The Tourist's Maritime Provinces/Chapter 4
NOVA SCOTIA
CHAPTER IV
HALIFAX AND ITS ENVIRONS
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One of the first tourists to arrive at the Nova Scotian capital by the newly established Cunard Line was Charles Dickens who, having sailed in January, 1842, on the steam packet Britannia from Liverpool for Boston, disembarked en route for a few hours' survey of Halifax. His description of the city's aspect tallies very well with the impression gained to-day fromi the deck of an arriving steamer—"a town built on the side of a hill, the highest point being commanded by a strong fortress. . . . Several streets of good breadth and appearance extend from its summit to the water-side, and are intersected by cross streets running parallel with the river."
For Dickens' "river" one must of course read bay—the lordly harbour called by the Indians chebookt, "mighty haven."
At the portals of the harbour are McNab's and George's Islands which, like strategic crests on both shores, are fortified for the defence of Halifax, grey "warden of the honour of the North." The city mounts a ladder whose lowest rung is the water-edge where He cable ships and Bermuda liners, cargo-boats flying the ensigns of many nations, tiny coasters that wend a perilous way to reef-bound havens up and down the Scotia shore, hulking steamers bound for England or just arrived with emigrants from Baltic ports, sailing vessels discharging fares of newly-caught herring and cod, tourist steamers on the way to Boston, or St. John's, or Gaspé—craft of every flag, model and destination, designed for every sort of mission on the seas.
One rung higher is a street filled with shipping offices, lobster shops, and sundry emporiums whose windows announce bargains in rusted salvage, sailors' kits, hardtack, fishermen's boots, "gear" and cordage. The street above is chiefly devoted to banking and Government offices and to hotels. The rear windows of both the "Queen" and the "Halifax" overlook the docks where most of the passenger steamers berth. The union railway station is situated about a mile north of the hotel centre.
Barrington Street, two hilly blocks above Hollis, is for its comparatively short length lined with shops so modernised as to have lost their one-time British air, a fact bemoaned by the rigidly loyal Haligonian. South of the shopping and theatre district Barrington becomes Pleasant Street, and north of the Parade it is known as Lockman Street. Duke, George, Prince and Sackville Streets all lead upward to the apex of the hill commanded by Fort George. From this outlook one may survey the city, brinking the wooded shores of the North West Arm, falling away down dingy terraces of unkempt streets to that other fair encircling inlet, Bedford Basin. Across the harbour, where often-times Britain's war-hounds tug at their anchor chains, rises the town of Dartmouth, with a history quite its own.
When Colonel the Honourable Edward Cornwallis arrived with his fleet of settlers' transports and the sloop of war Sphinx in Chebucto Bay in the summer of 1749, the site of the future city which was even then designed as "a military key to the North American colonies" was bare of fort or habitation. Neither was there, according to a letter written by the Governor, "one yard of clear ground."
It was not long, however, before the members of this hardy expedition had constructed an encampment of tents and huts and driven upon Citadel Hill the pickets of a stockade as a protection against attacks by the French and their Micmac allies. Wharves were built immediately, one of them for "ships of 200 tons." Even in the first month twenty schooners are recorded as having entered the harbour in a single day.
The fortress was several times repaired before the incumbency of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, as the garrison commander. At his suggestion employment was given on the works to gangs of negroes who had been deported from Jamaica for insubordination to English rule. The "Maroons" were descended from the African slaves of Spanish West Indians who, upon England's seizing Jamaica, intrenched themselves among the hills. Though given generous grants of land and provisions, the black men revolted against life in Nova Scotia and after four years, during which they had been maintained at a cost of £100,000, they were transported to Sierra Leone in the land of their fathers.
At the entrance of the modern citadel are two guns used by the English at the second siege of Louisbourg. In times of peace, visitors may pass through the broad gate of the fortress, and saunter about the ramparts with a soldier as guide. Below the glacis is the Garrison Chapel to which the Imperial troops, which have now been withdrawn, used to march every Sabbath morning preceded by a band. The Dominion regulars still proceed with music and some ceremony to Sunday service in the city churches.
