October 25 Halifax

Again overnight the ship’s clocks had been moved back one hour. The ship’s time then agrees with Halifax time. Anthem approached Halifax, Canada before sunrise in a thick fog. The visibility was less than 200 meters. Once awake, about every two minutes, you could hear the ship’s fog horn blowing as she approached the mouth of Halifax Harbour, right on schedule. We ate breakfast in the Solarium on Deck 14 and could not see anything outside of the ship. If you looked down you could see the white of the ship’s wake. The Norwegian Pearl was in port already when we arrived just after 8 a.m. Approaching Halifax the coordinates were 44°29.65’ N; 63°29.01 W on course 283. As Anthem maneuvered into the harbour and the berth, her course had swung to 162 and coordinates had not changed much (44°38.20’ N; 63°33.82 W) So far the ship has travelled 3,424 nautical miles which is 160 n.m. less than the total distance of the whole Canary Islands cruise. From time we entered the mouth of the harbour to docking in Halifax it was about an hour in the thick fog. The Halifax Harbour is one of the deepest and largest natural, ice-free harbours in the world second only to Sydney, Australia. The Mi’kmaq name for Halifax Harbour is Kjipuktuk which means great harbour. It is 35 kilometres long, 3.2 kilometres wide and 76 meters deep.

Halifax Harbour was admired by Samuel de Champlain in 1607. The colony of Nova Scotia was established in 1713 by the Treaty of Utrecht which ended the Seven Years War between France and England. In 1745, the English army and New Englanders captured the French fortress at Louisburg on Cape Breton (Île Royale), but it was later returned to the French. Halifax was founded in 1749 as a buffer between Louisburg and Boston. It was also became a naval supply depot which was 1,280 kilometres north of Bermuda’s forts. The King’s Dockyard was established in 1759 to service English naval vessels.

Halifax is home to the greatest manmade explosion before the atomic bomb – the Halifax Explosion on December 6, 1917 which devastated Halifax’s waterfront for two kilometres inland.

Anthem docked at Pier 22, which is beside Pier 21 where immigrants to Canada arrived from 1928 to 1971. Pier 2, which was two kilometres away, was used before 1928. We visited the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in the afternoon. It is Atlantic Canada’s only national museum.

Anthem was docked within a kilometre of George’s Island, also part of the immigration story, but due to the fog it was invisible until late in the afternoon.

Passengers could leave the ship shortly after 9 a.m. We waited for the rush to subside, leaving a bit before 10 a.m. We talked to Tourist Information where one of the staff marked on a map a route to Halifax Citadel. We walked along the waterfront boardwalk, one of the world’s longest downtown boardwalks at almost 1.5 kilometres long. The first building we passed was Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 and nearby were statue of Halifax History. Starting with the statue of Samuel Cunard honouring the founder of the Cunard Line; The Volunteers – three woman depicting the work of women volunteers in World War II; The Emigrant - a salute to the more than 1,000,000 immigrants who passed through Halifax in the ocean liner era; and the Battle of the Atlantic Memorial. Continuing along the wide wooden boardwalk we passed the statue to the Grand Dérangement, about the expulsion of French Acadians by the English in 1755. The French had colonized the region starting in 1604, calling it Acadia. The English defeated France in 1713 and gained Acadia and due to political unrest deported most of the French inhabitants to either France or Québec in 1755.

We passed Halifax’s Maritime Museum of the Atlantic which is the oldest and largest maritime museum in Canada and turned to go uphill to the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site. The First Supreme Court in North America opened in Halifax on October 21, 1754. Halifax was the first seat of democratic government in Canada in 1758. On Prince Street we encountered Province House. It is an example of Palladian architecture. The Nova Scotia legislative assembly has met here since 1819. There is a statue of Joseph Howe, a Nova Scotia premier from 1860-1863 and newspaper publisher in the mid 19^th century. He successfully defended a charge of criminal libel in 1835 for criticizing local government officials. The case established the right of a free press and free speech. Howe achieved, from England, the recognition of responsible government for the colony of Nova Scotia in 1848, the first colony to do so. He was an opponent to the formation of the Dominion of Canada trying to have the British North America Act repealed in 1867. Then was elected to the Canadian Parliament and joined John A. Macdonald’s cabinet.

We reached Barrington Street and took a picture of the late 19^th century buildings which were across the street from the Grand Parade. At one end of the Grand Parade is St. Paul’s Anglican Church and at the other end is the site of “old” Dalhousie College. St. Paul’s Church is the oldest building in Halifax. The parade ground was established in 1749. The current building opposite St. Paul’s Church is Halifax City Hall built between1887 and 1890 after Dalhousie College was given five acres of land a few blocks away and the old building was demolished. From the Grand Parade we could see the Old Town Clock at the foot of Citadel Hill.

We continued up George Street to the Halifax Citadel National Historic Site. We climbed a wooden stair case to the ticket booth and paid our admission crossing the wooden bridge across a dry moat. We toured the exhibit about Halifax’s history and the Citadel walls. The noon cannon is situated here. There was a tour where some of the tourists were given roles to play in the process of firing the canon. On the parade ground another kilted officer was explaining the use of old rifles and doing a shooting exhibition. We needed to return to Pier 21 to meet a former co-worker and her husband. We passed the campus of Dalhousie University. The journey to the Citadel and back was 4.18 km. The fog had lifted a bit but the cloud was still quite low.

We took a different route back and met our friends at the entrance to the Canadian Museum of Immigration. We retraced our morning walk along the Waterfront Boardwalk chatting as we walked. We turned uphill and made our way to The Old Triangle pub for a delicious lunch. Then walked back to Pier 21 passing the Alexander Keith Brewery. We said our farewells then visited the Canadian Museum of Immigration for a couple of hours before returning to the ship. The fog seemed to be thinner but by the time we got to the stateroom it became denser and we could barely distinguish that George’s Island was nearby. The fog lifted enough to take a picture. Later the fog came back. Anthem left Halifax at 7 p.m. and three hours later the fog horn could still be heard sounding every two minutes.

The dress code was casual/tropical for the evening, so we wore the outfits we had packed for this theme night. The prerecorded ballroom dance music was played in the Music Hall. We danced for the half hour before joining Jenny and Melvin for dinner. The Headliner show this evening was comedian Richie Minervini, who just arrived on board today.

Total steps 23,838