One full day in Halifax, primarily to visit Pier 21, the gateway through which millions of Europeans emigrated to Canada in the post-war period, including my cousin Rene who we are visiting in Winnipeg in July.
Firstly, the walk along the waterside is great, full of bars and restaurants and the statue of Samuel Cunard. His family history is interesting and did not involve cruise ships until much later. No Cunard ship in port, but Adventure of the Seas was there, in all its’ glory, showing off 15 floors and water slide.
On to pier 21, firstly, you can go into the archive room and search for family names. There are 400+ Haynes and Broadhurst families that have arrived in Canada and 37 Cleworths (Rosies maiden name). We decided not to investigate further as there are no known immigrants from our families.
We knew that Rene (Irene Marsh nee Haynes) was not on any official list as she had managed to get a last minute place and so is not recorded.
We explored the exhibitions and I wrote a luggage tag for Rene, saying how she had arrived as a war bride and I was going to visit her in Winnipeg.
It was a glorious sunny day so what better way to spend the afternoon than in another museum!
This time we went to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic .
There were 2 really interesting areas, the first about the Titanic and Halifax’s involvement in rescue and retrieval and there were numerous artifacts found floating in the ocean that rescuers had picked up and the second was the history and involvement of Halifax in the Second World War Atlantic convoys and how they learned very quickly how to navigate the waters around the threat of U boats.
Walking through the city we came across a statue of Winston Churchill, in a slightly run-down part of the city. The resident wino, and history buff, informed us this was a rare example of a Churchill statue without a cigar..
A lovely evening in the city at a waterside French cafe and then getting ready to leave for Cabot Trail tomorrow.
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