Marc- We took the rental car over the Confederation Bridge again but turned left into Nova Scotia this time. Our first visit and we proceeded directly to Halifax. The Capital City is built around the large harbor with lots of large commercial shipping traffic. The entry is over one of two very high suspension bridges (smaller versions of the Golden Gate Bridge). Our first stop was the Art Museum. They had a phenomenal exhibition of painting by local artist Maud Lewis. Her folk style painting are renowned and really grasp life in this Province in her lifetime. Her house has been transported and is a permanent exhibit. She painted it in her own way to come and grab the onlooker. She suffered from childhood onset arthritis and suffered much of her life. It did not prevent her from being a prolific self-taught artist that sis well commercially.
Next stop was lunch. Sue had dreamed of a broiled seafood meal and the watertfront had mostly expensive fried seafood. We found a wonderful restaurant two blocks back from the harbor with various broiled options. even a vegetarian could be happy here with wonderful salads at the Bluenose II.. Further exploration at the harborfront brought us to the famous COW"S Ice Cream and then the Marine Museum of the Atlantic. The focus here was on the many shipwreaks including the Titanic. This was the closest port to the sinking and ships left from here to do the grim task of retrieving the dead and whatever else remained. Most of the deceased were brought back to Halifax and buried in local cemeteries after all receiving proper funerals. Another exhibit showed where pirates were hung in this seafaring town (yes there were pirates even this far North).
We had hoped to visit Grand-Pre, the memorial to the 1755 deportation of the French Acadian population in 1755 by the British. Whole families were loaded on ships, their villages were burned, and they were sent to the 13 Colonies to the South (later to be the United States) where they were not welcomed. Eventually deportations occurred in other French colonial areas including Cape Breton Island (Ile Royale) and Prince Edward Island (Ile St. Jean). Some returned years later when the British allowed some migration back. They found there lands had been given to others by the British King and they had to lease there old farms. The Acadians survive today in some of these provinces and are united behind the Acadian Flag:
The flag is the French flag with an additional golden star in the left corner in honor of the Virgin Mary. We did stop to visit one Acadian museum. Our return trip was marked by thunderstorms and a ferry crossing of Northumberland Strait back to PEI. The ferry crossing is free and we ate dinner aboard. Both ends of the Ferry open up (roll on roll off design). sue discovered that one of the ferries had been built in the Quincy Shipyard in Massachusetts. The ferry leave a small fishing community Pictou and crosses to another small fishing village on PEI. The trip across the Strait was smooth with a beautiful sunset.
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