June 20-21, 2019 - Halifax, Nova Scotia

June 20, 2019

One of the things I loved about going to UBC with Linda was that she was (and remains to be) incredibly organized and she and Ross played wonderful hosts and tour guides for us for two days. Today, after breakfast, we headed out and took advantage of the beautiful day. We spent the day driving around various parts of the city and Ross, as it turns out, is a fount of information. He’s a history bug and we all commented afterwards that he should consider a side hustle as a private tour guide for the area.

We toured parts of Halifax including Point Pleasant Park, Dalhousie University, some of the swanky neighbourhoods and then we went up to the Halifax Citadel.

The British build the Citadel in 1749 as a base for the British Royal Navy. The current version, built of stone, was completed in 1856 but there had been 3 previous versions built from wood. The Citadel never came under attack but it stands as a stark deterrent on the high ground of the city and, like Fort Anne in Annapolis Royale, was built in a star shape. You can explore the ramparts and tunnels and they have historical interpreters, including pipers and drummers as well as cadets demonstrating military exercises. There is also an extensive military museum here, as well as an interpretive center and many interactive exhibit spaces. In one, they had military uniforms people can get dressed up in and, during our visit, there was a class of school kids getting all kitted out. The Halifax Citadel is a National Historic Site and a visit to this garrison is well worth it. Especially if you can rope my friend Ross into being your tour guide!

From here, we headed downtown and had lunch at The Ole Triangle Irish Alehouse, an authentic Irish Pub in the heart of the Halifax waterfront area. Ross was telling us that the owner is from Ireland and has built this and four other pubs in Moncton, Charlottetown and Sydney in true Irish Pub tradition. They have live music most nights and the food was fantastic.

After lunch, we went down to the waterfront and decided to do the Harbour Hopper, a very touristy and very fun city tour on their enormous amphibious bus/boats. We did the water portion of the tour first because of low tide so we literally drove into the water and proceeded to sail our way along the waterfront board walk. It’s really great to see the waterfront from the water side, looking in. There are many old heritage wharf buildings still left and they’ve developed the waterfront in a traditional way for a lot of it. After we toured it from the water, our Hopper came back on land and we drove around the downtown core. Our tourguide was a Dalhousie student and she was a lot of fun. It was a really fun and informative tour!

We came home to take a small reprieve and cocktail and then we headed across the bridge to Dartmouth to the Il Trullo Italian restaurant which is right on the waterfront. Il Trullo is named after the the cone-shaped stone buildings in the Puglia region of Italy.

The interior design of the restaurant is breathtaking, with parts of the ceiling made of stone reminiscent of the Trullos. Our server, Fernando, was amazing and the food was delectable. Il Trullo was a huge hit. It’s not easy to find a good Italian restaurant that still makes homemade pasta.

Back home, we spent the remainder of the evening drinking wine and catching up on the past 20 years of our lives. Suffice it to say, another late night!

June 21

We knew the weather was going to fall apart but boy, the weather people sure got it right. In the night, the wind and rain moved in and howled and dumped. We woke up to evil, scowling skies and Linda, being Linda, had anticipated this and had planned an “indoor” day. After breakfast, we headed back to the waterfront to Pier 21 which houses the Canadian Immigration Museum. None of us knew what to expect as neither Linda nor Ross had been their before either.

WOW. It’s the best word to sum it up.

Pier 21 was the entry point for one in five Canadians between 1928 and 1971. The museum portion has some fantastic interactive displays as well as a movie theatre that shows a very touching movie that shares the immigration stories of many people today. By the end of the movie, none of us had dry eyes. Pier 21 is also where thousands of Canadian soldiers left to go to war. Currrently, there  is also a show called Family Bonds and Belonging which is on loan from the Royal BC Museum. It was a very moving afternoon, hearing stories from hundreds of immigrants from over the years from all over the world, understanding some of the circumstances that brought them here and appreciating the magnitude of the sacrifices many of them made to bring their families to Canada for a better life. As you might imagine, many of them were leaving war torn countries or homelands that were no longer safe for them where they were being persecuted for religious or nationality reasons or because of their sexual orientation. There were sad stories of struggles to fit in, learn the language, of being met with racism and intolerance here but there were also stories of being embraced and of generous and kind neighbours who brought cakes and welcomed them and helped them settle in. One of my favourite quotes was depicted on a display board which I took a picture of:

Artifacts from some of the immigration ships. 

 1.5 million immigrants passed through these doors during the time that Pier 21 was where they landed in Halifax. In addition to immigrants, these doors were also passed through by 500,000 soldiers going off to war in WWII. Below is photo of another installation on the Pier itself, commemorating those soldiers who never came home. It is situated on the pier where they would have walked onto the ships.

An interactive display where visitors to Pier 21 could write a note to their ancestors who immigrated to Canada. They were very moving to read... 

The actual desk and benches in the actual room where thousands of immigrants waited to see the immigration officers who would determine if they could enter the country. 

A lovely interactive display of little tiny suitcases (about 2"x1"x1.5") that people could decorate and put words inside of things they would have taken with them if they immigrated. 

Another interactive display where you could write down cultural things passed down from your immigrant families. This is mine - my writing is kind of crappy but it says, "Tourtierre from my mom's side, pasta from my dad's and sneaking out of church after communion before the final blessing on both sides!!" Anyone raised Catholic will totally know what this is about... ha ha ha.... 

This was a very cool interactive display where you type in your heritage and where you're from and the machine takes your picture and then it goes up on a giant screen that takes up an entire wall. Your picture joins the thousands of others on the screen after it is displayed in the middle for a minute... 

After we wandered through the museum, we went to the archives which has access to government records on the internet, not only for Pier 21 but the other immigration sites as well. They have people who will help you look up family names and Linda and I went in and looked up some of our ancestors. She found records of her grandfather who immigrated from Ireland and I also hit the jackpot. I found the immigration records for my great-grandmother, Amelia Benetton/Mattiazzo  and my grandmother, Mary and her sister Louisa. They left Italy through the port in Naples and  arrived in Quebec City aboard the ship called the Montreal II in 1921. Amelia was a widow and she had been married by proxy (through the mail) to a man who was known to her family who had already come to Canada and was in Trail, BC. He sent her money so she and my grandmother and great-aunt Louisa could come to Canada. Right on the immigration document, it said she was detained for 2 days, likely because on the comments section of her document it read that she was coming to settle in Canada but that she didn’t know her fiancé well so if she didn't like him, she would find work! Ha ha ha... go Great Grandma Amelia!

I was able to purchase photocopies of the documents for $15 but the researchers can be contacted by email if you want them to do research for you and can’t get there in person. It’s such a wonderful service and so much fun to find out more about family history.

Following our incredible afternoon  at Pier 21, we toured more of the city and then came home and had dinner in as the weather was still filthy and none of us felt like being out in it. We had a wonderful evening with more laughs, reminiscing and visiting. Linda and Ross are amazing and generous hosts and they made us feel like royalty.