Travelling Hopefully - Halifax Briefly

The weather was grey and rainy when I arrived in Halifax and remained that way my entire stay.  Since “my entire stay” consisted of twenty four hours including the taxi ride from the airport you probably shouldn’t make any broad assumptions about the city’s prevailing weather patterns from that statement.  Despite the rain the weather in Halifax still managed to be less fundamentally hostile to human existence than St Johns.

Halifax is where they brought survivors of the Titanic (random Halifax fact provided by Jasmyn Pearson) but I had no time for an iceberg heavy version of The Shipping News. The city seemed quite pleasant and attractive or at least the bit within two blocks of the railway station  seemed to be.  It’s entirely possible that the rest of Halifax is a gang ridden hell hole where mothers sell themselves for a crust of bread so they have a side dish when they cannibalise their offspring but I’m going to give Halifax the benefit of the doubt.

I picked my hotel on the basis of proximity to the railway station and wound up five minutes away which indicates unusually good planning on my part.  I also wound up just a couple of blocks from the Citadel so the next morning I trudged through the mist to see it.  When the Americans tossed the British out of the more liveable third of the North American continent the Royal Navy was left without a naval base closer than Bermuda and suddenly Halifax and its harbour became very important indeed.

In what appears to have been a reflex habit the British grabbed the highest point they could find and fortified the crap out of it.  You can see why, standing on the hill you have a clear field of fire to the strategically vital Scotiabank Centre below.  I must admit when I heard the word Citadel my mind immediately conjured up visions of towering walls.  I wasn’t entirely wrong but the British had been a bit more cunning than that.  They had cut the top of the hill and dropped the citadel inside with the result that little is visible from the outside (and it’s therefore quite difficult to hit with cannon fire.  Inside there are barracks, a parade ground and enough artillery to start a small war.

Actually the Citadel was out of date by the time it was built, rather like every military purchase Australia has ever made and the place is now run by the Canadian Park Service with employees dressed up like nineteenth century soldiers.  According to one of these “soldiers” that I spoke to all of their rifles and at least some of the fort artillery still work.  I don’t know how much ammunition they have but it might be a good idea if Halifax didn’t piss off the Park Service any time soon.