Facing the harbour from the top of George Street is a monstrous clock tower with a keeper's house for pedestal. The Duke of Kent had it erected as a memorial to Time, of whose worth he deemed the citizens unmindful. Like a squat ogre it frowns upon the town. Escape it one cannot, neither its ugliness nor its warning hands.
THE MOUTH OF THE GASPEREAU, WHERE THE ACADIANS EMBARKED FOR DEPORTATION TO NEW ENGLAND
The course of George Street toward the water is interrupted by the Parade, a rectangle where volunteers, red-coats, Hessians and Canadian troopers have in the past two centuries assembled for review. Here were held, also, the first religious services observed by Governor Cornwallis and his pioneers pending the completion of old St. Paul's, whose wooden façade looks across the Parade toward the modern City Hall. The church was the gift of George II to his new colony. It was begun soon after the arrival of the settlers' fleet, lumber having been despatched from Boston for its construction. "Timbered in times when men built strong," the body of the building has scarcely been altered from that day to this. A new spire, new aisles, new windows have contributed to its space and modest elegance, but the nave retains its original oak. Nowhere on the continent is there a sanctuary quite like it. It is the Abbey of the Provinces, the shrine of primitive Canada. To muse in its stiff wooden seats, to meditate among its tombs is like sitting at the feet of an oracle to learn of history and stirring deeds.
Over the vestibule door is the faded hatchment of Baron de Seitz who was Colonel of a Plessian regiment. He died in 1782 and was buried beneath the church in full accoutrement, including sword and spurs. Hung upon the balcony of the main aisle are the escutcheons of Admirals, Generals, Governors, Provincial Secretaries, and Chief Justices. Governor Parr, whose bearings are among them, was entombed in 1791 beneath the middle aisle. It was for him that the New Brunswick Loyalists named the ancestral settlement on the St. John River, Parrstown, which later became the city of St. John. Here are the bearings of Governor Charles Lawrence, who undertook the removal of the Acadians. At a ball given at Government House in 1760 he drank water too cold, and as a consequence died of pneumonia. He was buried in St. Paul's chancel and a tablet erected. Being taken down during repairs it disappeared. Few of us will regret that it was never replaced—that the pitiless arbitrator of the fate of unfortunates has no memorial here among brave men.
In the chancel are the tablets of Sir John Wentworth, who was Governor between the years 1792 and 1808, and those of two bishops of Nova Scotia who were father and son. Dr. Charles Inglis was the first colonial bishop of any British possession in either hemisphere. From 1777 to 1783 he was rector of Trinity Church, New York. When he continued to pray from his pulpit that King George IV should "confound his enemies," colonial soldiers were placed in the aisle and ordered to arrest him if, on a certain Sunday, he did not desist from the treasonable practice. Needless to say, menacing bayonets had no effect upon his resolution. The petition for the British sovereign was presented as was his custom, the New Englanders advanced toward the altar, but at sight of the steadfast figure which confronted them, withheld their arms. Dr. Inglis resigned from the rectorship and joined a migration of Loyalists to Nova Scotia, where he became minister of St. Paul's and Bishop of the province. His son was the third to be elected head of the diocese. His grandson was General Sir John Inglis who, born at Halifax in 1814, was in command of Lucknow in 1857 during the mutiny of the Sepoys.
In the transepts are tablets to Judges of the Supreme Court of the Province, among them Sir Breton Halliburton whose wife was a daughter of the house of Inglis. There is a memorial to the first Collector of Customs at Halifax who did service for fifty years. Lord Charles Montagu, second son of the Duke of Manchester, fell a sacrifice to Public Zeal through the inclemency of a severe winter in Nova Scotia and was given burial in this pantheon in 1784. There is a mural monument to Major General Ross, the commander who destroyed Washington in revenge for the burning of York.
This church, one of the very oldest of the Protestant faith in North America, has been dowered with rich gifts of windows, robes and altar vessels. Many of its adherents bear the proud names inscribed upon monument and heraldic device. St. Paul's is the most significant institution of storied Halifax.
