Halifax

2026-08-02
Halifax, Nova Scotia

Halifax is a great city. We started the day climbing to the Halifax Citadel, which was originally built to protect the city from land invaders (read: French) and later updated to bigger guns so that it provided some defense for the harbor as well. We took the tour which covered some lore about the cannons, the signal mast, and the powder magazine, and then set about self-guiding through the classroom, barracks, and mess hall. We also visited the Canadian Army Museum which is located in several rooms of the Citadel. They had a fascinating array of weapons and other memorabilia.

Don't let a coyote get anywhere near here...

11 men to a barracks. The beds were about as comfortable as they look.

If you have walls, you need some cannons.

There are a number of people in uniform around the Citadel; mainly in the garb of the 78th Highland Regiment and 3rd Brigade Royal Artillery unit. They seem military, but as it turns out this is not actually like Buckingham Palace. They are actually in the local Halifax Citadel Society. It is unclear if they are paid for this role, but I suspect so. On the other hand, like every other park in Canada, there was no fee to enter.

We then moseyed down to the waterfront to visit the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. They seemed focused on ships and shipbuilding; the ship design school across the street uses them for examples.

They also had exhibits about steam engines, sail power, and a few artifacts from the Titanic. While not as large as the Citadel, it was an enjoyable hour or so.

A deck chair from the Titanic. No telling how many times it was rearranged that night...

We ate a light lunch before the museum to leave room for Cow's Ice Cream. It's a local favorite, and they bake their own waffle cones in the shop. They have two locations on either end of the boardwalk for your convenience. I had the Moo York Cheesecake and Valerie had Caramel Moocchiato. We both gave them a thumbs up, but then it's ice cream so it started with a good rating.

Heading back towards the hotel, we saw that the tall ship Gorch Fock was having an Open Boat so we got in line to check it out. The ship is part of the German Navy, and had sailed to Halifax as part of it's summer season.

Deck pulleys to magnify the force because those old sails are heavy!

This last part is going to take some setup, as random events happened that didn't seem noteworthy at the time. So let's do some flashbacks:

First, on our day visiting lookouts on in Cape Breton Highlands, we ended up talking to a guy about our age who was supporting cyclists riding through the park. He was waiting for them at the lookout and he saw the PA tags and asked about it. He was from Halifax, and when we asked for tips he told us that if we were in Halifax Sunday night we should see Signal Hill at the Lower Deck.

On our first night in Halifax, we ate at some restaurant near the water. Our waitress was typical of a boardwalk business; early 20's and full of energy. We got her talking a little bit, and she gave us a list of things worth doing including Moo's Ice Cream and catching Signal Hill at the Lower Deck on Sunday.

Not being ones to tempt fate, we figured we'd best show up. The band started at 9:30, so we ate supper and then headed over to the Lower Deck around 8:40. There was a line literally around the corner; hundreds of people waiting to get in. One guy had some grey hair (possibly bike guy, but I dunno), and the rest were early 20's. We couldn't figure out how these people expected to get in; the place had a few floors but no way could they hold a thousand people and if they did there was no way to hear the band.

We poked around and asked some lucky "volunteers" and found out that the band sets up in the alley between two buildings, with a large outdoor space 15 or 20 meters wide and probably 50 or so meters long. It's a good space, but we were a bit old for the crowd.

So we walked around a bit until it was close to 9:30 (spoiler alert: they went on right on time. How is that possible?) and caught the fireworks show across the river in Dartmouth during their first four or five songs. Then we walked to the boardwalk at the back of the alley and watched the show through the fence. It was a bit far away to do more than tell there were people and roughly which instrument they were playing, but they were a good cover band.

We heard Fat Bottom Girls, You're So Vain, Paradise by the Dashboard Light, You Belong with Me, and American Pie. They also played several Irish tunes that we didn't know or only knew because Pat plays them on St. Patrick's Day. The crowd didn't seem to be a fan of Meatloaf, although the band did a fine job of it. The rest of the songs hit with the young crowd. As we left we heard Dancing Queen echoing through the city streets.

Driving distance: Exactly 0 km
Hiking distance: 11.5 km (7.1 miles)