Days 36-37: Halifax

This was my first time in Halifax, so it’s been nice to take a couple days exploring the city. Tuesday I was happy to sleep in a bit and do some laundry before heading downtown. First I went to the Africville museum, which tells the history of the former community of Africville. It was a black community in the north of Halifax, and despite the residents paying taxes, they didn’t receive any services, and it was viewed by many outsiders as a slum. City officials first tried to drive residents out by installing a dump, a jail, and an infectious disease hospital in their neighbourhood. When that didn’t work, they came in the night and tore down the church, the heart of the community, and then evicted the residents. This history was largely ignored/covered up by the city of Halifax until 2010, when finally the city issued an official policy to the former residents and their descendants. They have now rebuilt the church and turned it into a museum about the history of the community. 

After that, I headed down to my cousin’s virtual reality cafe, Nearby Planet, and tried out VR for the first time. I’m not a huge gamer, so I didn’t really know what to expect, but it was super cool! It was crazy how realistic it seemed with the goggles on. He also showed me some of the VR videos he’s made which was pretty cool. 

I then headed downtown and walked upto the Citadel to get a view of the city, before going down to the boardwalk to walk along the water. The boardwalk was really nice, if a bit touristy, and had a bunch of informational panels about the Halifax Explosion and the history of seafaring in the province. I finally meandered my way down to Pier 21, where the Canadian Museum of Immigration is, but it was closing soon, so I didn’t go in. Once I started heading back towards Nearby Planet, I saw a bunch of historical buildings and then a bunch of microbreweries. 

I came back to Pier 21 this morning and spent a few hours there. They had a temporary exhibit on refugees, which I thought was done really well. They had it organized thematically, rather than chronologically, so there was content about the Nazis and the Pinochet era next to content on the Syrian refugee crisis, which I thought was effective at showing the parallels between historical and current day events. Upstairs they had two permanent exhibits, one on the history of Pier 21 itself, and one on the history of immigration both in Canada and globally. I spent the whole morning there and thought the exhibits were really well done and balanced in their presentations. 

There is a farmers market next to Pier 21, so I went in there to grab lunch afterwards. Donairs are the official food of Halifax, so I figured I should try one. They’re similar to a shawarma, but the meat is like made into meatloaf first and then sliced, and instead of tahini they have donair sauce, which consists of condensed milk, vinegar, and sugar. It was disgusting. The meat was a really weird texture, and the sauce was so sweet. I really don’t understand the appeal; I would take a falafel or shawarma over that any day. 

After recovering from my lunch mishap, Thor took me over to meet some of his friends at a yacht club who took me sailing! We went out for a couple hours along the south arm, and saw the weekly race put on by one of the clubs. The weather was perfect, and it was so nice to be out on the water again—Matt, the skipper, even let me steer for a bit!

Overall my time in Halifax so far has just been great. I hadn’t seen Heather and Thor in a long time, so it’s been nice hanging out with them and exploring the city along the way. Heather has camped all over the province, so she has been telling me places in the area that I should check out while I’m here. So on her recommendation, I’ll be heading to The Ovens in Lunenberg tomorrow.