Close by the church, at the corner of Prince and Argyle Streets, is a house built of stone taken from the dismantled fortifications of Louisbourg. Originally it was the residence of the First Secretary of the Province and aide-de-camp to Governor Cornwallis, but it now houses the Carlton Hotel. Visitors will find interesting the sculptured chimney-piece of the dining-room, which is also a relic of days when France was mistress of Cape Breton.
A short walk down Prince Street to Hollis brings one to the Province Building which contains the Legislative Halls, the Library, and many historic treasures. Parliament House was completed in 1818 at a cost of £52,000. Somewhat under a hundred years old, it disseminates an air of even greater antiquity by reason of its smoke-softened walls and its high straight windows that seem to regard with severity the less conventional structures about it. A writer describes the building in 1839 as "the most splendid in all North America." Dickens, who witnessed the ceremony of the inauguration of parliament, gratified his hosts by remarking how closely it followed the forms observed on the commencement of a new session of the House in London. Now-a-days the citadel fires a salute as the Governor arrives, there is a military guard and a band.
The Legislative Councillors whose appointments are for life, sit in an ornate and gracious chamber whose domed ceiling shelters a gallery of portraits representing kings and their consorts, war heroes and judges. The magnificent picture above the dais is said to be the joint work of Sir Joshua Reynolds and his pupil, Allen Ramsay. The painting of Chief Justice Strange is by Benjamin West. A modern portrait of Edward VII is in painful contrast. The kindly, clever face of Judge Thomas C. Haliburton companions a painting of Sir Brenton Halliburton who was in no way related to the creator of Sam Slick, and who is remembered principally for his Tory hatred of Joe Howe. His son John challenged the latter to a duel in his father's defence.
In the Assembly Room at the opposite end of the hall from the Council Chamber there are portraits of Howe and his rival, Johnston, whose silent presentments are hung in peaceful proximity. The Library, a rare old room facing out toward Hollis Street, was formerly the seat of the Provincial Supreme Court. Here Howe, greatest of Haligonians, stood his memorable trial for libel. In the same balconied room Richard Uniacke and his seconds, Stephen De Blois and Edward McSweeney, were tried and acquitted in July, 1819, following a bitter duel in which Uniacke's opponent, William Bowie, was killed. According to the archives of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, this was the first important crime tried in the new Province Building.
The Library contains a large number of records and ancient volumes relating to early Nova Scotia, and a few interesting pictures, among them a small but dashing portrait of "Royal Edward," Duke of Kent, and a painting of Sir Samuel Cunard.
In the yard south of the Province Building Howe made a famous speech and planted an oak on the three hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare's birth. A statue dedicated to him as an orator, a writer of prose and poetry, an editor and a patriot has been erected on this plot. Howe was born on the banks of the North West Arm. As a boy he set type for his father, whose paper, the Gazette, was published on the site of the present Post Office, opposite Parliament House. Later he owned and edited the Nova Scotian from whose pages the Clockmaker of Slickville made his bow to the world. When an old man, after an ingenious and forceful career, he was elected Lieutenant-Governor of the Province. He had occupied Government House but three weeks when he died. His grave is in Camp Hill Cemetery, beyond the Citadel, at the head of Sackville Street.
The Green Market, held every Saturday morning on the pavement about the Post Office, has largely lost its flavour of picturesque oddity. Indians and negroes, and Acadian and Anglo-Saxon farmers are the vendors. Their hand-plaited baskets hold ferns and vegetables, berries and fowl. But the bargaining is zestless, and dark-skinned merchants sprawl with their backs to the wall quite indifferent to a customer's eye. Whereupon the onlooker is perchance reminded of dewy dawns on the Brussels Place where white-capped Flemish dames were wont to invest with a stir of rivalry and wrangle of sous the smallest purchase from eggs to chicory. A lackadaisical affair indeed would the Green Market have been voted in Flanders. Racially the market attendants are more interesting than are their wares or methods of trafficking. The black men and women are children of the plantation slaves brought north during the War of 1812 and settled at Preston. It is said that among them are descendants of the Maroons who came from Jamaica a few years before. The progenitors of the brown men who proffer toys and tourist souvenirs were Indian warriors who abetted the French in campaigns against English troops and colonists. The French market-folk are descended from returned Acadians who settled on the shores of Bedford Basin a century ago.
