A Week in Nova Scotia - Part 6 - Maritime Museum of the Atlantic

The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic also merits a separate blog post.  We spent a fair amount of time there, and I know we still didn't see everything.

Here is one of the original models used in the filming of the 1989 children's television series Theodore Tugboat.

There is a large exhibit on Sable Island, a narrow island 300 km southeast of Halifax, which has been the site of over 350 recorded shipwrecks since 1583.  The first lifesaving station was founded in 1801.

There is a big exhibit on shipwrecks and treasure hunting along the Nova Scotia coastline . . . 

. . . and an even bigger section with model ships. 

Two historical events which have had a significant impact on Halifax are each given their own permanent exhibits.

When the Titanic sank on April 15, 1912, the two ships which were sent to collect the bodies were undersea cable ships from Halifax, the Mackay-Bennet and the Minia.  While all of the survivors were taken to New York, those who perished were taken to Halifax, and many of them are buried there today.  The exhibit focuses both on life on board the Titanic as well as the recovery work.

One of the things that I noticed on this trip is the very "matter of fact" way in which information is presented on interpretive panels and information boards.

They have a reproduction Titanic deck chair, which of course I had to try.

When I found the life size photo of the Grand Staircase, I just knew Heather and I had to get a selfie in front of it.  I expect this will be the closest I get to being on a cruise ship.

During the World Wars Halifax was a very busy place.  The naturally ice-free harbor, one of the largest in the world, was used to form convoys headed for Europe.  On the morning of December 6, 1917, the Mont-Blanc, a French munitions ship fully loaded with high explosives, collided with a Norwegian freighter in a narrow part of the harbor.  Fire broke out on the Mont-Blanc, the crew abandoned ship, and it drifted to shore at Pier 6 in the Richmond district.  Crowds of people gathered to watch the ship burning, not knowing what was on board.  At about 9:05am the cargo detonated, in what is described as the largest man-made explosion ever until the atomic bomb.  It is estimated that over 2,000 people died and over 9,000 were injured in the Halifax Explosion, and the north end of Halifax was obliterated.  

Nothing remained of the Mont-Blanc at the dock.  These pieces were found a very long way from the pier.  The 3-ton anchor was found two miles away.

The Robertson Ship's Chandlery store opened in 1840, and is now part of the museum; it has been restored to the way it looked at the turn of the last century.

The Age of Sail exhibit has several examples of figureheads from sailing ships.

Click here to see more images from the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax.
     

A Week in Nova Scotia - Part 5 - Art Gallery of Nova Scotia

We found so many fun and interesting things in the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia that I've decided to give this its own blog post.  The AGNS started out as the Nova Scotia Museum of Fine Arts in 1908, and is an agency of the Province of Nova Scotia.  It is now the largest art museum in Atlantic Canada. 

Detail of a painting depicting fisherman bartering with coal miners.

The exhibit titled "Arms Length", about the northwest area of Halifax, was interesting.

The streets haven't changed much at all, I'm pretty sure I can spot the location of our hotel in this old map.

The underground space connecting the North and South wings of the museum had some really weird stuff in it.

One of the centerpieces of the Gallery is the Maud Lewis House and exhibit of her paintings. Maud Lewis (1903-1970) is one of Canada's best known folk artists.

Here are some views inside the tiny house.  No electricity and no indoor plumbing.  Maud and her husband shared the house for over 30 years.  That is the actual house they've installed inside the museum, not a reproduction.

Here are a few of her paintings.

On one of the upper floors of the museum we found an exhibit that we didn't quite get, but then, I'm sure there is a lot of art that I don't "get".  It did, however, inspire me to try something artistic, which I'm sure not all of my viewers here will get.  So, maybe I did get it.  As is the case with many of my ideas, Heather was somewhat skeptical at first, but I think she now agrees it works.  A little different sort of selfie.

Click here to see a few more images from the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
    

A Week In Nova Scotia - Part 4 - Hall's Harbor and The Bay of Fundy

We spent most of the week in the city of Halifax, but we did spend a couple of days driving around other parts of the Province.  One thing we really wanted to see was the Bay of Fundy, which is famous for having some of the largest differences between high and low tide in the world.  A great way to see this is to go someplace where you can see the vertical effect of the tides, which is best seen in a narrow inlet such as Hall's Harbor.  It's also a good place for a late morning lobster snack.

