoted to the history of migration and transatlantic crossings. The project takes shape both as a physical exhibition, comprising 25 trilingual panels (English, French, and Dutch), and as an online exhibition that contextualizes and enriches them.
Embedded Files
An International Collaboration
At the heart of the project are three institutions whose missions converge around the study and interpretation of mobility, memory, and belonging. The Roosevelt Institute for American Studies (RIAS), in Middelburg, is both an archive and a research center specializing in the history of North America. Its rich holdings span diplomatic relations, civil rights, environmental change, religion, and transnational exchange. The Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21, in Halifax, Nova Scotia, is Canada’s national museum of immigration and occupies part of the historic terminal through which millions of immigrants entered the country. Fenix, one of the Netherlands’ newest museums, is dedicated entirely to the history and meaning of human migration as a universal and enduring feature of the modern world.
The exhibition draws on visual and documentary materials selected by researchers at RIAS from a wide range of collections, including the Stallinga-Ganzevoort Collection, 1890-1960, the Henk van Stekelenburg Collection, 1820-1960, and the Dutch-American Diplomatic Correspondence, 1784-1973. These sources are complemented by original materials from the Dutch National Archives and the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. In close collaboration with the academic staff at RIAS and the specialists at Pier 21, the research team wove these materials into a narrative that offers a broad and compelling history of Dutch migration to Canada. In doing so, the exhibition situates the familiar post-1945 story of migration and reconstruction within a much longer and richer history of movement, adaptation, and exchange. Fenix has provided the public setting in which this research has been presented to a wider audience.
Five Core Themes
The exhibition is organized around five core themes.
First, it shows that Dutch migration to Canada has a much longer history than is often assumed. Its roots extend back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when Dutch migrants participated in the settlement of the Canadian prairies and established communities that carried with them traditions, forms of knowledge, and cultural practices that would endure across generations.
Second, the exhibition highlights the role of Dutch migrants in the making of modern Canada. Farmers and workers contributed to the expansion of the Canadian economy and to the physical and social infrastructure of a growing nation.
Third, the selected materials underscore the importance of religion in migration history. Religious institutions and leaders often acted as mediators, organizers, and guides, helping migrants raise funds, navigate unfamiliar conditions, and build communities of support and recognition in a new land.
Fourth, the exhibition places migration in the context of environmental catastrophe and recovery. In the aftermath of the devastating North Sea Flood of 1953, Canada became a place of possibility for Dutch families and farmers who had lost homes, land, and livelihoods. In this context, migration emerged not only as a movement but as a renewal.
Finally, the exhibition brings this history close to the visitor through personal stories. Letters, photographs, and individual trajectories illuminate the emotional texture of migration: the uncertainty of departure, the strain of separation, the challenge of adaptation, and the hope invested in crossing an ocean toward an unknown future.
Through both the website and the physical panels, From Polders to Prairies offers more than a historical overview. It is a reflection on the enduring ties between Canada and the Netherlands, on the many forms of connection forged across the Atlantic, and on the human capacity to remake life through movement. In tracing these journeys, the exhibition invites visitors to see migration not as an exception, but as one of the defining experiences of the modern world.
Where to See the Exhibition
From Polders to Prairies was presented to the public on March 18, 2026, at Fenix in Rotterdam, during an event hosted by the Canadian Embassy to the Netherlands, in the presence of the Canadian Ambassador to the Netherlands, Hugh Adsett, as well as representatives of Fenix, RIAS, and the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21.
After the inaugural event, the twenty-five trilingual panels that make up the exhibition will be on display outside the Canadian Embassy in The Hague, at:
Sophialaan 7, 2514 JP, The Hague, the Netherlands.
The exhibition is scheduled to be visible in The Hague starting in summer 2026.
While the twenty-five trilingual panels are on display in The Hague, the online version of the exhibition is available on this website, where visitors can find historical background and additional information about the project.
The online exhibition will remain accessible after the physical display has ended. Due to limited space on the panels, many personal stories of Dutch migrants and materials regarding their travels and lives in Canada could not be included. We therefore invite visitors to explore the Dutch and Canadian archives that informed the exhibition and to discover more about the long history of Dutch migration to Canada.
RIAS, Pier 21, and the Dutch National Archives also also hold online textual and visual records documenting documenting the experiences of Dutch migrants overseas.
The Research Team
The archival research for the project was carried out by Nele Kersten and Jules Sleypen, who worked closely with RIAS staff, exhibition experts at Pier 21, and the Canadian Embassy to the Netherlands to shape their findings into From Polders to Prairies.
Nele Kersten studied International Studies at Leiden University and later obtained a master's degree with honors in International Politics at KU Leuven and a master's degree in North American Studies at Leiden University. Her academic interests lie at the intersection of politics, culture, and history, with a particular focus on transatlantic relations and migration history. Following her master's thesis on Flemish migration to North America, she worked as a research assistant at the RIAS on the project From Polders to Prairies: The Long History of Dutch Migration to Canada.
Jules Sleypen obtained a Bachelor's Degree in History from Leiden University. He is currently writing his master's thesis in the North American Studies program at Leiden University. He was an intern at the RIAS in Middelburg before working as a research assistant on the project From Polders to Prairies: The Long History of Dutch Migration to Canada.
Website designed by Gaetano Di Tommaso and Jules Sleypen
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