Halifax Day 1, Peggys CoveJul 31, 2006
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Halifax Day 1 - July 31, 2006
Our bus tour of Halifax produced more history than elderly minds could absorb in one day. Our bus came complete with tour guide (a retired school teacher with skirt and Tilly hat - said the tour company wouldn't buy him a hat).
1st Stop: An unexpected site for high tourist interest - a Cemetary - specifically the Titanic victims portion of the cemetary. Segregated by religion - the custom of the day - and buried in separate Catholic, Jewish, and Other areas. We visited the Other area where graves are arranged in the shape of a boat prow. Victims were numbered as they were picked up - a process that continued for 3 months after the April 15, 1912 sinking. Many are still unidentified, but several have been identified in the last 10 years from DNA testing of survivors, including the child under the monument in the photos. We were told by our guide, who probably lies a lot, that this was one of the most popular side tours for Cruise Ship passengers. Apparently it doesn't take much to entertain folks cooped up with 3000 like souls on a Cruise Ship!
2nd Stop: A view of the site of a WW II explosion that virtually leveled the city. Most of us had never heard of it (too young to read papers and hadn't made the history books we used). Halifax harbor is the 2nd largest deep water port in the world. In WW II ships of all types gathered here to be escorted to Europe in a convoy through the deadly German subs waiting to pick them off. While preparing to depart a Hospital ship and an ammo ship with 2000 depth charges and 200 barrels of aviation fuel on deck, and a crew that only spoke French, miscommunicated resulting in the Hospital ship ramming the ammo ship broadside at full speed. Nearly cut the ammo ship in half. The Hospital ship Captain, without evaluating the result, reversed engines pulling the ships apart. The grinding of metal created sparks igniting spilled aviation fuel, which burned rapidly attracting a large crowd, plus all the firefighting equipment in Halifax. The French crew choose flight over heroics, and abandoned ship before opening hatches to sink the ship. BOOM!! The equivalent of an atomic explosion, without flash and radiation, created a mushroom cloud and leveled or set on fire most of Halifax. Also eliminated the gathered firefighting capability. Windows were blown out up to 60 miles away. Boston sent a train north the next day with help, supplies, and window glass permanently endearing the city to Halifax residents.
3rd Stop: The Five Fishermen restaurant. The building was the site of the first school in the area. Tuition was one cent a week, but many attending couldn't afford even that. The school started with ONE teacher and 250 students. The teacher would teach a class to 10 students, who would then each teach what they had learned to 10 others, who then repeated the model. The pyramid model worked. The building continued to house 4 more schools, including a college before being restored and converted to the restaurant.
4th Stop: The Citadel. It is the 4th fort on this site; completed in 1856 after 30 years it was obsoleted by improved cannon before completion. It's current function is the harvest of Tourist $.
Driving through Halifax we saw many destroyed trees. The city was hit by a very destructive Hurricane in September 2003, wiping out many stands of old trees and taking out power for several days. Strange to think of hurricanes this far north, but they can run up the East Coast, as this one did, and it is not rare for Nova Scotia to recieve a direct hit.
5th Stop: Lunch at Peggy's Cove. It's a classical Northeast coast fishing village. Once an isolated village, it has been connected to the world by road and now has a dual role. The residents of the couple of dozen small houses are still fish harvesters. Another dozen of so buildings are devoted to the Tourist harvest. The area is rugged granite bedrock, scrubbed clean of soil by the glaciers of the last ice age (Yes Virginia, the globe has been warming for over 10,000 years when Peggys
Cove was under 2000 feet of ice!). Lots of large boulders lie where they were deposited as the ice melted. Surrounded by water, there is not a drop to drink. Locals use cisterns. The commercial operations have water trucked in daily. Peggy's Cove is the most scenic area we have visited to date. Big bag of photographers Eye Candy! It's also the site of the crash of a Swiss Air flight in 1998. No survivors.
It was a full day. Most were ready for their "nappy poo" when the bus got back.