Hall's Harbor is reportedly named after Samuel Hall, an American privateer in the American Revolution who used the cove to raid settlements in the Annapolis Valley.  He was forced to flee and abandoned his ship in the harbor in 1779.  There is a legend that Hall left treasure buried somewhere here, and the area has attracted treasure hunters ever since.  Hall's Harbor was first settled in 1826, and the first wharf was built in 1836.

The Bay of Fundy tides officially measure up to 50' in height, and on average, there is a little over 6 hours between high and low tide.  I took this next picture of the harbor at 11:37am, just after we arrived.  Fairly low tide, with the fishing boats sitting on the bottom.

Here's a similar view just under two hours later.  The tide still had a long way to go.

We shared a small lobster, since we were just looking for a snack.  We knew it was fresh since we had to carry it, alive, from the tank in the store over to the cook shack, where they steamed it up for us.

An hour and a half after the shot above.

During one of our visits to the Old Triangle Alehouse in Halifax we spent some time talking with a commercial fisherman, who is presently running his 65-foot boat out of Digby, on the Bay of Fundy, harvesting scallops.  He was in Halifax having some work done on the boat, was originally a cod fisherman from Newfoundland, and he went on at length about what a great place that is.  We'll have to include Newfoundland on our next visit to the area.  Apparently Digby is the scallop capital of the world, and he suggested that we go there to try some fresh scallops.  So we did.  It's a long drive down the Annapolis Valley, a rich agricultural region in the center of the Province, but it was worth it.

It was a long drive back to Halifax so we didn't stay long in Digby, but the seared scallops were particularly good.

Click here to see more images from the Bay of Fundy.   

A Week In Nova Scotia - Part 3 - The South Coast & The Lighthouse Route

The roadway that follows the coast heading southwest from Halifax is known as the Lighthouse Route.  It passes through or near the many little fishing villages and larger towns that line the coast.

Our first stop was the small fishing village of Peggy's Cove.  This is the place that almost everyone who has stopped in Halifax on a cruise ship goes to, and the Peggy's Point Lighthouse, established in 1868, current version built in 1915, is said to the most photographed lighthouse or even structure in Canada.  The village was formally founded in 1811 when six families of German descent were given a land grant by the Province.

The dry granite was easy enough to walk on, but there were several warnings to stay off the darker black portions of the rock.  Apparently not everyone has heeded this advice.

Tourism is probably the biggest source of income to the community these days, but there is still a fair amount of lobster fishing as well.

We continued south along the coastline to the town of Chester, where we found a great place for lunch, the Kiwi Cafe.  The lobster roll and salad that I had were excellent, as was Heather's soup, but the best part was the dessert, which they thoughtfully split into two portions for us.

Fans of the SyFy Channel TV show Haven may recognize Chester and the neighboring towns, as that is where it is filmed.  We walked around the little fishing town and just enjoyed a nice day in a quiet place.

Whenever we go someplace new we look for the occasional out-of-the-ordinary thing to see or do.  In 1795 three friends excavated a depression in the ground on a small island in Mahone Bay just off the coast near Chester.  Oak Island, site of the Money Pit, has seen continuous treasure hunting ever since, and is the subject of many legends.  Oak Island is small, about 140 acres, and only about 660 feet from shore.  The History Channel has been running a series for the last couple years called The Curse of Oak Island, which is quite entertaining.  Theories of what is supposedly buried there range from pirate treasure, to naval treasure, to artifacts brought over by Knights Templar, including even the Holy Grail.  Needless to say, if we were that close we had to at least try to get a look.  Today there is a causeway to drive out to the island, but mostly because the legend says that one more person has to die before the treasure is found (and also because it is private), we stopped right at the start of the causeway and just checked out the island from the shore.

Proof we were there - that is the causeway and Oak Island directly behind us.

Further south along the coast we came into the town of Mahone Bay, famous for its three churches.

Continuing further around the edge of Mahone Bay we came to the town of Lunenburg, one of only two urban communities in North America designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.  It is considered to be the best surviving planned British colonial town in North America.  Lunenburg was founded in 1753 as a Protestant settlement (mostly Germans and Swiss) by Great Britain as a way to gain control over the territory and to push out the Native and Acadian (French) populations who were there before them.  The town was named in honor of King George of Great Britain, who happened to be German from Hanover and was also the Duke of Braunschweig-Luneburg.  Needless to say, there has been a lot of fighting over this and other parts of Nova Scotia in years past.  

Fishing has been the major trade in Lunenburg over the years.

There were a lot of names on this monument.

 St. John's Anglican Church, founded in 1753.

Click here to see more images from our trip along the South Coast of Nova Scotia and the Lighthouse Route.