Deluxe Halifax City Tour
Grrr…the first thing I want to say is the internet at these campgrounds suck! It doesn’t/didn’t matter what time of day I tried to log in – it just became a waste of time!
Now on to some great things that happened in Halifax. Halifax is a large city. It is full of rolling hills, eclectic people, proud people, and it is a beautiful city with some very tragic history.
Part of our package with this caravan company, Adventure Trek, was a bus tour of Halifax with a tour guide. Our tour guide was a retired teacher and was full of knowledge. The bus driver…he was simply amazing! I don’t know how he squeezed down some of the streets we went down.
One stop- one of the Titanic Mass Grave Sites at Fairview Lawn Cemetery to learn more about the White Star boat line who owned the Titanic, some about the passengers on the passenger ship, how the Titanic sank, the aftermath of the sinking and how Halifax was involved in the rescue, identification, and burial of the passengers.
First class passengers were on the top floor of the ship and their ticket cost the equivalent to around $45,ooo.oo per person to cross the ocean. They had full access of the entire ship. The second class passengers were on the second floor down. They were only allowed to come to the deck during certain hours. And the third class passengers were under all of them. They were not allowed to come to the top for sun or fresh air except for 1 hour per day. The doors to their floor were locked so they wouldn’t be tempted to come out.
After the accident, ships were sent with doctors, priests, and morticians. As the bodies were collected they were each given a number and a small bag to put their belongings in. First class passengers were taken care of first. They were embalmed and given a pine box. Second class passengers were also given a number, a bag for their belongings, they were embalmed and were put in canvas bags. Third class passengers were given a number, they were NOT embalmed (they ran out of the fluid) and many of them were buried at sea since they were not embalmed if they were embalmed they were laid on a stretcher. If there was not identification for a passenger- most of them were buried at sea.
Another Stop – The Citadel The Citadel is a fort set in the center of Halifax. Again, there were reenactors from the period (1749)wearing costumes and acting as if they were from those times. If the enemy could make it up the hills around the Citadel they had more in store for them. There were cannons, guns, and of course the soldiers. There appeared to be a moat around the Citadel, this was designed for protection and if the enemy came up they would be met with a 30 foot drop in most places.
Pay phone is ‘original’. 
Yoga on the hill. 
And another stop – Maritime Museum of the Atlantic
We had to come back for a longer visit since we were only given about 45 minutes to visit this place. I put all the photos together. The Maritime Museum has some artifacts from the Titanic and goes through the chronology of the accident.
Another important section of the museum is the section about the Halifax Explosion in 1917. In a instant the face of Halifax and the harbor changed when two ships collided. Five years after the sinking of the Titanic, the doctors and morticians would use the same system as before of numbering the bodies and bagging all their belongings. The dead are buried in a mass grave with a memorial.
Fun Stuff
