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We're standing right outside the Immigration Museum at Pier 21, where about a million immigrants entered Canada between 1928 and 1971. You can tour the museum on the second floor but don't miss the Scotiabank Family Centre just inside the door on the right. They have records of everyone who came through the port. That's where I found a long-dead ancestor just by giving my last name.

You’ll be walking in the steps of famous people if you pass through these doors. Here are a few:

Winston Churchill visited Halifax many times during World War II for Allied strategy conferences.

Princess Juliana of the Netherlands arrived at Pier 21 in 1940 seeking temporary wartime refuge in Canada.

Yousuf Karsh, The world-famous photographer fled the Armenian Genocide and arrived alone in Halifax as a 15-year-old in January 1924.

Now turn to your left, towards the rail car about 40 metres away. We’ll walk along the sidewalk that fronts the line of warehouses now called Halifax Seaport. Instead of cargo, these old warehouses now house the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, the Farmer's Market and the Cunard entertainment centre as well as the Museum.

I'll keep talking as we go.

As we walk I’d like to give you my big-picture view of our city.

Halifax is in Nova Scotia, one of Atlantic Canada's four provinces. It's a deep, well-sheltered port on the North Atlantic, the closest ice-free port to Europe and about 950 km northeast of New York.

Halifax was founded in 1749 by the British but they weren't the first Europeans around here. That honour goes to the French who established a vibrant farming community called Acadia 200 km to the southwest of us in 1604 and the formidable Fortress Louisbourg at the northern tip of the province. Before that, Halifax was part of Mi'kmaqi, an Indigenous nation of about 2,200 people. They had been there for about 12,000 years.

Long before that, about 18,000 years ago, Nova Scotia was covered by sheets of ice up to three kilometres thick. These massive glaciers scoured the land right down to bedrock leaving behind smooth, polished stone and deep grooves. The ice carved out depressions that left over 6,000 lakes. As it melted it left behind dirt, stone bedrock, massive boulders and isolated mounds called drumlins. The Halifax Citadel fort is perched one such drumlin.

The soil can be so thin along the Atlantic coast of the province that communities like Peggy's Cove have almost no topsoil or well water. There is no soil to bury water pipes or sanitary sewers. Drinking water is trucked in to most shops. You wouldn’t have to mow your lawn, just sweep the bedrock.

Believe it or not Nova Scotia was part of Africa about 200 million years ago. At that time all of earth's landmasses were bunched into a single continent called Pangea and Nova Scotia was right next to the land that became Morocco. Scientists know that through matching rock layers, mineral fingerprinting and ancient fossils like some trilobites and coal age plants that grew in both places.

Halifax was a vital port for the Allies in both world wars. Early in World War II countries overrun by the Nazis sent 2,000 tonnes of gold bullion to this very dock. This precious cargo came from the treasuries of countries like France, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands. Held in vaults in Ottawa until the war was over, the gold allowed Britain to buy weapons and supplies from the United States.

Some 368,000 Canadian military personnel left to serve in Europe through this port during World War II. Some of them got married and sent their wives back this way. About 46,000 of them. Halifax was a true garrison town then, defended by gun emplacements and submarine nets. You can see the remains of them in Point Pleasant Park, not far from here.

Enemy submarines never got inside Halifax Harbour, but they frequently attacked vessels in its outer reaches an even laid mines there, sinking two ships.

Only one German spy was sent to Halifax as far as we know, and he never got here. That was Lieutenant Marius Langbein, an Abwehr agent who was landed by a U-boat near St. Martins, New Brunswick in May, 1942. He had orders to make his way to Halifax and report on shipping movements. But Langbein, who had lived in Canada before the war, took the easy way out. He headed to Ottawa and lived off his Abwehr grubstake until it ran out. In December, 1944 he surrendered to authorities. A jury found him not guilty of spying since he'd never really tried.

Keep going straight ahead along the sidewalk but stop before crossing the pavement. We don’t want you to miss hearing about the royal hissy fit in the hotel on the left.

