Halifax Area-Our Second Month on the Road Begins

Another relatively short ride

Thursday, June 28th, we drove to Woodhaven Campground near Halifax where we’ll spend the next four nights. After getting set up we planned our weekend, deciding to go to the Halifax Farmer’s Market and walk the boardwalk on Friday, visit The Citadel and Peggy’s Cove on Saturday, and then relax at our RVs on Sunday as Canadians celebrate Canada Day.

So many things have changed in four years

Ray and I were last here in 2014. Downtown Halifax is growing very fast with new construction everywhere. With heavy traffic and and a rarely seen Canadian Mail Delivery van!

Although the Farmer’s Market was a little disappointing because Saturday and Sunday are the traditional days for Haligonians to pack the Market, we had a quick lunch in a mostly empty Market. (For some reason, people from Halifax label themselves as Haligonians in official documents!)

This parking lot is packed with cars on a weekend!

The boardwalk is a lovely place to view Halifax Harbor and the downtown skyline.

Samuel Cunard helped Halifax Harbor
become a shipping hub of the British Empire 

A monument to the Europeans who
left their families to find their
fortune in Canada!

Fishing Fleet is a big part of the Harbor

As is tourism

And luxury liners, this one from Florida

Additional construction on the waterfront

Some tourists take the duck boat

Others the double-decker

The Merchant Marines helped the Allies win WWI and WWII

We never got to stop at this historic site-
Alexander Keith's Brewery since 1820

We crossed the Macdonald Bridge-accidentally-on the way back to the RV

On our way back to the RVs we stopped at the local Walmart! What's a day without a Supercenter visit?

Taking advantage of a sunny day

Friday brought much warmer weather as we drove to The Halifax Citadel, a British fort built to protect Halifax from attack by New Englanders to their south and the French fortress in Louisbourg, which we visited last week.

The view of Halifax from this fort was beautiful even with all the new buildings blocking our view of the harbor. We could only imagine how the view must have been in 1856 when the existing fort opened. There were 4 versions of The Citadel built between 1740 and 1856. Each version updated the defenses to keep up to date with the newest defensive thinking. The Halifax Citadel Society (HCS) supports programming at the Citadel. Established on July 10, 1993, HCS it is a non-profit, charitable organization which works in partnership with Parks Canada. Numerous re-enactors present the 78th Highland Regiment of Foot and the 3rd Brigade, Royal Artillery to explain life in 1856 along with many demonstrations.  

We were treated to a wonderful tour by a very knowledgeable re-enactor who explained life at the fort and helped explain the firing of a rifle and the noon canon.

The firing of the noon cannon, which originally was used to tell soldiers and the residents of Halifax the time of day, since most soldiers could not afford a pocket watch. The firing of the noon cannon has been done every day, except Christmas, since 1856. 

A World War 1 display including a WWI trench was also very interesting and helped show what it might have been fighting from one of these trenches. During WWI The Citadel was used as a training facility and barracks for Canadian soldiers preparing to go to Europe.

Colleen tried to conscript Charles into the 78th Regiment, but appropriate uniforms were hard to find!

OOPS! Gotta put on some weight Charles - add some hips!

Since the weather forecast for Sunday was going to be cloudy with a chance of showers we decided to drive to the Peggy’s Cove area. This is one of the prettiest coastal areas in Nova Scotia and we thought seeing it with the sun out would be much better than on a cloudy rainy day. The pictures do not do this area justice but we’ll try.

Strong house colors add so much to the strength of this coast! They brighten even a gloomy day!

After Peggy’s Cove we drove a few miles to the SwissAir111 crash memorial. In September of 1998 a SwissAir flight from NY to Switzerland crashed into the ocean a few miles of the coast in this area killing 250 people. This memorial was constructed in memory of those people who lost their lives.

We then drove to  restaurant a few miles from the Memorial previously owned by a gentleman from Switzerland who came to the area to be closer to his daughter who died on the SwissAir flight. We learned the story in 2014 when we talked to the young couple who bought the restaurant when it became too much for the original owner to manage. A very touching story. It's a small detail that makes the memorial so impactful.

More adventures to follow!