Made It To Halifax

We arrived! We had a half day to do a bunch of things before heading to the airport to pick up Sheryl’s mom, Jeanne, who is joining us for this first leg of the trip in the Maritimes. We shlepped most of our camping gear and bought a cooler, camp chairs, mosquito shelter, extra tarp, and pillows (car camping can be so luxurious). We filled the frig and scoped out the apartment amenities. Jeanne arrived without her suitcase - it is a direct flight from Philadelphia to Halifax and her bag went to Dallas and then Boston. American Airlines was horrible about it. They knew the bag got to Boston that night but didn’t know where it went after that... We finally drove back to the airport the next day to discover it sitting in the baggage office. Sigh. One job, people. One job.

Halifax is a nice city. Heritage and history are the thing here. Older buildings, the Citadel - a fort that was surprisingly interesting, and sailing/fishing ships. Halifax was one of the places where many landed immigrating to Canada. The Immigration Museum is much smaller than Ellis Island for sure but with a similar process. I looked up my ancestors on my mom’s side - according to Canada’s records it seems that Pierre Hyacinthe’s son was the first to emigrate from France in the 1700s. I got a copy of his death notice written in a bible in 1790 with the name Joseph Hyacinthe Bellerose. Online records have his name as Hyacinthe Bellerose and my family tree booklet has Pierre as the person who emigrated from France. It can get so confusing. I’ll need to do even more digging to get it all straight.

Halifax has a pretty boardwalk which was steps away from our apartment. We could walk to most places from there. They have a nice farmers market on Saturdays but the growing season is quite short. Blueberries had not yet come in yet - sad face - but who could be sad when Jeanne brought me my Jagielkey’s box of chocolate? We got a walker with a seat for Jeanne to use while we toured around. At 94 years old, she gets around pretty good without it but this gives just a little more support and stability. We walked for miles with it.

It seems that Canada is experiencing the same crazy heat in the east as the west which gave me the opportunity to do some shopping. I hadn’t packed enough t-shirts anticipating a cooler forecast. I got a nice, light shirt for a deal. As I get older and live in a smaller house, I find browsing in the shops kinda boring. It is nice to see the crafts and art, but I don’t want to buy anything. Jewelry is a possibility but even that is not all that interesting. Not to say that shopping here is not great - I’m just not all that entertained by it. We went to the Art Gallery (what they usually call an art museum in Canada - another fun fact) which was small but had excellently curated exhibits.

We took a 2 ½ hour boat tour which was fun. The coastline is rugged and also soft. Some cliffs and rolling hills. Beautiful. We saw Northern Gannets diving for fish. I don’t think I have ever seen one before. Adding that to my life list. Speaking of boats, both the Queen Elizabeth II and the Queen Mary cruise ships were docked together a couple blocks from our apartment. They are huuuuuge! Floating cities really. The only good thing about a cruise (to me) is that you don’t have to move your stuff every few days to see new places. I just don’t think I want to be trapped in a hotel for hours at a time though. We watched as they left harbour seeing them release giant ropes and rigging. Fireboats followed behind spraying big arcs of water creating rainbows.

We dropped Jeanne at the airport and headed up to Parrsboro on Fundy Bay next.Read more