On the left, you’ll see the rear of the Westin Nova Scotian hotel. It was built as Halifax's railway hotel, a 15-storey building at the terminus of Canada's coast-to-coast railway. It earned the name of Halifax's "grande dame" with superb dining facilities and elegant room service. It is approaching it's first centenary of existence.

Notable guests have included Queen Elizabeth II, who visited twice, plus Prince Charles and Princess Diana who caused an international sensation in 1983. In a news conference, which included a reporter from the upstart Halifax Daily News, she complained at length about media “wolves” and her lack of privacy since marrying Charles. The paper shrieked the news the next day with gigantic headlines reading "Agonies of a Princess". Members of the travelling press corps, which had somehow managed to keep quiet about the story, were enraged. The Daily News has not been invited to functions at Buckingham Palace ever since.

The hotel was sold in 1981 to Revenue Hotels which tried to turn it into a casino. When that bid failed they closed the hotel in 1993. The building was temporarily used as a dormitory for university students and was scheduled for demolition. But only a week ahead of the wrecking balls it was bought by a Connecticut firm and reopened in December, 1996 as the Westin Nova Scotian.

Cruise ships still dock alongside the hotel, and railway passengers can enter it through a tunnel from the station.

Keep walking to the statue of Samuel Cunard, who should be right in front of you.

Samuel Cunard became a world-class shipping magnate by cultivating a reputation for hard work and honesty. But he wasn’t above hiding from creditors if he had to.

Born in 1787 as the son of a carpenter he tried his hand at everything, delivering mail by ship and investing in whaling, tea imports and coal mining as well as the Halifax Banking Company. He purchased land in Prince Edward Island, eventually owning 1/7 of the province.

But he had a heart. When thousands of immigrants flooded the town during the harsh winters of 1820-21, he started soup kitchens with two partners.

He saw the potential of steam power early and sold the idea of an ‘ocean railway’ to the British Admiralty. At that time sailing ships took 30 to 70 days to cross the Atlantic. Cunard’s first steamer took only 12, arriving at Halifax in July, 1840.

But he fell on hard times and once, to avoid creditors, hid in a friend’s cottage until one of his own ocean liners was ready to leave the dock for England. Then, in a borrowed boat, he rowed out to meet her.

Cunard’s reputation for safety and speed in ocean crossings helped his line succeed against well-financed American ventures.

He died in England in 1865 but his legacy lives on. In World War II, the Cunard ships Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary, became the largest troop carriers used in the war, helping to shorten it by a year according to Winston Churchill.

Today the Queen Mary 2 often visits Halifax carrying cruise passengers. The Cunard Line is now a branch of the Carnival Line cruise empire.

Keep walking straight ahead.

Look to your left as you walk down the path. Behind the trees you should see a building with a lower-case letter d, the logo of the Discovery Centre. That's the new location for a terrific science museum and theatre aimed at families, especially those with young kids. The museum has galleries for science topics, a touch tank for ocean creatures and a 65-seat planetarium. That building used to contain the Electropolis Movie studio which produced several major science fiction films for television.

While we’re on the subject of movies, Halifax has appeared in at least five Hollywood blockbusters starring the likes of Humphrey Bogart, Randolf Scott, Leonardo DiCaprio, Kate Winslet, Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson and Tom Hanks.

Used as a backdrop for the 1997 movie Titanic, Halifax provided its own unscheduled drama at the wrap party held for cast and crew: someone spiked the chowder with PCP. Chaos ensued along with a rush to various hospitals. The culprit has never been caught.

By now you should be walking next to three sculptures of women. Their contributions to the war effort during World War II has only been recognized recently.

Thousands of women knitted socks, served meals, collected salvage items and even sang in canteens as part of the fight.

At that time there weren’t many restaurants in Halifax so hostels were opened up and women served sandwiches and cakes there.

