Exploring Halifax

Ok – I’ll admit it – before getting to Halifax I knew almost nothing about it and had very little idea about what to expect.

The two most interesting things that I have learnt are that:

1. It is the site of the biggest natural harbour in the Americas which is ideally formed for defence. As a result there has been a naval base here since Halifax’s establishment in 1749. The defences have been so strong that they have never even been tested. The fact I really liked was that the British used this as a base to conquer Canada from the French !
2. Despite never having been attacked the harbour suffered the largest pre-atomic era explosion in history when two ships collided in 1917. One was stuffed to the gills with explosives and ammunition and caught on fire. A big crowd gathered on the waterfront to watch the burning ship and then it exploded. This killed over 2000 people and flattened 300 acres of land breaking windows over 90km away.

We started our first morning in Halifax, knowing the Beast hadn’t arrived, by visiting the downtown area and walking around the very touristy part of the town. The waterfront itself has a lot of restaurants and a few boats offering tours of the harbour. All in all not really our scene but we were there early so there were not many people about.

Compared with a lot of the castles etc in the UK its not that impressive. However what is impressive is that Parks Canada have made a real effort to make it interesting. There are re-enactors dressed in historic uniforms acting as the soldiers would have done back in 1870 and they fire off one of the old guns every day at 12.