On Granville Street, overlooking the north yard of the Province Building, are the offices of the American Consulate. The post was established in 1815. In the archives is the complete correspondence concerning the encounter between the Chesapeake and the Shannon. Guns taken from the deck of Captain Lawrence's command are the centre of an annual and enthusiastic celebration in the yard beneath the Consular windows.
The five hundred Germans who came to Halifax immediately after its founding built their dwellings to the north of the citadel. In 1755 they constructed a Lutheran Church which still stands witness to their skill as carpenters. A short distance out Brunswick Street one comes to it, a plain little edifice with a grave-yard beside it. Of three successive pastors sent from Hanover to minister to this congregation, every one was wrecked during the voyage to Halifax.
On the way to the old "Dutch" church one passes the round temple of St. George's, beyond the old Garrison Chapel. The Dockyard is two blocks east of the "Dutch" church. Further out Water Street are the Intercolonial Railway station, the Naval Cemetery, with Wellington Barracks and Admiralty House near-by, and the immense Halifax Dry Dock and marine railway. All the foregoing points of interest may be reached by trams from the centre of the city.
On the outermost borders of this dreary north suburb, reached by the Belt Line car, is Fairview Cemetery where orderly rows of granite headstones—nameless, but each bearing a number—mark the graves of unidentified dead brought to Halifax by rescue ships after the sinking of the Titanic, South of City Hall,[1] near the corner where Barrington merges into Pleasant Street and Spring Garden Road joins the latter thoroughfare, there is a group of buildings all of which invite the interest of the visitor. The Academy of Music, principal theatre of the province, is directly on the corner. Adjoining it is St. Matthew's Church, mother of Halifax Presbyterianism. Just beyond is Government House. Erected during the first years of the nineteenth century, it has been the seat of a long line of Provincial Governors and Lieutenant-Governors. The foundation stone of the mansion "placed in the field between Hollis and Pleasant Streets" was laid by the Duke of Kent shortly before his departure from Halifax.
In the green acre opposite Government House is the old colonial cemetery of St. Paul's. The gateway topped by a lion is a monument to two Nova Scotians who fell during the Crimean War. Within the quiet shadows lies the body of Captain David Gordon, great grandfather of "Chinese" Gordon, who died of an accident in 1752.
The "Chesapeake Stone" records the names of sailors killed in the engagement which took place off Boston Harbour in June, 1813, and which is said to have lasted but twenty minutes. The Shannon's dead numbered thirty men, the Chesapeake lost more than twice as many, including her Commander and First Lieutenant. The British frigate having brought her captive into Halifax harbour, Captain Lawrence was buried in the English Cemetery, American and British officers walking beside the coffin. A few weeks later, a war vessel arrived from the United States and the bodies of Captain Lawrence and his Lieutenant were conveyed to New York. Every visitor to Trinity church-yard does homage to the officer whose name is inseparable from the intrepid phrase engraved upon his tomb.
St. Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral, on the corner of Spring Garden Road, is one of the handsomest ecclesiastical edifices in the province. A little way up the hill are the County Court House and the Nova Scotia Technical College. The latter contains a museum of native products and historical mementoes.
Spring Garden Road passes the south gate of the Public Gardens, one of the most completely charming artificial parks to be found anywhere, and quite worthy of the pride which Halifax feels in it. The beautifying of the Gardens was urged by Howe in 1836, but his suggestions were not acted upon until a new generation had arisen. This pleasaunce of flowers and pools and emerald sward is all the lovelier for the contrast between its fairness and the austere mediocrity of the self-confident city it graces, "a city of great private virtue whose banks are sound," in the words of the discriminating Warner.The Citadel is accessible from the Public Gardens by way of Summer or Sackville Streets. The Wanderers' Club grounds. Camp Hill, a field used for drills and reviews, and Camp Hill Cemetery, the chief burying-ground of the city since the closing of St. Paul's, are all in this quarter. The campus of Dalhousie University is southeast of the Gardens. This, the largest of the seven Provincial universities, was named for the Earl of Dalhousie, a Scotch nobleman who became Governor-General of Canada. Previously he had served with Wellington in Spain, and held office as Governor of the Province. Dr. Akins' History of Halifax City records that in the spring of 1819 excavating was begun at the north end of the Parade for the foundation of Dalhousie College. The Legislature voted £2000 toward the expenses of building besides a sum of several thousand pounds which had accrued from port dues received during the tenure of Castine, Maine, by Halifax patriots in the War of 1812. As the college grew in scope, new buildings were raised on the large field now occupied. Allied with the college are schools of law, medicine, dentistry and engineering.
