Hi everyone. Happy mid-week. I figure I have 2 posts left from last September's trip to Nova Scotia. Today we'll visit Halifax (or at least a couple of museums in Halifax), and then I'll have one more post to finish the journey. I guess this means it's time to go on another trip to have more trip posts...😉 Grin.
Today's post is about visiting Halifax, the provincial capital and also a really lovely but not super huge city. And FYI- this is a long post.
We decided to stay right outside of Halifax in Dartmouth for a couple of reasons. First of all it was cheaper to stay in a chain hotel than an Air B&B, and secondly, we were traveling with the dogs. The dogs are very easy to travel with except that they do need to be walked, and not ever having been to Halifax before, I wasn't sure how easy walking dogs in that city would be. Plus, they aren't little dogs, which I think in some situations smaller dogs are easier in the city. We stayed at a Holiday Inn Express which worked out great, and our room even came with a decent breakfast.
This is when we had the first and only big snafu of the trip. While we were unloading our bags into our room a car door didn't get shut tight, so when we went back out to the car awhile later, we had a dead battery. Luckily the maintenance man at the hotel was able to jump it for us. However, my husband was then worried about his battery because he knew it wasn't new. In fact, he planned on replacing it before winter, but he hadn't expected it would go dead because a door wasn't shut tight. He decided we needed to replace the battery so there wouldn't be any more incidents between Halifax and home. (And luckily this happened in Halifax and not while we were in a much more rural area.)
He said, and I can even quote this "I wish there was a Costco nearby." And ha ha, I took out my phone, popped Costco into the search and sure enough, only 0.4 miles/ 0.6 km away was a Costco.
We went to Costco and bought a new battery. 👍 We also had to make a hardware store stop to get a tool( I never asked him what he bought), but my husband managed to switch out the battery with what he had on hand as well as the new tool, so we were good to go. Plus, being a big Costco fan, I was able to have a Canadian Costco experience, and there were some differences from our local Costco.
For one thing, there were a few things on the menu at their food court that I have never seen in any of the Costcos near me. These included Montreal smoked meat sandwiches, putine and my dinner that night, chicken tenders with fries.
Plus there were different items in the store, including lots of hockey equipment which I have also never seen in our area.
But most surprisingly, there was the Boston Bruins fan gear for sale. I take it that is the big team in Halifax, just like at home. 😀
But we didn't come to Halifax to just visit Costco. Due to our ferry reservations and also due to the fact my husband was scheduled to go back to work, we only had a day in Halifax. Our one day was windy and chilly but with beautiful sunshine. I would have loved to have seen the Maud Lewis paintings at the art museum, but I knew my husband would not be up for that even a little bit. And not knowing the city at all, we decided to visit the Citadel (interesting history and a great view) and then there was the near by Maritime Museum of the Atlantic which the couple we had had lunch with at the Fortress of Louisbourg had recommended to us. If we still had time the art museum would be last on the list. We never did make it to the art museum, but that gives me a good reason to go back at another time. 😏
Halifax Citadel
There have been forts on this hilltop since 1794, but the present Citadel takes you back to 1869 when the British still occupied the fort and when Victoria was the Queen. The views of the city were great because this is the highest point in Halifax, and I learned a bit of history about this area.
Here's some views of and around the parade grounds in the Citadel.
These volunteers were dressed and playing the role of the Scottish 78th Highlanders which was the brigade that manned the fort back in 1869. We managed to be around when they did their changing of the guards.
We were also around for the noontime daily cannon firing. We were told this can be heard all over the city and is a good way to keep track of when it is noon.
The museum at the Citadel was quite interesting, especially if you liked military history. I liked because it taught me some Canadian history, especially why Halifax grew to be an important port.
And ha ha, after some lunch and our time at the Citadel, my husband got to be silly in the gift shop. He not only had me laughing, but also had most of the shoppers and staff laughing too.
Museum of the Atlantic
Just down the hill on the waterfront from the Citadel was the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. This museum had been recommended to us when we had lunch with a couple from Nova Scotia out in Louisbourg. It was actually a good stop for my husband since he is a big fan of boats and other marine paraphernalia. I also enjoyed the stop, and I'll tell you in a bit what I found most interesting.
Above is Fresnel lens from a light house, and below are a few items I associated with historical sailing vessels.
Samuel Cunard, the man who ran a huge trans-Atlantic shipping and transport line was from Nova Scotia. This museum had lots of models of his ships.
And the museum also had some various types of sailing ships.
I'm including this next photo in case our blog friend Carola reads this post.
One of the 2 things I found very interesting was learning about the Halifax Explosion. That was a new event for me. On the morning of December 6, 1917, a French ship called The Mont-Blanc, which was carrying 2925 metric tons/just short of 6 million pounds of various explosives, was hit by another vessel. That vessel was the SS Imo from Norway. When the Mont-Blanc was hit, all the explosive materials ignited, and there was a HUGE explosion. When this explosion happened the 2 ships were situated in a tight area of Halifax Harbor called the Narrows.
According to my internet research and what I remember from the museum, the blast killed around 1600 people instantly and another 300 later, but the exact number of deaths is not actually known. Plus there were 9,000 injured people. Some people became blind from the blast's shock wave, which was the largest non-nuclear shock-wave that ever happened up to that time. It also destroyed or damaged over 12,000 various buildings, including breaking windows miles away from where this event occurred.
. The museum had a large exhibit about this event that included some items recovered from the ruble.
And if you look at the map you can see where the explosion was and why the area is called the Narrows.
The other exhibit that I found interesting was about the Titanic disaster. I'm not a huge Titanic fanatic, so I didn't know that Halifax became the staging area for the recovery. Many floating bodies were brought back to Halifax, and some that were never claimed were buried there. Rescue ships also brought back pieces of furniture, private belongings and other items that were still a float when the recovery boats arrived. I would have thought that the staging area would have been in Newfoundland, just because it was closer to the event. However, it was felt that Halifax had more infrastructure to deal with all the issues that needed to be dealt with.
I found the exhibits quite interesting, especially since a lot of rescued items were kept by the sailors who found them floating in the water. I had to steal these next few photos off of various internet sites since that area was quite crowded, and I couldn't really get much for photos myself.
Here's a deck chair from the Titanic and below, some children's shoes.
Many wooden items, even boards, were later carved into items like cribbage boards by the sailors who took them home. Sadly, I don't have any photos of those to share.
And other than a couple of yummy other meals, that was our time in Halifax. We hardly scratched the surface when it came to exploring the city, and I would love to go back and explore more sometime. I'll finish up this trip with another post in the near future for those of you who are interested.
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