Visit Dates: September 13-14, 2023
Original Post: December 7, 2023
Updated: December 9, 2023: I’ve made the following updates
- Added a picture and some words about our visit to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic
- Added a portrait and more words about Maud Lewis
- Added identifying information of the art and artists for the works by Norval Morrisseau (Untitled: Moose with Birds) and David Gilhooly (Victoria Bathing with Beavers). I owe a big thank you to Zéa Jones, Visitor Experience Associate for their help.
After our visit to Hopewell Rocks and our drive along the New Brunswick side of the Bay of Fundy we pulled into Halifax in the early evening. Our first stop was a grocery store to get supplies (AKA beer, wine, snacks and breakfast stuff) for our three night / two day stay in Halifax.
We had a driving tour set up for Wednesday September 13. Ian from Alternative Routes picked us up exactly on time and we headed for our first stop of Peggy’s Cove. We had a full day of adventure in store. Here is an overview of our day of travel.
We bemoaned the loss of our Peggy’s Cove tour on our hurricane-interrupted rail trip the previous September. A year later we got to see what we missed. Peggy’s Cove is situated on the southeast shore of St Margaret’s Bay; about an hour’s drive from our AirBnB.
Even though we left at an early hour there were a slew of tour busses in the small town of Peggy’s Cove. There are only about 30 year-round residents of the town so the townsfolk must feel overwhelmed by tourists at times. This picture shows most of the residences.
Tourism and fishing are the primary businesses of the area.
The main attraction is the lighthouse.
So many tourists. I was puzzled by the fact that many of the tour guides were wearing kilts and so many of the tourists had Scottish accents. I think it was Terri who pointed out that Nova Scotia is Latin for “New Scotland”. Well, that explains it. There is plenty of granite to go around on the lighthouse point.
According to this article on the geocaching.com website, granite forms the majority of Nova Scotia terrain. Large boulders were also picked up and dropped off by the glaciers in the ice ages of the past.
The changing tidal flows and the rising sea levels, as melted land glaciers flowed back to the oceans, filled the scarred areas with water, forming coves and inlets. Large boulders, called glacial erratics, actually 415-million-year-old Devonian granite, lifted by the ice, were carried many miles and deposited upon the landscape as the ice receded, leaving rugged barrens. The movement of the glacial ice and rocks left scouring marks, or deep scratches, in the bedrock that can still be seen today.
https://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GCZJP4_peggys-erratics
We stopped for lunch at the Grand Banker Bar and Grill in Lunenburg. After fortifying ourselves we rode up to Grand Pre on the edge of the Minas Basin – which is at one of the tails (heads?) end of the Bay of Fundy. This area is known as Acadian Fields; hmmm, probably the same Acadians who are the namesake of Acadia National Park back in Maine. Ian is very knowledgeable about the area and told us the Acadians settled in this area from 1604 into the 18th century. As happens all too often in history, they were ejected from the area; many settled in Louisiana where they became known as Cajuns. Here is an article from acadian.org that tells about Acadian life before the deportation.
The vistas were beautiful.
And a closeup of that red house in the middle distance and the Minas Basin behind.
Ou tour guide.
Ian took our picture in exchange.
If you are going to Nova Scotia we can all recommend Ian and Alternative Tours of Nova Scotia as a great way to spend a day and learn about the area.
The next day promised to be rainy so we picked some indoor activities: the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic and the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia for an indoor activity. It wasn’t raining when we started out so we walked a bit more than a mile to the harbor. As we arrived, this ship was pulling out of dock and heading for deeper water.
The HMCS Sackville’s keel was laid in early 1940 and launched on May 15, 1941. It has since been retired from the Canadian Navy; after spending time as a research vessel it is now a museum ship. I am not sure, by any means, but I wonder if it was setting sail to get out of the way of the coming hurricane Lee that was destined to hit Halifax on September 17. Either way we were luckier this year than last; we got in our visit before a hurricane hit.
As the rain started it was time to head indoors. Our first stop was the Maritime Museum. The museum hosts an abundant collection of model ships.
In addition to the Atlantic fishing and trade routes Halifax was the site of two significant historical events. I haven’t included (nor did I take) pictures of these exhibits because it just doesn’t feel right to photograph results of personal catastrophes. After the sinking of the Titanic in 1912 the recovered bodies of those who died were taken to Halifax where they were identified and buried. True to the caste system of the era the sailors and crewmen were buried in simple boxes or even canvas bags while the passengers were accorded caskets according to their station.
The second exhibit we saw was on th Halifax Explosion. On December 6, 1917 two ships collided in the narrows leading into the harbor.
On the morning of December 6th, 1917, the steamship Mont-Blanc, inbound from the Atlantic with war material for France, entered the Halifax Harbour Narrows. The Norwegian ship Imo left Bedford Basin, outbound for New York to load supplies for occupied Belgium. In homes, schools, and factories lining the shores, people started a new day in a busy wartime port. When Imo crossed The Narrows and struck Mont-Blanc’s bow, worlds collided.
Maritime Museum of the Atlantic Exhibit.
The destruction was widespread and devastating.
The rain started to settle in for the day so we ducked into a coffee shop for coffee and snacks. We had rain gear and umbrellas and figured we could make the few blocks from the coffee shop to the Art Gallery without melting. Well, we didn’t melt but we got more than wet enough because we struck out 90° in the wrong direction for too many blocks before we realized our mistake. Geesh, four people with four smart phones and we still couldn’t find our way. Eventually we found the art gallery which features folk art of European-Canadian people and First Nation people. I had never heard of Maud Lewis before this visit, though I have seen some of her work. Her iconic painting is Three Black Cats. Below is a thumbnail of that piece of art.
Maud Lewis is an inspiration; although suffering from a debilitating disease – suspected to be juvenile rheumatoid arthritis – she continued to create. You can see in this portrait how the condition made it difficult to create. Her husband, Everett Lewis, helped her create by doing a much of the prep work.
She and Everett lived in a tiny house in the woods of Nova Scotia. After her death, the house was moved to the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
Here is a view of the interior. Art everywhere!
We also checked out the other exhibits including fabric art by Deanne Fitzpatrick. Here is a piece of her “The Very Mention of Home” series
Have a look at this close-up.
I a absolutely love this piece – Victoria Bathing with Beavers by David Gilhooly! Please excuse the reflections from the glass case.
Here is a Google image search link to some of Gilhooly’s works. Frogs are a repeating motif.
The colors and layout of this “Untitled (Moose with Birds) [C1975] by Indigenous Canadian artist Norval Morrisseau knocks me out. Trip spoiler alert: this our closest encounter with a moose (c1975). Art Gallery of Nova Scotia.
Here is a Google image search link to some of Morrisseau’s works.
I didn’t have the artists information when I first published this post. I want to give a huge shoutout to Zéa Jones, Visitor Experience Associate, for providing me the names of the pieces and the artists. Without their help this post would be incomplete.
The rain was not letting up; despite being many-decades Oregonians we took heed of Shakespeare’s quote “discretion is the better part of valor” and caught a cab for our house. The rain died down in the evening so we wandered down the street from our AirBnB for dinner; went home to pack up and headed northwest the next morning to get out of the way of the coming hurricane.
