Well, in the few hours that I had spent so far in this city, Halifax had already shown itself from its best side. After my fairly late arrival yesterday I had a chance for a brief walk along the waterfront before I saw an amazing performance of DRUM! – an inspiring and heart-pumping musical kaleidoscope of Nova Scotia’s four principal cultures: Black, Acadian, Aboriginal and Celtic. An awesome introduction to this city…
This morning I got up early since I wanted to discover the waterfront in the daylight before joining a city tour that would give me a good overview of what Halifax has to offer. I realized that the batteries of my digital camera were very low and wanted to buy a couple of replacement AA batteries, so I criss-crossed the city from one location to another to find batteries, but to no avail. Stores that I was directed to were either still closed or they had just run out of batteries. Well, that meant that by 9 am I had already spent a solid 40 minutes zig-zagging across the downtown core and getting a bit of an overview of the central area of the city.
At 9 am I joined a group of tourists to go on a city tour provided by “the Company with the Kilts”. What makes this city tour unique is that the historically inspired trolleys are accompanied by knowledgeable, humorous guides that are dressed up – you guessed it – in a kilt. On this sunny October day, our guide was Allen Mackenzie, whose extensive historic knowledge and witty comments kept the entire vehicle entertained.
We started along the waterfront where Allen pointed out the historic warehouses that are part of the “Historic Properties” complex. These warehouses used to store the loot of the privateers, pirates that were licensed by the British Crown to raid enemy ships. Today these former warehouses have been transformed into a series of retail and restaurant locations while retaining their historical appeal.
Close by is Halifax’ Casino, which Allen quite aptly referred to as the city’s “Centre of Voluntary Taxation”. We made our way to Grand Parade, originally a parade ground and today a large public square which is anchored on the south side by St. Paul’s Church, Halifax’ first and oldest church dating back to 1749 – the year the city was founded. On the north side we saw Halifax City Hall, whose construction was started in 1887. In the centre of the Grand Parade is the Cenotaph, a war memorial erected in 1929 that commemorates three major conflicts: the First World War, the Second World War and the Korean War. To the west is Citadel Hill and the Old Town Clock. One of the city’s major landmarks, the Old Town Clock was given to the city by Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and future father of Queen Victoria, in 1803 to ensure that all Haligonians would have a chance to be aware of the time of day and not have an excuse for being late for work. This treasured time piece has kept people on schedule ever since.
Our trolley bus snaked its way through town while Allen told us enlightening and often humorous stories of the historic characters that called this city home. We then drove through an area called Spring Garden Road that has a lot of established retail shopping opportunities before we arrived at another major Halifax attraction: the Halifax Public Gardens. This is where we were ushered out of the bus in order to connect with our bagpiper who would take us on a walk through the gardens while Allen would pick us up on the other side.
Well, as fate would have it, the bagpiper never showed up, but Allen with his good humour took us halfway into the beautiful public garden and asked us to all meet up on the north-west side of the gardens where he would meet us in a few minutes with the trolley. He also explained that the Halifax Public Gardens are the second most renowned Victorian gardens in Canada after Butchart Gardens in Victoria, B.C.
Our guide went on to explain that in order to qualify for a formal Victorian garden, a green space would have to meet the following requirements:
– it would have to be more than 10 acres in size
– bridges would need to be wide enough to accommodate two women in hoop skirts, a high Victorian fashion
– the facility would need to have a bandstand, and
– two mated swans in a pond would be required to make it a true Victorian Garden.
He pointed out that Hurricane Juan devastated the Halifax area; many of the old established trees in different parts of the city including the Public Gardens were destroyed. This public garden is a very historic place: its origins date back all the way to 1836 when the Nova Scotia Horticultural Society set out to create a public garden that would be “accessible to all classes”. The bandstand was erected in 1887 to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee while the Jubilee (Nymph) Fountain was erected in 1897 to honour Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.
The pond in the heart of the gardens is called Griffin’s Pond and was named after a young Irishman who was actually hanged for murder on the east side of the pond in the 1830s. Allen pointed out a miniature model of the Titanic ocean liner that was floating on the pond which years ago was actually remote-controlled and could be directed all over this waterway. Halifax has a huge connection to the Titanic, as you will hear shortly.
After our 20 minute stopover at the Public Gardens we headed towards our next stop, another place of great historical significance: the Halifax Citadel. Again we had about 20 or 30 minutes to get out of the bus and explore the Citadel on foot. The admission price was included in the city tour. The Halifax Citadel is Canada’s is one of Canada’s most visited historic sites. Due to the strategic location of this hill overlooking the harbour, Citadel Hill was singled out very early on as a location for a fortress. The first fortification was built in 1761 while the current version was completed in 1856, after 30 years of construction.
The Citadel is a phenomenal vantage point for overlooking the city. The entire harbour area comes into view, and you can see all the way across the bay to Dartmouth. Allen pointed out that the Halifax Citadel was considered the “most terrible fortification” in British North America, and indeed no attempts to attack it were ever made.
Our group arrived just in time for the rifle presentation. Several “soldiers” (in reality they are Halifax university students) were dressed up in full historic military costumes, carrying rifles, and our group would get an actual demonstration of a real rifle shooting during our brief stopover. One of the young soldiers explained that the rifles weigh 8 to 9 pounds, and with the bayonette attached the weight goes up to about 13 pounds. He allowed me to lift the rifle which made me realize that this was definitely not light-weight combat. Then he proceeded to shoot the rifle several times against the citadel’s wall, creating several loud bangs that reverberated throughout the entire walled-in fortress.
After this quick stop we proceeded westwards through town where Allen pointed out Dalhousie University, one of the 5 major universities in town. We passed through a west-end neighbourhood where houses cost somewhere between C$800,000 and C$1,500,000 according to Allen. Our next and final stop during the tour was the Fairview Cemetery where Halifax’ connection to the Titanic disaster became most evident.
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