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  • The closing of the station
  • The post-quarantine period
  • The beginnings of a National Historic Site
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• Preamble
• Pre-quarantine occupation
• 1832 – laborious beginnings
• 1847 – a year of tragedy
• The station undergoes modernization
• Immigration diversifies
• A historic village
• The closing of the station
• The post-quarantine period
• The beginnings of a National Historic Site

The post-quarantine period

In 1942, at the height of World War II, the Canadian Defence Research Board set up an experimental station for the development of bacterial weapons. It was an ideal location for this kind of centre, owing to the combination of isolation, existing infrastructures and the absence of human population. There, a vaccine against pest bovine was produced. The Department of Defence took control of Grosse Île from 1951 to 1956 with the objective of pursuing its research into bacteriological warfare.

In 1957, the Grosse Île facilities were transferred to the Department of Agriculture, which located its Animal Pathology Division on the island. In 1965, the same department transferred its Contagious Diseases Division to Grosse Île, which again saw service as a quarantine station, this time for animals (primarily those imported from Europe).
This station would remain in operation until 1984.