Sight-seeing carriages follow Morris Street past the new Anglican Cathedral, the attractive grounds of the General Hospital and the School for the Blind to Young Avenue, and pursue this somewhat pretentious thoroughfare to the gates of Point Pleasant Park, which occupies the extreme end of the triangular peninsula that provides the site of Halifax. This beautiful property comprising 250 acres of natural woodland is owned by the Dominion and leased to the Province at a shilling a year. One day in every twelve-month sentries are posted to keep out the public, in order that the Government's authority over the right of way be established.
Driving beneath the pine trees and inhaling the zephyrs blowing from Harbour and Arm, one's tranquil reveries are interrupted by the thrust of cannon and the brusque bulking of earth-works. Several batteries fringe the shore, all of them of recent construction except the old Chain Fort below the cottage where Joe Howe was born over a century ago. At the mouth of the North West Arm chains used to be drawn across to defend the inlet from hostile invasion.
In a clearing near-by stands the grey Martello Tower, concerning whose origin there are conflicting accounts. One of Howe's biographers asserts that the fortress was built in his boyhood. But the Dickensesque caretaker who pilots one about the circular, thick-walled corridors implies a much earlier date by relating that the French fortified this spot before Cornwallis came to Halifax, though she concedes that the wooden roof was laid by the English. Whatever its age or one-time worth as a defence, its deep embrasures are blithe now with swaying nasturtiums and the warble of 
GATE OF THE ANNAPOLIS FORT BEFORE RESTORATION
Andrew Gilmore, last British soldier to stand sentry before the garrison was withdrawn in 1854, is shown in the picture.
linnets. A child's school-bag hangs on the wall; the child himself was born within the tower. Through a sagging door the visitor glimpses, not guns nor powder-bags, but a kitchen range bristling with pots that emit a wreath of steam.
The drive-ways which search the primal wood are like aisles in a darkened temple into which the sun shines palely. The temple floor has a covering of brown pine-needles. Tall trunks appear in the shadow like sustaining pillars. Through openings that look like windows in the forest the water shows its enchanting green. Once, Scotch soldiers were quartered in this wildwood. Their camp beds were mattressed with heather, which was thrawn out when the regiment returned to Scotland. A scanty bank of it blooms now from which lovers of the wiry little weed pluck surreptitious bunches.
The esplanade by which one returns to the city borders the harbour shore, passing on the way the public baths and the quarters of the Royal Yacht Squadron. Either side of this point fine houses have been demolished and the water-front filled in to make room for the piers, quays and railway terminals which the Dominion is constructing at a cost of $20,000,000 and which will revolutionise municipal traffic conditions. When the works are completed, passengers will alight at the new Union Station at the foot of South Street.
Halifax, wanting in municipal beauty, is rich in resorts which afford agreeable open-air diversion.[2] There are several suburban hotels with adequate accommodation for summer guests which may be made the pivot of sundry excursions. The Birchdale, whose lawns slope to the North West Arm, is opposite the gates of the Waegwoltic Club. Within a short distance are other rowing and country clubs whose regattas, tournaments and illuminations are of frequent occurrence. Above "the tranquil waters and graceful course" of the Arm are many summer estates whose owners' family names are inscribed in the earliest annals of Halifax. "Oaklands" manor house was built by a son of Sir Samuel Cunard, "Boldrewood" is owned by the Gilpin family, "Armdale," on the east bank, belongs to Sir Charles Tupper, Father of Confederation. "The Dingle" is best known for the view of the Arm obtained from one of its heights.
