Historic Halifax

Halifax has been on my list of places to visit for years in order to see the spot where my parents and sister landed decades ago to start their life in Canada.
 
As more than a million people did between the end of World War 2 and 1971, my family arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax.

Unfortunately, Canadian Museum of Immigration is closed for renovations.  But I was able to imagine what my father, mother and sister felt when they arrived in Canada after a long boat journey across the Atlantic Ocean. 

The experience is shown in a new statue called The Emigrant.  The bronze and marble monument depicts an emigrant leaving his home country to start a new life in Canada.

Speaking of the Atlantic, I certainly had a great stroke of luck when I signed up at the visitors centre on the harbourfront for a tour of Peggy’s Cove.  I showed up for my 2 o’clock tour to find that I was the only participant. Only in Halifax, would a tour run for just one person!

 

My guide, Blair Beed, is a Halifax historian.  He runs Dtours Visitors and Convention Services. For $40, I enjoyed an excellent adventure along the shore to Peggy’s Cove with its rugged coastline, fishing village and famous lighthouse.  What a way to experience the Halifax area with a one-on-one conversation with a great storyteller.

No visit to Halifax is complete without sampling the local seafood.  I did my part with five bowls of fish chowder.  Every bowl was different with a variety of creamy textures and flavours and seafood.  My highlight meal was a lobster clubhouse sandwich at the Stubborn Goat Gastropub.

There must have been more than a half a pound of lobster stuffed into the sandwich!

In addition to seafood, Halifax is home to fine beers including the famed Alexander Keith’s.  Another benefit of travelling in the low season, only half a dozen folks were on my tour of one of the oldest commercial breweries in North America. So we had plenty of fun participating with the actors who took us back in time to the mid 1800s to learn about Keith and the brewing process.  The tour included two glasses of beer. 





Joseph Howe statue at Province House

And as I do in capital cities, I visited the legislature. Legislators have met every year since 1819 in Nova Scotia’s Province House, making it the longest serving legislative building in Canada.  As I was the only tourist on a rainy Monday afternoon, the commissionaires let me wander around the building. 

Inside the N.S. Legislature

I learned about Joseph Howe, a newspaper editor who was acquitted of libel in 1835. He is noted in history as a defender of freedom of the press and a champion of responsible government in Nova Scotia.

In the words of a popular folk song, here are a few more pictures as I say "Farewell to Nova Scotia!"

 

Georges Island in Halifax Harbour

 

Farmers Market on a busy Saturday morning

  

The Halifax skyline

 

A Visit to Quebec City: Discovering 400 years of history and a Distinct Society/la société distincte

Vieux Quebec with the Chateau Frontenac

Back in grade nine, our social studies course, called Canadiana 9, focused on the history of the nation. New France, Upper Canada, Lower Canada, the Plains of Abraham, Wolfe and Montcalm are historic topics and words that have stuck in my mind over the decades. 

As a reporter in the 1980s and 1990s, the seemingly endless constitutional debates between Canada and Quebec were mainstays of the daily news. As a westerner, I don’t think I fully appreciated all the points of view in Quebec.  


The National Assembly

Proposed amendments to the Constitution would have inserted the phrase “distinct society” to recognize the difference of Quebec from the rest of Canada. But since the 1990s, the distinct society phrase appears to have faded and with this year’s Quebec provincial election, Quebec separation  also seems to be on the backburner.

 In any event, my four days in Quebec City in June prompted me to take another look at my views and come to the conclusion that Quebec is in fact a distinct place – within Canada.   

St. Roch Church



Putting aside the political discussions, Quebec City is a great visual, cultural, historic and architectural destination with all of its churches, cobblestone streets, terraces, staircases, pointed copper roofs and expansive vistas of the St. Lawrence River. 

Place Royale



400 years of history   

Quebec City fast food - avec poutine

Quebec's newest member of the National Assembly?