Saturday, July 17, 2010- Halifax and Anna’s Birthday

It’s hard to believe that Anna is 10 today. Double digits. Wow. We went down to breakfast in the hotel this morning, and gave here a few presents there. We got her Emily Osment’s and Mitchel Musso’s CDs, which we bought when we were at their concert at Darien Lake. She’ll get a few more things from us when we have a party for her at home.

We had some decisions to make, though. We had originally booked this hotel room in Halifax for three nights, and that would mean we’d be staying here tonight too. We have prepaid passage on the ferry to New Brunswick, however, and we’re supposed to be there at 7:30 AM tomorrow to board it. The ferry is on the other side of the Nova Scotia peninsula, and that means we have to drive two and a half hours to get there. We were looking at having to get up at something like 4 AM, pack the car, and all that. We were lucky that the hotel let us check out early. We packed the car today, and planned to leave from Halifax late this afternoon.

But we weren’t done with Halifax. We drove down to the wharf area where we were before, which we now know is called the Cable Wharf. We parked there and marched uphill to the Citadel. We passed the clock tower that was built by Prince Edward the Duke of Kent in 1803 and which has since become a symbol of the city. It was a great day to visit the Citadel because it turned out to be the 125th birthday of national parks in Canada. Because of that, everyone got in for free! Parks Canada has the same birthday as Anna! Who knew?!

The Citadel itself was finished in 1856 after 28 years of construction. It is an impressive piece of fortification, a star-shaped fort with masonry sides on top of an imposing hill. The staff there portray the 78th Highland Regiment in 1869, complete with Mackenzie tartan kilts and ostrich plumes on their hats. They act and march very impressively, so much so that they looked like they were real army, not park interpreters. It was a very large and very professional staff. We watched their rifle demonstrations, but Scott like the bayonet drill the most. The girls didn’t like the noise from the shooting, so we went into the movies and exhibits during the firing of the famous “noon gun” by the artillery. We watched their rather large band of bagpipers before walking around the top walls of the fort.

After lunch, we walked back down the hill to the waterfront, passing the Province House along the way, where the Nova Scotia legislature meets. When we got to the wharfs again, we went into the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. While Julie paid admission, we saw how a pirate would be locked in a gibbet, a small hanging cage. Naturally, there was a lot to see in the museum, from the volunteers working on teeny tiny details on model ships to the enormous glass prism used in a lighthouse. The two most interesting exhibits were about tragedies. We paused to listen to a video about the Halifax Explosion of 1917. The explosion was caused by a collision between two ships in the harbor, one of which was loaded with explosives. The result was the largest and most destructive man-made explosion before Hiroshima. 2000 people were killed and many thousands more were wounded. We heard the recollections of survivors, and were dumbfounded by the destruction. We also saw an exhibit of artifacts from shipwrecks that had a special emphasis on the Titanic. Most of the Titanic artifacts were brought by the survivors or recovered by the ships that were looking for survivors. A few were from the people who didn’t survive, like a small pair of shoes worn by an unknown boy.

After leaving the Acadia, the Canadian Scientific Ship that is associated with the Maritime Museum, the overcast skies had cleared and the sun was beating down hot again. We decided it was time to leave Halifax. We made our way down the wharf, to the car, and started on our way to the ferry.

Since it was Anna’s birthday, she got to pick where we ate today. We had Pizza Pizza for lunch, and that was a nice stop. We had ice cream on the wharf as we were leaving. She had the “birthday party” flavour, and she said it tasted like the smell of a doughnut shop. All vacation, she has wanted to eat at an A&W’s, so when Julie finally saw a sign for one when we were driving this evening, we got off of the expressway and tried to find it. (We told Anna we were going to a Montana’s and she would have to wear the buffalo hat like Grandma Eaton had before.) The A&W’s was tucked away in a rinky dink little mall, and we had to stop for directions twice just to find it. When we finally did, the mall was closing (6:00 on a Saturday?), and it was a trick just to get served and get a table. Anna didn’t get a root beer float like she was hoping for because they were out of ice cream. They didn’t even have any frosted mugs, or at least that’s what they told us. As we sat down to eat, the stores around us started shutting the gates over their entrances. It was not a very festive experience.

On the other hand, Scott had two great Stan Rogers moments today. He listened to the song “Fisherman’s Wharf” when we were up at the Citadel. That song is all about Stan’s lamenting how Halifax is changing, and he sings, “I looked from the Citadel down to the Narrows, and asks what its coming to. I saw pure Canadian concrete and glass right down to the waterline.” Scott got to see that view as he heard those words. Then, when we were on the road, we saw “Annapolis apples up above Fundy’s Bay,” near Gaspereau just like he sings about in “Watching the Apples Grow.” So naturally, we had to listen to that song right then.

We made it to Digby tonight, and that is the Nova Scotia side of the ferry. Tomorrow we’ll take it to St. John, New Brunswick. For now, we found a room at the Admiral Digby Inn. It’s pretty cool because our room has wide windows that open right out onto the little bay that is an inlet of Fundy’s Bay. It’ll be interesting to see if we can see the change in tides. They’re supposed to be the highest vertical change in the world. For Anna and Emma, there’s a little pool, so there having fun in it right now.