The statues include a young girl pulling wagon full of salvage materials, a Black woman working on of the many canteens that fed servicemen and an older woman sitting in a chair knitting with a Mi’kmaq basket.

The display was spearheaded by the Halifax Women’s Historical Society.

Right past them is a sculpture titled The Emigrant. It was designed, sculpted in bronze and marble by Armando Barbon in 2013 to thank his adopted country.

The sculpture commemorates the courage of a father leaving his family for a country he’s never seen hoping to build a new life for them here. His family is shown looking on.

Immigrants make up 23 per cent of Canada’s population.

Barbon himself is an ideal immigrant. He came to Canada from Italy at 27, bought a struggling deli in Victoria, B.C. and built it into a thriving food distribution company. After his retirement he returned to Italy to study sculpture. His work is found in Spain Italy, Brazil and across Canada.

Let’s walk ahead to where the boardwalk widens.

Take a look around. In summer you’ll see people enjoying outdoor meals, children playing tag, people fishing for mackerel and pollock. Adults may be square dancing or listening to live music.

These people were brought together by a technique known as placemaking, a people-centred approach to increasing social engagement.

Placemaking means things like the Adirondack deck chairs and hammocks along the boardwalk so visitors can sit and watch the marine traffic in the salty breeze. Halifax has a walk score of 70 and is classified as “very walkable” according to Walkscore.com

Placemaking includes interesting sculptures like the crazy lampposts a few stops ahead of us. It’s also responsible for the play submarine that attracts dozens of kids and the Wave, which attracts even more.

Gone are the businesslike tugboats which now tie up across the harbour. Instead kids play hopscotch on painted courts. Others play beach volleyball on a field of sand, bang on convenient bells and pipes, munch on street food and shop in tiny pop-up stores along the wharf.

Work on the Halifax boardwalk began in the early 1980s. Before that it was an industrial strip mall with warehouses and wharves. You wouldn’t have visited unless you had business there. Have a look at the picture I’ve posted below.

Let’s keep walking.

If that sounds almost scripted, it’s not. The people you see were lured to the waterfront by a technique known as placemaking, a people-centred approach to increasing social engagement.

That’s why the city added Adirondack deck chairs and hammocks so visitors could sit and watch the marine traffic in the breeze. Halifax has a walk score of 70 and is classified as “very walkable” according to Walkscore.com

Placemaking includes interesting sculptures like the crazy lampposts just ahead of us. It’s also responsible for the play submarine that attracts dozens of kids and the Wave, which attracts even more.

Gone are the working tugboats which now tie up in Woodside across the harbour. Instead kids play hopscotch on painted courts. Others play beach volleyball on a field of sand, bang on convenient bells and pipes, munch on street food and shop in tiny pop-up stores along the wharf.

Work on the Halifax boardwalk began in the early 1980s. You wouldn't have visited the waterfront before then unless you had business there.

Look to the right and you'll see an island very close to the shore. It's called Georges Island and is occupied by an old fort called Fort Charlotte. You can get to the Island by kayak or special ferry arranged through Ambassatours, several stops ahead at Cable Wharf. The kayak trip is easy and fun. There's an outfit just that rents kayaks and offers tours to the Island with an experienced guide, so you're in safe hands.

Georges is an ideal spot for defensive fortifications and has been used for that over the centuries right up until World War II. The Island was abandoned for many years after that but has been reactivated as a tourist centre. You can wander around the grassy meadows and peer at the outer harbour through the earth fortifications. Guides on site conduct regular tours through tunnels running from one gun emplacement to another. They'll point out a footprint left by one of the builders centuries ago. It's about a men's size 7. You can also see cannons, aimed out to sea. Despite its threatening purpose those guns have never been fired. The Island has been used as a jail and as a hospital during epidemics.

The main area of the fort is a lovely lawn suitable for a picnic. Many Haligonians avoid Georges for fear of a murderous population of snakes, but that’s hogwash. There are only 400 to 500 of them and they're harmless Maritime Garter Snakes. I have personally picnicked on that Island, lying on the grass. Nothing slithered by.

