Editor’s note: Mark Bradford is contributing occasional posts from his diary on traveling the country with his wife Wendy while they rent out their Mishawaka home for six months.
Day 30 of our 190 day sojourn
July 25, 2023 — Halifax, Nova Scotia
This is not a funny entry. Purely informational.
We spent the day in an incredible way.
Halifax is a city of about 450,000 folks located on an Atlantic Ocean Port, making it a city full of history and intrigue. It is also a city that embraces fun, good food and a long boardwalk full of options.
Now, if it only made parking more convenient, but you can’t have everything.
Wendy and I are both interested in the human side of history and both of the museums we visited today satisfied our needs. First we visited the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. I was expecting a bunch of old rusty pieces from ships that had been sunk and things like that. Instead we were treated to some awesome and huge replicas of the more famous ships, including a really good exhibit on the Titanic.
Even more interesting was an event that affected Halifax in a major way. On December 6, 1917 one ship (the SS Mont-Blonc) was loaded with explosives and fuels when another ship (the SS Imo) was trying to make up time because it was late out of port. Apparently the captains of the ships could not decide who had the right of way.
It was a disagreement that burned the entire community of Richmond to the ground. The two ships rammed into each other in the Halifax Harbour and within a few minutes the fuel and the explosives did their thing. The force of the explosion was felt over 50 kilometers away and a large piece of metal from one of the ships landed about 3 kilometers away. It caused a tidal wave, set the town on fire, killed more than 1,700 people and caused injuries to 9,000 more.
They never taught me that in history at LaSalle High School.
We also went to the Immigration Museum. Halifax, for a time, was the Statue of Liberty for Canada and the museum did a nice job of personalizing the process. For much of the 1900s, Canada needed people to build their country, similar to the USA, and the museum was all about how welcoming Canada was to the many folks who were in need of an opportunity.
In between the museums, we rented bicycles and rode around the area for a bit.
On Wednesday we begin the long drive west. We plan on spending six days in Quebec City.
I am thankful for all the readers and am enjoying the commentaries as well.