The Irish Potato Famine of 1845-1852 claimed more than a million Irish lives and prompted a mass exodus from the starving country. Emigrants crowded into unsafe, unsanitary "coffin ships;" those who survived the up to nine-week journey across the Atlantic to Canada first had to quarantine at Grosse Île in the St. Lawrence River. So many were sick, the island's medical facilities were overwhelmed. Today, a memorial on the island honours the thousands who died escaping poverty and hunger.