While we're on the subject of Islands, Sable Island is a sandbar 300 km east of here. Because it rises only a bit above the waterline, it's practically invisible to sailors who, in their old square-rigged ships, often ran around on the sand before they knew it. It has been the final resting place of 350 documented wrecks since 1583 and became known as the Graveyard of The Atlantic. One of the ships that ran aground carried a cargo of horses. Their descendants number 450 today and live wild on the Island, now a national park.

Their population is dwarfed by a growing population of grey seals which use the Island to give birth to pups and to rest during the year.

Less than a dozen people can be found on the Island year round. They are mostly researchers or Parks Canada employees.

You can visit Sable by air, but that’s pretty expensive. Google offers a cheap solution. Just find Sable on the map and drop the tool called Pegman along a path. You can hike right along it.

Let's keep walking.

Look at the construction cranes around the Halifax skyline and you'll have no trouble believing that Halifax is one of the fastest-growing cities in Canada. The population has increased over 20 per cent in the past 10 years from 418,000 in 2016 to 517,000 today. And city planners have been told to prepare for a population of 1 million by 2050. The increase is blamed on high levels of immigration and the Covid 19 pandemic which caused an invasion of house-bound workers in search for a more pleasant and affordable place to live.

With all that it's no wonder housing prices have increased. In fact they have more than doubled in the past 10 years from $270,000 in 2016 to $602,000 now.

And all those people has affected traffic. Halifax is the 13th largest city in Canada, but it’s third in terms of traffic congestion. Drivers, poking along at an average 19 kmh in rush hour, lose 111 hours every year. On top of that it's nearly impossible to find a parking spot. Even the city government admits it's 'frustrating'.

Surprisingly, 75 per cent of Haligonians say they are satisfied or very satisfied with their lives. They probably take the bus.

Keep walking, along the wharf extension towards those funny-looking lampposts just ahead.

And there they are, a bunch of lamp posts bent right out of shape. In fact one of them is lying on the ground! But it's not a pile of junk left by the city works department, it's actually art! A couple of graduates from the N.S. College of Art and Design, Chris Hanson and Hendrika Sonnenberg created them. One lamp post, named Fountain, sends a stream of water into the harbour as if relieving itself after a long night out. Nearby are two lamp posts called Get Drunk, Fall Down. One of the lamp posts has actually collapsed to the ground while its companion looks on with concern. And yes, the lamps do light up at night.

Did you know that Halifax has more bars per capita than any other city in Canada? That might explain the popularity of those cheeky sculptures. Too bad one of the lamp posts isn't devouring a pizza. We're not far from Halifax's fabled Pizza Corner, always crowded at night with students on their way home to Dalhousie University or one of several other colleges and universities around here. We don't have time to get to Pizza Corner, but you'll be able to get great snacks not far ahead.

Keep sauntering along, staying with the perimeter of the Boardwalk.

There are about 45 shipwrecks in Halifax Harbour, with magnetic anomalies indicating 50 more. The Maritime Museum has a database of 50,000 shipwrecks all over Nova Scotia with photos of 250 of them. Among the wrecks is the HMCS Clayoquot, a mine sweeper which was hit by a torpedo in December 1944 and sunk within 10 minutes. All but eight crew members survived.

There are also between 24 and 32 Volvo cars at the bottom of the harbour in 200 feet of water. These were part of a 1969 shipment which sustained so much saltwater damage they were deemed unsellable. They were dumped, with permission, and serve today as targets for sidescan sonar and multibeam-bathymetry trials.

There are even three airplanes resting on the bottom. In 1938 two De Havilland Moth biplanes collided and plunged into the harbour. All three on board were rescued. In 1941 a Catalina flying boat flipped over landing in a rough swell and sank with all eight lives lost.

Keep walking, keeping to the perimeter. You might want to grab a deck chair as this topic is on the long side.

