Day Five: The Titanic, The Citadel, and The Whales.

August 12, 2016

Today we toured the city of Halifax.  I learned many things I did not know this morning.  Allen, our tour guide instructed us that we are never to call the kilt he was wearing a skirt.  "Because," he said, "if you call it a skirt you will be kilt."

Did you know that of the 1500 people lost when the Titanic went down only 338 bodies were ever recovered?  Of those, 209 are buried in Halifax, in three separate cemeteries, according to their assumed religious persuasions.  Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, segregated even in death.  I wonder what they did if they found themselves in the same place on the other side.

Allen, told us about the recovery mission.  “There was no rescue,” he informed us.  “The water temperature was so frigid, people did not drown.  They died of hypothermia.” According to him, the movie depicting Leonardo DiCaprio clinging to a piece of floating debris, his lifeless, frozen body eventually pried loose by the woman he loved to sink to the bottom, was probably fairly accurate. I found it interesting that the grass in front of the grave of a man marked as J. Dawson was completely worn off from people who believe that he and the fictional Jack in the movie are one and the same, although they have nothing whatsoever to do with each other.

 Although Halifax is six hundred miles from where the disaster occurred, it was from there that crews went out to find and bring back as many as they could.  Only those kept afloat by their life jackets were found; once anyone had sunk to the bottom they were far too deeply submerged for anyone to bring them home. There was only one exception: a child estimated at two years old, found floating alone, with no life jacket, was brought back by the sea-hardened sailors who found him. The crew of the Mackay Bennett, were so moved they paid for a funeral and a special gravestone for the unidentified, unclaimed child.  To this day people leave coins, stuffed animals, and other signs of their visit at the grave. The little boy was not identified until 2011 when DNA proved his true age at nineteen months, and his name was added to the stone.

We saw the large cylindrical marker engraved with names of people killed in “The Halifax Explosion.”  In December of 1917 two ships collided in Halifax Harbor. One ship moved on from the minor impact; the other caught fire.  The Mont-Blanc was loaded with munitions, unknown to the residents watching the burning ship floundering in the water mere feet from their homes.  The Explosion that rocked the town killed 1700 people, injured 9000 more and damaged or destroyed 12,000 buildings.  It was the largest man-made explosion prior to the atomic bomb.

We spent time at the Public Gardens, a place of beauty filled with plants from every country the British conquered.  As Allen reminded us, “The sun never sets on the British Empire.”  And back in the day in an effort to show the people back home the unique botanical treasures from their latest conquests, foliage was brought back and planted.  On a side note: the hydrangeas here are a beautiful deep blue, most likely from the highly acidic soil.

Allen took us next to the Citadel, a star-shaped masonry fort built in 1828 but not completed until 28 years later.  We watched the firing of the canon, repeated every day at noon.  Allen told us about the G7 Summit held nearby in 1995 with President Bill Clinton and other world leaders present.  No one thought to mention the canon-firing tradition to those attending.  When the explosion rocked the area they thought they were under attack. There’s probably something wrong with me that I found that humorous.

Allen pointed out the area between the Citadel walls and the harbor, now filled with tall buildings, roadways, and bustling city life. Once it was home to four thousand soldiers and their tents, each of them given a gallon of beer every day to motivate their service to their country.  "That’s a Canadian gallon," Allen pointed out to us, "which is almost forty ounces more than a U.S. gallon. It’s a good thing the Citadel was never attacked,” since most likely the soldiers would have been too inebriated to launch a proper defense.  

Prisoners of war were confined inside the citadel, in tiny cells without attention paid to their comfort, religion, or personal preferences. One could say they were treated like. . .well. . .like the enemy. Novel idea.

We watched the changing of the guard and discussed possibilities for getting the expressionless, motionless, humorless guard standing stiff-backed at attention, to lose his composure, even just for a second or two.  In the end we took pity and restrained ourselves.  Being an obnoxious tourist is fun but even we have our limits.

Then it was off to eat lunch and do some whale watching.  The seafood here is amazing.  Probably because it was swimming in the ocean a few hours ago.    Eating it beside that ocean makes it taste all the better.  Paul decided to forego the boat ride since he’s been known to succumb to seasickness in the past.  Two and a half hours is a long time when one is losing one's lunch over the side.  So he stayed behind, ate ice-cream, and went to visit the Titanic Museum nearby. He reported his satisfaction to us later.

We were fortunate in our search for marine life.  We saw several whales, along with seals and porpoises. And there was a small island with nothing but a small house, an old lighthouse, and, according to our talkative boat guide, a plague of garter snakes.

Our cruise was pleasant in spite of the rain that eventually caught up with us and in spite of the annoying and very loud tour guide who came with the boat. (I wished Allen and his kilt would have been on board instead.) Even so, I learned plenty from him as well.  The crew pulled in a lobster trap which yielded several large specimens.  The one I got to hold was guessed to be fourteen years old because he weighed in at over two pounds and they grow at a rate of one pound every two years. They all had to be returned to the water though, since the season doesn’t begin until November.

We opted to return to the hotel early and fend for ourselves for supper.  Everyone who was so inclined gathered later to play cards.  I decided to do laundry and some writing.  And I have a maple donut that needs eating.