October 22 – Photo Tour around Town

We have another photo tour today with Georgie, this time around Halifax.

First stop was across the harbor to the town of Dartmouth.  He talked a good bit about the area and showed us maps of the very large harbor.  Halifax has largest harbor in the world after the one in Sydney Australia. 

We then drove along the harbor front past a huge ship building complex and on to the Little Dutch Church (second oldest building in Halifax) where he talked about its founding.  It was constructed by the Germans who moved to the area (Deutsch) but the English couldn’t pronounce “Deutsch” correctly so it became “Dutch”.  The congregation eventual outgrew this church and built a new one, St. George’s Church (Round) Church.  This Anglican Church was built in the late 1700’s.  It was badly damaged by fire in 1994 and fully restored using donations from around the world.

The church has one pew that is reserved for the Queen (or eventually King) of England, should they visit.  It has never been used.

The church grounds were very colorful.

Next stop was the memorial for the Halifax Explosion that occurred in 1917.  The explosion was the largest explosion caused by man, only exceeded by the atomic bombs dropped on Japan.  The explosion was caused when a ship collided with the SS Mont-Blanc, a French cargo ship fully loaded with munitions destined for Europe and the battlefields. 

The explosion wiped out all of the buildings within a half mile radius and sent debris flying for long distances.  Almost 2000 people died and 9000 were injured. 

The memorial is very interesting with many subtle references to statistics regarding the explosions.

We drove along the side of a park to a mini-beach and then on to the waterfront to photograph a very humorous art piece called “The Way Things Are” and consisting of three rather drunken lamp posts.  

Of course, being waterfront, there was more to photograph than some drunken lamp posts.

We had good views of Prince George's Island and it's lighthouse.

The last stop was the relatively new modern public library.  Georgie had lots of hints and suggestions regarding things to photograph.  It is an amazing library.

There was a large plaza in front of the library for lounging and relaxing.

It was a gold mine of photo opportunities.  The interior had a maze of stairs leading to the different levels.

There were interesting reflections to be found...

Many of the windows had letters on them, supposedly to help prevent birds from flying into them.

The building is ecofriendly and has a living roof that can collect water for use as grey water.

There was artwork throughout the library. 

And of course there were books to read.

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More photos of Halifax
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We were back in the hotel by mid-afternoon.  This evening we had our last dinner with Jim and Phyllis.  We will be going our separate ways tomorrow.