The first European to visit Halifax was Samuel de Champlain in 1605. He founded Acadia, a vibrant farming community which drew its population from protestants from Brittany in France. The French also built Fortress Louisbourg at the northern tip of Nova Scotia.

Halifax was built to counteract the growing French influence in 1749 when Britain sent Edward Cornwallis and 2,500 people here in 15 vessels.

But this settlement violated treaties signed with the Mi'kmaq in 1726 and was the cause of hostilities for the next 12 years.

Cornwallis found the harbour easy to protect and it had the benefit of a huge hill overlooking it. Work started immediately to build a a fort on the hill. After many revisions it became known as Halifax Citadel, the most formidable British fort in North America, though its guns were never fired in anger. Today the Citadel is one of Canada’s most visited tourist attractions. More about that in another walking tour.

Settlers had a rough time over their first ten years with many Indigenous raids, prompting Governor Cornwallis to issue a bounty of 10 guineas for the scalp of any Mi’kmaq man, woman or child. But the raids continued, prompting one officer to write that claims the British were masters of the province were fiction. Troops at nearby Fort Edward, Fort Sackville and Lunenburg, he wrote, “could not be reputed in any other light than as prisoners.”

Cornwallis’ scalping proclamation caused a furor in Nova Scotia when historian Daniel Paul revealed it in 1993. Suddenly Cornwallis’ name was removed from schools and roads throughout the province and statues of him were taken down.

The growing confidence of the Mi’kmaq and their allies, the Acadians, finally forced the British to respond, first by expelling 11,500 Acadians from their settlements because they had refused to recognize the British Crown. British forces burned their homes and shipped them to various points in the 13 colonies. About one third of them died.

The conflict with Mi’kmaq ended with the Burying the Hatchet Ceremony held in 1761 in front of the Court House on Spring Garden Road. It is now celebrated as Treaty Day October 1 every year though no treaty was ever signed for their land.

Hard winters convinced many settlers to leave Halifax for places like New York and Boston. But easy money lured New England merchants to Halifax where they were able to sign contracts with the British and smuggle goods to the French.

In 1759, the British victory at the Plains of Abraham led to the fall of New France. Halifax's importance diminished and so did its economy. Times got so hard that, in 1775, Quebec had to send flour to feed people here. There was no money even to buy oil for the new Sambro Lighthouse.

Times were also hard for the navy which was plagued with desertions. Press gangs, at one point armed with bayonets, patrolled the streets of Halifax, causing a riot. In Liverpool and Shelburne, troops broke into homes, forcing families to live in the forest.

Times got better thanks to the Napoleonic Wars. The navy squadron grew more powerful and fought several engagements off the coast. The most dramatic was the capturing of the American frigate, USS Chesapeake by the HMS Shannon in one of the bloodiest battles in the Age of Sail with a total of 228 dead or wounded.

British forces even captured what would become the State of Maine early in the war, naming it New Ireland. Revenues were used to found Dalhousie University in Halifax.

The British even attempted to burn the White House in 1813. More about that in another tour.

In 1818 the Royal Naval yard was moved to Bermuda but enterprising merchants helped it weather the economic effects. Cunard Shipping Lines was started by Samuel Cunard in Halifax and two of Canada’s largest banks, the Bank of Nova Scotia and Royal Bank of Canada were founded here. Alexander Keith entered the brewing business. His first brewery still stands not far away, now host to a weekly farmer’s market.

Let’s keep walking. Bear to the left down Saltyard Way.

Halifax is the only city in Canada with an official food, properly certified in a city council vote in 2015.

And it’s not oysters or lobster or any kind of fish, it’s something called a donair. Introduced to the city in 1973 by a Greek restauranteur, it is an East Coast variation of the Turkish doner kebab. It features heavily spiced ground beef, instead of the traditional lamb, shaved from a vertical spit, topped with diced tomatoes, raw onions, and sweet, garlicky sauce, wrapped in a warm Lebanese pita.

