Halifax has fog on 200 days per year and today started with a thick one that probably followed us ashore from the North Atlantic. The hotel breakfast was ridiculously expensive, so we went to Maccas and walked to the waterfront where the fog sat heavy on the harbour at 8:30am and loud horns were sounding.
Fresh Tracks had booked us on a Grayline deluxe Tour of Halifax, so we presented our voucher and boarded a bus with 20 other tourists. Our driver/guide was a retired school principal called David, who has done the tour 150 times and spoke slowly and clearly. We learned about many of the historic buildings we drove past and visited the Container Wharves and the Via Railway Station (where we leave here on Friday).
We were very impressed with the old residences, particularly the ones in Young Street, which were mainly built of wood and very neatly preserved. The population of the city is about half a million, which in our experience is ideal size and the more we see of Halifax the more we like it. David apologised for the hot weather as it was quite unusual, but it was under 30C maximum and did not worry us today.
There is a grassy hill near the centre of the town and it was selected as the site for The Citadel, which is a star-shaped fortress still used by the armed forces, but open for public tours. Entry was $10, so we had 5 minutes to take a photo.
The major point of interest of the tour was the cemetery where about 120 of the bodies of victims of the Titanic disaster were buried. We spent half an hour here and David told us many interesting stories about the processes used to deal with the bodies respectfully and identify them. Many of the graves had no names and one had only recently been identified. A little boy of about 18 months was identified by DNA from a tooth that remained in his body after all these years, but more advanced analysis showed no commonality with his relatives, and a different identity was announced. This was confirmed by the discovery that a nephew of the policeman in charge of personal effects at the time possessed a pair of shoes which passed the Cinderella type of test for the boy.
A fairly grand gravestone was erected by the parents of the only Australian identified. He was an engineer who graduated from Sydney University.
There were a few graves here also of people who perished in the big explosion of December 6, 1917. A French ship, the Mont Blanc, collided with another ship in the harbour, setting barrels of Benzoil on fire and subsequently igniting 25,000 tons of explosives, killing 5000 people and injuring 20,000 out of a total population of 40,000. It was the biggest manmade explosion up to that date.
Halifax is the biggest naval port in Canada and is receiving a billion dollars a year to build new war vessels. When you hear that 60% of the citizens have a degree or diploma you get the feeling this is a town with a strong future. It has eight universities which have many international students.
When we finished the tour a couple from Perth introduced themselves and we chatted for quite some time. The lady grew up in Dundas and attended St Bernadette's School in the 1960s. We went to the Cabin Cafe again for lunch.
In the afternoon we sent postcards and a parcel to Australia and had a Vietnamese chicken salad for dinner.
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