In 1847, Ireland was in the grip of a devastating famine – a catastrophe that lasted five years and sparked the largest human migration in modern history. That summer, Boston, Philadelphia and New York closed their ports to Irish refugees while Canadian ports remained open. As a result, Canada bore the brunt of the Irish famine migration and between May and August of 1847, 38,000 refugees flooded the city of Toronto alone. Using newly discovered artifacts together with exhaustive archival research, Death or Canada finds startling new evidence of a famine hospital and refugee camp in Toronto – ground zero of the crisis of 1847. Shot on location in Ireland and Canada, Death or Canada is the story of people surviving against the odds, overcoming tragedy and transforming despair into hope.