Jenn's Doings: Halifax, part deux

Halifax, Nova Scotia was our first official stop on the cruise. I briefly discussed Halifax, but wanted to go into more detail about what I actually did there.

The MomUnit and I took the "Shutterbug's Dream" excursion. This excursion was described as a trip to all the important, scenic and interesting sites of Halifax that any photographer would want to capture.

As a photographer I have to say two things. First, while some of the sites were in fact interesting, photograph-er-ly speaking, they were boring. And secondly, to do real magic with photographs you need more time than each stopped allowed.

Still it was fun and informative. Halifax, as a whole, is an interesting place.

Our first stop on this "Shutterbug's Dream" excursion was the citadel. The excursion description says that you stop and visit the citadel. Turns out we just park right out side it at a little scenic pull out where the tour guide tells you that behind you is the citadel, which you can't see because it's strategically buried. But right in front of you is the Halifax Old Town Clock. Oooh….ahhh…. It was designed and created to keep the garrison and the town people punctual and has done so since 1803.

Our next stop were at the Halifax Public Gardens. Beautiful grounds, really. They'd be even more beautiful in the spring. In October? Not so much. The tour guide did, however, point out the wash room and said it would be the easiest one to visit for the rest of the trip. Mind you we still had 2 hours left of this trip.

We glided through the public gardens with no time to stop and try to set up some sort of shot. Still, as the tour guide rambled on about how beautiful the gardens were in the spring, I managed a few nice shots.

This fountain intrigued me. Not because of the fountain itself, but because of the little cherubs on the fountain. I took a close up of one of the cherubs and it wasn't until I was reviewing my photos later that I realized there was something really off about this little boy.

Our next stop was, by far, the one I was most looking forward to seeing, Peggy's Cove. This place just screamed photographer mecca. It's rugged beauty made me want to spend hours there shooting the rocks, the waves, the houses, the fishing boats, etc. Instead I got 30 minutes. 10 of which were spent trying to get through the one and only gift shop opened to see if I could get a post card. I gave up and scrambled to get some photos.

The Peggy's Cove Lighthouse is probably the most interesting tourist item to shoot. Tons of people around so it was hard to get any shots without people. Still, it was breath-taking all the same.

The wind blew like a crazy person on the shore. I was afraid to bring P-Dot out at all since I was sure she'd be blown away.

The MomUnit wanted coffee and so decided to stand in line for coffee and a hot chocolate for me. As she did that, I booked down the street a bit to see if there was anything interesting to shoot where some of the fishing boats were mored. Again, very little time to even think about what I was shooting. Still, I think some of these turned out pretty good.

P-Dot got trapped like a lobster.

Something tells me they have wave issues.

And something tells me that visitors don't heed their warnings.

Halifax is known for two very interesting things, 1) a HUGE explosion in 1917 that destroyed most of the city and 2) many Titanic passengers are buried here.

First the explosion.

They say it's one of the most renowned part of Nova Scotia history. December 6, 1917 was a devastating day in Nova Scotia history and, for a very long time, the largest explosion in the world. Along the Halifax waterfront is where this accident happened. A French ship called the Mont Blac arrived in Halifax without time to enter the harbor. They dropped anchor and were to sail in early the next morning. Another ship called the Imo was simultaneously preparing to pull up it's anchor and sail that same morning. The Mont Blac was fully loaded with explosive cargo. The two vessels experience mixed directional signals and collided. The Mont Blac was left to drift and ultimately drifted into the harbor and somehow a spark ignited the explosives and destroyed most of the Halifax waterfront, killing 2000 men, women, and children and almost 10,000 injured. The explosion covered almost 400 acres of land.

Interesting little Halifax tidbit.

Now on to the Titanic. According to our tour guide, Halifax is one of the many cities that heard the SOS. They dispatched vessels for recovery. It took many of the ships 3 days to get to the Titanic. The first to arrive picked up survivors. The other two were on a strictly recovery mission.

As the bodies came into the morgue, the coroner did a good job keeping records. He basically wrote descriptions and numbered each body. Many bodies were claimed by family members and brought to be buried in their family plots. About 10 were buried in the Jewish cemetery. The remaining, unclaimed, were buried in one cemetery. The tombstones had the date of the death, April 15, 1912, and the body number. Some bodies were later claimed, but the families opted to leave them buried where they were.

There's one small child that was never claimed. Through the years DNA technology has found who he belongs to, but then further technology dismisses it. Two families were led to believe this was one of their relatives. Finally, the commission that does this type of thing decided to just leave this child unclaimed to avoid any further pain for families.

After the cemetery we were going to some "old warehouses" in Halifax. As a photographer I was thinking, "cool maybe some fun shots there." Instead the "old warehouses" was code for shopping center. I should have know.

The MomUnit and I weaved our way through the shops. We stumbled onto a funny T-shirt that I wish I would have bought.