Today started with a house cleaning. Vacuuming, emptying, flushing and filling tanks, cleaning bathroom, etc.

Our first stop was at the Inverness Mining Museum.  Inverness and the area around it had coal mines until the 1980s when it became uneconomical to continue the mining.  The museum tells the stories of the miners, the continual cutting of wages for the workers, the eventual unionization of the workers and the accidents that occurred at the mines.  One of the boys killed was only 12 years old.

Our next stop was supposed to be a Whiskey Distillery, but we missed it.  The driver (Ruth) blames the navigator for spending too much time fiddling with the GPS and not paying attention.

Speaking of fiddling, the next stop was the Celtic Music Interpretive Center in Judique which has exhibits on the different types of music. The more upbeat Reel was our favourite. There is also an 8 minute video fiddling lesson here along with 4 fiddles on the wall you can pick up to play along.  This must have scared all the cats in the neighbourhood as we worked through our E, A, D and G chords (we think). Many howls of laughter.

The original plan had been to drive along the eastern shore of Nova Scotia which the map shows as a scenic drive.  A bit more searching on the map showed we’d have to take another ferry so we decided to take the Trans-Canada Highway to Halifax.

We’re staying at the Shubie Campground in Dartmouth, across the harbour from Halifax.

 

We toured the Marine Museum of the Atlantic and viewed a 3-D movie of the Titanic wreck as well as artifacts from the Titanic and displays on Halifax’s response to the disaster.  Among its many other exhibits, the museum has a display on the Halifax Explosion of December 6, 1917 which destroyed the city and was the largest man-made explosion until the first test atomic bomb was detonated.

Next we decided to head towards Pier 21 and stopped at the Choco Cafe for Real Belgian hot chocolate, chocolate mocha  and chocolate fondue. This was delicious and gave us the much needed energy to continue our trek of 4 or 5 city blocks as well as getting us out of the rain. By the time we had finished, the rain had stopped.

We marched on to the farmer’s market where we bought a small wheel of extra old crumbly gouda for $25 and a small piece of blue cheese for around $10.

The Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 was next.  This museum is the site where 1.5 million immigrants came to Canada during the period between 1928 and 1971. It tells their stories and displays documents related to their journeys.

An interesting quote from the museum: “A Canadian is an immigrant with seniority.”

In the evening we met with Brent and his wife Megan for Indian food at Curry Village. Brent is a fashion photographer in Halifax and has been on three of our photography trips and has become a great friend and mentor. After dinner we toured Brent’s fabulous new studio and saw his huge collection of props and wardrobe.

The girls and I had different agendas today. I spent the day assisting Brent on a shoot for a hair styling competition and Ruth and Pepsi visited Lunenburg, the Lighthouse Route and Peggy’s Cove.

The photo shoot was a lot of fun – three models (black, blue and orange hair), one hair dresser and a make-up artist.

While Martin was assisting in shooting the models, the girls (Pepsi and I) went for a great outing. Beautiful weather, a fast trip on Highway 103 to Lunenburg where I spent a couple of hours to get to know this historic town which was designated a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Site in 1995.

The town was established during Father Le Loutre’s War, four years after Halifax. The town was one of the first British attempts to settle Protestants especially from Germany, Austria and the Netherlands in Nova Scotia and, as a result, the (Catholic) Wabanaki Confederacy raided the community nine times in the early years of the settlement. I visited one of it’s oldest houses from 1753, now a museum which gives a great insight into the history. Fascinting how the news settlers found their new land, promised by the British King: Pick a card, any card from a deck of cards! On its back you find the number of your lot and you can find it on the map.

Blue Nose II still under repair in Lunenburg and two new Schooners are almost finished by a small boat building shop called The Dory Shop.

 

Then Pepsi and I took the Lighthouse Route back East, going by beautiful small towns, great beaches –no swimming unfortunately- and ended up in Peggy’s cove for a few shots and a wonderful ice cream since the day was very hot and sunny against all odds.

Back in Halifax we met Martin at Brent’s Studio.

At 7:30PM we met Trevor for ribs at the Boneheads BBQ on Barrington street. It was great to catch up again and share experiences of our travels in Atlantic Canada. After dinner we walked to a pub with great live Jazz music and had a round of drinks.