A lofty tower of good design, erected in 1912 by the Halifax Canadian Club nearly opposite the North West Arm Rowing Club, commemorates the assembly in Halifax, in 1758, of the first elective legislature convened in British North America, or anywhere in the British Dominions. Within the tower, which may be reached by the South Street ferry, are mural bronzes presented by Provincial Governments, educational institutions and fraternal orders.
A road that winds near the tower ascends to the hill-town of summer cottages called Jollimore Village.
Near the head of the Arm, 3 miles from the harbour, is Melville Military Prison, situated on an islet where seamen captured in wars between Great Britain and France, and Great Britain and the United States were first incarcerated. An ancient chronicler declares sharks were lured into these waters to discourage hopes of escape.
A little way west of the cove, German settlers established a community still called Dutch Village. A favourite drive lead's to it out Quinpool Road. Here lived two naturalists, one of whom, Titus Smith, was a nephew of the original Hawkeye in Last of the Mohicans, The other was Downs, a taxidermist, who was born in New Jersey in 1811 and later emigrated with his family to Halifax. In 1847, sixteen years before the Central Park Zoological Garden was opened to a wondering public. Downs' collection of birds and animals was installed in the midst of a hundred-acre park at Dutch Village. This was the parent zoo of America. Downs bred specimens for royalty, and, during his long career (he died in 1892) is said to have "stuffed eight hundred moose heads." A short drive across country from Dutch Village to Fairview brings one to "the shores, . . . numerous coves and well-sheltered inlets" of Bedford Basin, the inner harbour of Halifax, which for a century and more has been a rendezvous for yachtsmen, oarsmen, summer idlers and bon vivants. On Bedford Road, the ten-mile highway which connects Halifax with the head of the basin, are several inns, successors to old-time taverns which were favoured banqueting-places. Beyond Rockingham, one of the fairest of these historic suburbs, the Duke of Kent maintained an establishment which was presided over by a companion whose status was never announced but who is thought to have been his "civil wife." The portraits of Madame la Baronne de Fortisson, known to the colonials as Madame de Saint Laurent, show her to have been a lady of gentle demeanour with large dark eyes, dark ringlets, a delicate nose, and lips that curved ingenuously. Her protector, the youthful general-in-command of the colony's forces, had gross features and an expression as domineering as hers was demure.
Originally the Lodge was surrounded by a dozen out-houses and by elaborate gardens which were the scene of munificent hospitality. When the royal occupant left Halifax in the summer of 1800, he was accompanied by the charming French woman, whose star, however, was soon to wane. In a short while the son of George IV assumed the obligations of matrimony, and the place of Madame Saint Laurent was usurped by a princess of the blood, who became the mother of Queen Victoria.
Sir John Wentworth, Governor of the Province, was the next tenant of the Lodge. At his death in 1820 his son inherited the estate, and by the latter's will the property descended to Mrs. Gore, a novelist, who was related to the Wentworth family. By the year 1828 the place had fallen into utter disrepair. Haliburton described, in the third series of The Clockmaker, "the tottering fence, the prostrate gates, the ruined grottos, the long and winding avenues . . . overgrown by rank grass and occasional shrubs." Even then the forest was "fast reclaiming its own and the lawns and ornamental gardens relaxing into a state of nature." And yet, bemoaned Haliburton, this had once been the favourite abode "of one who, had he lived, would have inherited the first and fairest empire in the world." Now, as then, it is a spot "set apart and consecrated to solitude and decay." House, offices, arbours, booths have mouldered into dust; only the band pavilion remains amid the gnarled beeches, a gloomy memorial of festivities long forgotten.
Edward VII, when Prince of Wales, visited the ruin in 1860. The Intercolonial's rails now traverse the grounds on the way from Halifax to Bedford, at the head of the Basin.
A pleasant highway joins Bedford to Dartmouth by way of Waverley and the Lakes, From Halifax connection is made for Dartmouth by steam ferry from the foot of George Street. The site of the prosperous suburb on the east bank of the harbour was preferred by some of the early colonists to that of Halifax. Protestants against the choice of Cornwallis founded a town here in 1750, most of them being emigrants who had arrived on the Alderney, a ship of 500 tons. They named the settlement for the Earl of Dartmouth, confidant of Queen Anne.
