Halifax

Written by:   Helen

                    Halifax Harbor

                                                          We have done many trips with our kids and they have always done great for being little kids. This trip though, would prove to be a little more trying than most. You see our little girl is a rock, as soon as we get into any moving vehicle, whether it be a plane, train, bus or car, she grabs all the jackets and makes a huge pillow and goes to sleep. But she has now hit the age where making her older brother squirm at the most annoying times is her newest hobby. Our boy, on the other hand, was constantly testing us, and we really had trouble with his fluctuating attitude. We found ourselves refereeing our kids a lot on this trip, and I can tell you it can sure take some of the fun out of a vacation when you are constantly on your kids. All kids travel differently, and we consider ourselves very fortunate to have healthy children that have an open mind to travel. Our kids are affected, like most, by lack of sleep and too much sugar. Our way of travel is to wing it, no hotel reservations and not much info on the town we are heading to. I know this might seem crazy to some, but I can tell you that the B&Bs and Hotels never look anything like the wonderful pictures you will see on the brochure or magazine. We recently stayed at the Kingston Holiday Inn at $200 bucks a night and it was extremely disappointing. It made it to our worst bang for the buck list because the hotel room was quite shabby with old dirty carpets and it just had a very dumpy feel to it. It has bragging rights that it's waterfront but our room had little to no view at all. Way too overpriced for what you got. We also like going off the beaten path, and if we pull into a town we are not sure about, we will just keep going. The other thing we lost control of was eating quality food. Our rules are pop only on weekends and Macdonalds once a month, but when you travel, sometimes you are left with few choices. 

Seeing as we had never been East of Calgary, we set out on our journey with excitement. Well, that would have to be how Steve felt because to be quite honest I really had no strong desire to see Eastern Canada. I have to say, when I thought of all the places I'd like to see, Halifax was not way up there on my list. But, off we went, again with our two kids on the 14th of June. We took our kids out of school early and in hindsight it turned out to be a good thing because there was not a lot of tourists to contend with and the weather was pretty good. We went cheap and opted for Westjet and were pleasantly surprised. The service was great, the plane was brand new, the seats were leather and very comfortable and they had food!! You had to pay for it but it was very reasonable and relatively good as far as airline food goes. We only had one stop in Montreal for 15 minutes. Just enough time to get out of the plane and use the washrooms in the airport. Understanding that it wasn't a long enough stay to critique it properly, we were not that impressed with the airport as it had a real old, rundown, 'hospital' feel to it. The bathroom had water on the floor and it just felt musty and old. Back on the plane to Halifax, enjoying the flight with our 5 dollar highballs. 

We landed in Halifax at night so it was impossible to see anything when we were landing. When we walked out of the airport it was very chilly and very windy, just as I had pictured it to be, and I was glad I had packed parkas on the advice of friends that warned us of unseasonably cold weather that awaited us. We had rented a Ford Sport Trac from Hertz and it was conveniently waiting for us and our "thousand pounds" of luggage. This perfect little truck was about to take us on a 4,000 km journey through 5 provinces over 15 days. We stayed at the beautiful Delta Hotel in downtown Halifax where we encountered some great service. The bellboy helped us to our room and through conversation realized that we were cold, tired and hungry. It was quite late and the restaurants in the hotel were closed. He asked us if we wanted a pizza and within the half hour he delivered it to our room. It was delicious! We had a rough first night as Danika had an earache from the flight and we were still on Pacific Time. We woke up the next morning at noon (8am Vancouver time) and had breakfast in the hotel and planned our day. It was a cold, drizzly, foggy day, again, exactly how I envisioned Halifax to be so we were not discouraged in the least bit. We walked down to the harbour and decided to take a tour on The Harbour Hopper. It is an amphibious vehicle that the company purchased from the U.S. Military. It actually has documentation on its service in the Vietnam War. The tour guide was hilarious and seemed to know every person walking on the streets as we toured the city. He pointed out all the historic sites and made the trip very enjoyable, we would recommend this tour most definitely. 

We passed by Griffin Pond. This pond was named after the very last gentleman ever to be hung in Halifax. The poor guy turned out to be innocent so to make it up to him and his family, they named a pond after him. We passed by a building that in 1849 became a temporary hostel after the Halifax Explosion, and then passed the historic St. Mary's Basilica. There are many cemeteries in Halifax and one of the oldest, conveniently called The Old Burial Ground, has 12,000 people buried in it. There is a Farmer's Market in the city that has been open every Sat. since 1750. Of course there is Alexander Keiths Brewery that opened in 1863. There are tours but unfortunately we did not get a chance to visit it. The Harbour Hopper vehicle actually drives right into the water and becomes a boat. It is quite bumpy but very cool. While in the harbour the tour continues. The harbour itself is second only to Sidney Australia in size. The MacKay Bridge that connects Halifax to Dartmouth is the second largest suspension bridge in the British Commonwealth. In 1752 there was a ferry that consisted of one man in a rowboat that took 45 mins. to take two people at a time across the harbour one way. He did this 6 days a week. We've come a long way. There were two ships docked that we actually toured when we finished our Harbour Hopper tour. The Acadia and The Bluenose II. The Acadia was built in 1914 and is the only ship to serve with the Canadian Naval Fleet in WWI and WWII. It is the only ship that survived the Halifax Explosion. The Bluenose II was built in Lunenburg, Nova Scotia and is the exact replica of the schooner, the Bluenose I which is proudly seen on the back of the Canadian dime. 

