Book excerpt: This book is a day-to-day account of the sad events that took place in 1847, a year in which nearly 100,000 emigrants, mostly Irish, disembarked at Grosse Ile or the Port of Quebec. Written as a diary, the book gives a detailed description of the administrative measures taken by the authorities to deal with the influx of such a large number of emigrants in deplorable conditions of disease and misery. It records the arrivals and departures of ships and gives a weekly account of the sick and the dead. The reader will also get an idea of the reactions expressed by the newspapers at the time and read first hand accounts by the emigrants themselves, priests, doctors, sailors and other contemporaries.