In 1784 a number of whalers came with their families from Nantucket and a grant of land was made them. Black whales were then abundant in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and sperm whales were found further south in the Atlantic.
The first ferry to Halifax was instituted in 1752. The ferryman cried "Over! Over!" and before going "blew a conch" to warn of departure.
Directly opposite Halifax on the Dartmouth side is a mammoth sugar refinery, successor to one established in 1883. The Nova Scotia Asylum for the Insane occupies a fine position on the ridge. A mile or so from the heart of Dartmouth is the first of a series of fresh water lakes which in both winter and summer are the centre of lively pastimes. Dartmouth is the gate-way to popular Cow Bay, Cole Harbour and Lawrencetown, all of which afford, within pleasant driving distance, superior sea bathing.
For various connections out of Halifax see under "Steamers from the United States" and "Provincial Railways and Steamers," Chapter I.
Almost due east of Halifax, but lying nearer to Whitehead in northern Guysboro County because of the peculiar trend of the Nova Scotia coast, is Sable Island whose shoals have since the Middle Centuries been associated with wreck and devastation. Three centuries ago the island is said to have been 200 miles long with cliffs 800 feet high. The sand hills are now about 100 feet high at the apex of the narrow crescent which appears to be gradually dropping into the sea. Of the hideous shoals which stretch west from the Banks, that off Sable Island is the largest. The heaviest storms of the North Atlantic centre at the head of the Gulf Stream, which is in conjunction here with the Arctic Current. The greater number of wrecks, and they have been legion, occur from errors of reckoning, due to terrific currents which bear to the west.
The Cabots are believed to have touched here, then came French colonists and convicts under de Léry in 1518 and the Marquis de la Roche, Viceroy of Canada and Acadia, in 1598. Sir Humphrey Gilbert's historian says "the Portugals did put upon the Island meat and swine to breed." The herds of wild ponies which roam this crest of a submarine sand-bank are thought to be descended from stock left here in the 16th century by the Portuguese.
It was off this perilous bank in 1583 that gallant Sir Humphrey went down on the Golden Hind, declaiming fearlessly, "Heaven is as near by sea as by land!"
In 1799 the Francis carrying the suite, horses and household effects of the Duke of Kent was wrecked in these waters.
The island is about 20 miles long and is distant from Whitehead 85 miles. Only Government employés live upon it. The colony consists of about thirty light-house attendants, crews of the life-saving patrol, and wireless telegraphers. The superintendent's house is on the dunes close to the shore. A constant watch is kept for disabled ships, and many a wretched wanderer has had cause to give thanks for the beneficent provision made for his salvation.
Access to the island is by Government boat only.
Distance, Halifax — Yarmouth, via Halifax and South-western Railway, 248 miles. Time by express (twice a week only, except in the summer), about 11 hours. See Chapter VII for description of towns on this route.
Distance, Halifax — Yarmouth, via Intercolonial and Dominion Atlantic Railways (Halifax — Windsor Junction — Windsor), 215 m. Time by "Flying Blue Nose" (discontinued in the fall) 8 hrs. At Windsor Jc. the Dominion Atlantic diverges from the Intercolonial, which continues to Truro. Truro is the junction of the line to Montreal and the line through upper Nova Scotia to Sydney.
Halifax — Windsor, 45 miles. The way lies along Bedford Basin as far as the town of Bedford, and crosses the Sackville River to a lake region of considerable beauty and extent. Ancestral estates, gold mines, "rocks and stunted firs," fishing-ponds and gypsum beds are bordered by the railroad and add individual interest to the journey. The hills make way for grainfields and grassy marshes encompassed by the St. Croix and Avon Rivers, which unite below the ancient town of Windsor.
- ↑ From Fraser Brothers' office, opposite the Halifax and Queen Hotels, sight-seeing carriages leave every week-day during the summer at 10 and 2:30 o'clock. A three-hour drive at a nominal cost affords a view of all the major tourist attractions in the pleasantest part of the city.
- ↑ Information as to principal drives, sails and outings is concisely given in the booklet gratuitously distributed by the Tourist Committee of the Halifax Board of Trade, 231 Hollis Street.