Halifax, Nova Scotia

The next stop on our trip was Halifax, the capital city of Nova Scotia. On our drive down from Tatamagouche, we stopped to find a tourist info center to get a map, and we just happened to stop at the apparently popular “Mastadon Ridge”. This is a hill with a sculpture of a mastodon on top of it. Not only that, but there are also several Flintstones sculptures surrounding it. We could not for the life of us figure out why all this was here, until we found an out-of-the-way sign explaining that a mastodon skeleton had been discovered nearby.

We got to our campground in the nearby suburb of Dartmouth, which was decidedly NOT a very private campground- we picked one of the only sites with a tree. Then we discovered that the streetlights stay on all night, so we attempted to engineer our tarp such that it would block the nearby streetlight from shining directly into our tent. It helped, but it was still bright outside at night.

In Halifax, we started at Point Pleasant Park, which was lovely to walk around but still fairly HOT, especially for being so far north and on the ocean. It is the home of a plethora of war memorials, which afforded Adam and I the opportunity to discover just how ignorant we really are about Canadian history (“Did you know Canada fought in that war?? Yeah, me neither.”). After wandering around a while, I was getting really warm, so I decided to take a dip in the ocean to cool off… I got in just over my ankles and couldn’t take any more. This was the most FRIGID water I have EVER set foot in! It felt like your feet were going to fall off just from wading in the water. Needless to say, my swimming plan was foiled. We wandered around the boardwalk instead, which was a pretty place, and found out (this time it was just my own ignorance of history, Adam knew this) that rum runners are not just a delicious drink, they were also a type of prohibition-era smuggler. Finally we found a lovely plaza with a great view of the clock that has been keeping time in Halifax for 200 years- crazy!

 

The next day we visited the farmer’s market in Halifax. Being a Thursday, most of the vendors weren’t there, but the building was HUGE and we could well imagine how impressive it must be on the weekends. We started the day off right with a delicious crepe, bought some of the most expensive chocolates I have ever eaten (and the lady had the snootiest accent to boot), and Adam sampled beers at the Garrison brewery next door. Our next stop was the Citadel, the city’s former fortress overlooking the sea. We wandered around the outside of it just in time to hear the noon cannon-firing (!) and hear the bagpipes, making us wonder about Canadian ties with Scotland. The nearby Public Gardens were pretty, but not exactly extensive, and you couldn’t walk on the grass in most of the park! We did enjoy the shade, however.

Our final stop for the day was to go to the Halifax Jazz Festival, which was having free jazz concerts! We enjoyed the music for a bit (although it wasn’t exactly my type of jazz, Brent you would have loved it) and got some festival swag, including five “ChocoMax” granola bars. They aren’t kidding- these granola bars contain the maximum amount of chocolate possible before it just becomes a chocolate bar and not a granola bar at all. The highlight of our day in Halifax was when the Google Earth car drove by us!! We made a note of the location- the intersection of Salter and Barrington streets, but so far we don’t see us.

We took the afternoon to swim in the lake near our campground. It was a tiny beach, but at least the water was a tolerable temperature- in fact quite refreshing. We finished the day up with dinner at a restaurant in Dartmouth, where we shared a table with a very nice Canadian couple from the area who had extra space at their table, since the restaurant was so crowded. We were unfortunately the recipient of a kitchen mix-up, resulting in Adam’s lobster being lukewarm, and worse yet, my steak being wrapped in bacon (BLECK!). Fortunately, they brought me a new steak, and Adam got to eat both lobster AND the bacon-wrapped steak, so he was pretty happy.

All in all, Halifax was a pretty city, albeit fairly small- which fortunately makes it seeable in a short period of time. But it’s apparently not far enough north to escape the heat, which is the entire point of going to Canada in the summer, eh? =P