Just a little history about the Halifax Explosion. It occurred on Dec. 6 1917 at the narrows of the Halifax Harbour. It involved two ships, one from Belgium called the Imo and one from France called the Mont Blanc. The two ships collided and the collision itself was not that bad but the Imo decided to reverse to see if it could pull the two ships apart as their hulls were stuck together. The problem was that the Mont Blanc was loaded with ammunition as this was during WWI. The friction from the two ships trying to pull apart created a spark which at 9:04am caused the most violent man-made explosion in history until the creation of the atomic bomb. Over 1,951 lives were lost, 3000 were wounded, 9000 were homeless. The explosion was so immense it rattled windows and dishes fell from cupboards in P.E.I. There is much gratitude toward the city of Boston as they were the first to help. Within 24 hours there were trainloads of doctors and nurses arriving. As a symbol of their appreciation Halifax has delivered to Boston the biggest Christmas tree every single year since. 

What the movie "Titanic" failed to mention was that Halifax was the head recovery centre after the accident. Fishermen from Halifax recovered 300 bodies and brought them back to the pier on the harbour. The very first body was that of an unidentified 2 year old boy. The fishermen felt such sympathy that even though the owners of the Titanic left enough money for small tombstones for every victim, they gathered the little money they had and bought the child a cross-style tombstone that stands head and shoulders above the rest. It's located at the Fairview Lawn Cemetery which is the largest Titanic burial site. It has 119 Protestant victims buried there. 

The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic is a must see when you visit Halifax. It has an amazing collection of pieces recovered from the Titanic. There are wooden door frames, ornate wooden pieces of an arch from a ballroom and the most eery deck chair fully assembled. The museum also offers a detailed history and artifacts from the Halifax Explosion as well as many interesting marine exhibits. It also has a wonderful collection from the children's show Theodore the Tugboat. The show itself is set in a miniature version of the Halifax harbour. For more info. please go to www.museum.gov.ns.ca. After touring all day we were starving. Friends had recommended the 5 Fishermen Restaurant on Argyle Street so we took their advice and boy! are we glad we did. The building itself was built in 1817 and isn't necessarily very fancy but our dinner was fantastic. They have a salad and mussel bar that is all you can eat. This is before your dinner. The salad bar was small but fresh and delicious but the mussel bar was amazing! It was our first taste of East coast seafood and they were the best mussels we have ever eaten. They literally melted in your mouth. Steve went up 5 times and was a little embarrassed but the waiter assured him that this was quite normal and that the record was 25 plates. Steve had halibut and I had seafood linguine. I know! We did not have lobster! But we were waiting. For what, I'm not sure. The dinners were excellent but the dessert was even better. They had a chocolate almond ice cream that they actually make in the restaurant. It was, by far, the most mind blowingly delicious thing we have ever tasted. And Steve doesn't even like dessert. After that we waddled to our truck and decided to take a drive to Peggy's Cove. 

Harbor Hoppers take us into the waters of Halifax

In the background is the dock where the survivors and bodies of the Titanic were unloaded.

Peggy's Cove is a 46 km drive from Halifax. It took us about 45 minutes to get there along a very curvy road. Needless to say, the kids got a little car sick. We arrived at about 8pm and it was completely deserted. Not a tourist to be seen. The weather was absolutely perfect. It was freezing cold, very windy and the fog was as thick as pea soup. As you looked out to sea you could only see a wall of fog and about 20 feet of beautiful crashing surf. It is an amazing contrast between the white foam of the crashing waves and the smooth black rocks. Looking along the coast you see tiny little houses on stilts dotting the coastline nestled in the fog. If I would have heard a fog horn it would have been perfect! As I stood there and took in the scenery and the crisp red and white lighthouse, I had this overwhelming feeling of happiness and contentment. I was, at that moment, so happy that Steve had convinced me to come. From there we traveled back to Halifax on another road that was less curvy and came across the memorial site of the Swissair flight that crashed into the Atlantic on Sept.6, 1998. It consists of two slabs of granite positioned to represent one angle of a triangle with the other two angles marked out on the ocean. 229 people lost their lives in that tragedy. Standing there, as you look out on the ocean, you can't help but feel a chill run down your back. It was a combination of peace and eeriness that I felt and it certainly did not help with my fear of flying. We drove back to the hotel after that, went for a swim and could not fall asleep as we were still on Vancouver time.

      Hungry anyone?

This 11+ pound lobster could make for a great meal, but my kids would have no part of the eating festival.

They wanted to take it home and keep it in the aquarium as a pet.

The next morning we woke up and packed up and said good-bye to our hotel, promising that we would be back.  Our initial plan had been to drive to P.E.I. and New Brunswick and then back to Halifax to fly out to Montreal.  As you will see, our plans changed, numerous times.                                                                                                              

We were headed off through downtown Halifax on our way to P.E.I. when this big semi-trailer truck blocked our route out of the city.  As we truly believe that all things happen for a reason, we took this as a sign that maybe we would go up the hill and find a different route, which in turn, led us to the Citadel at the top of the hill.  We had not planned  on seeing it until we returned in a few days but it was a beautiful, sunny day and we thought, "What the heck, let's see it now!"

The Halifax Citadel was a great bastion of the British Empire, the impregnable shield of the “Warden of the North”.

Today it is one of Canada's most famous landmarks: every year thousands visit the star-shaped fortress, watch the traditional firing of the noon-day gun and roam the ramparts and the fortified buildings where British soldiers were once garrisoned. They watch the re-enactment of military exercises by men and women in authentic 19th-century military uniforms, and enjoy the music of the pipe band in the Parade. This richly-illustrated history conveys the lively martial pageantry of this unparalleled attraction.

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