Donairs are a popular order at Pizza Corner at Blowers and Grant Streets. But you can buy your donair at Tony's Donairs right on the boardwalk.

You can also order beaver tails, a Canadian snack of fried dough served piping hot, slathered in butter and dusted with cinnamon sugar. Barack Obama endeared himself to citizens of Ottawa when he bought a beaver tail from a local market during his first visit to Canada in 2009.

And no list would be complete without poutine, the Québécois comfort dish consisting of french fries topped with fresh cheese curds and smothered in gravy. The name means "mess" in Quebec slang.

A rival to the drunken lampposts is The Wave, a giant blue sculpture by artist Donna Hiebert that appeared on the waterfront in 1988.

Art critics roll their eyes at the cartoon look of it, but admire the work for the way people interact with it. Some interactions look dangerous, so a spongy surface was placed around it to guard against injury to the children who can't resist climbing it.

Some kids have been hurt, but not seriously. In 2007 a seven-year-old Massachusetts boy backed up to gather his strength for a run to the top. But he backed up a little too far and fell backwards off the wharf and in the water instead. In 2013 a three-year-old was hurt falling off the crest of the wave, prompting his father to start a petition. This was opposed by the public and artist Hiebert, who said the structure was not playground equipment.

For a while the Wave was surrounded by a chain link fence, but there was such an uproar, the city took it down.

Keep walking towards the warship ahead on your right.

The heroic exploits of HMCS Sackville might never have happened if not for a mutiny early in its history. Tension grew between its first captain and the crew during the ship’s first months at sea and culminated in a dramatic incident where he was confined to quarters.

The Sackville is the last corvette of 122 built for the Canadian Navy during World War II. They were slow, lightly armed vessels, 200 feet long with a crew of 90. The design was chosen because they were cheap to produce anywhere in Canada. And they were effective: by the end of the war Canadian corvettes had sunk 17 Axis submarines while only 12 corvettes were lost at sea.

The mutiny occurred in February, 1942 after Sackville got separated from its convoy and was unable to locate it again. Due to the breakdown in trust between captain and crew, the first lieutenant confined him to quarters and took control of the vessel. The captain was replaced and the Sackville’s crew dispersed and replaced by the crew of another corvette.

Under its new captain, the vessel saw action in August, 1942 when the convoy it was escorting was deprived of air cover by heavy fog and was attacked by two successive 'wolf packs' of submarines.

On August 3, Sackville depth charged U-43, a German U-boat which survived but was badly damaged and had to head to France for repairs. The next day Sackville attacked U-704 and forced it to break off its attack allowing it to rescue two survivors from an abandoned merchant ship that had already been torpedoed. Hours later Sackville detected U-552 by radar and hit the sub's conning tower with a four-inch shell from its forward gun, followed by a depth charge. The U-boat nearly sank but managed to creep back to Germany heavily damaged.

Sackville attacks played a key role in allowing its 41-ship convoy to escape with the loss of only two ships. The vessel served with several other escort groups until damage to a boiler forced her to assume safer duties. She was paid off in April, 1946 and laid up in reserve.

In 1952 she was reactivated and converted to a fisheries research vessel. She remained in service until 1982. In 1983 the Canadian Naval Memorial Trust was established and Sackville was restored to her 1944 appearance. She now spends summers docked next to the Maritime Museum and winters at the naval dockyard nearby.

Now walk back along the wharf and to the right around the Wave. You should be standing outside the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.

One of the smallest items in the museum is one of its most popular: a pair of children's shoes taken from the body of a young boy who drowned in the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. Clarence Northover, a Halifax Police Sergeant, was helping to guard the bodies of victims of the Titanic, which sank about 1300 km east of Halifax. All clothing was to be burned to stop souvenir hunters but Northover couldn't bear to burn the tiny shoes and, when no one stepped forward to claim them, he hid them in his desk drawer until he retired six years later. Sailors who had participated in the recovery of bodies paid for a large headstone and white coffin. Placed inside was a copper pendant that read "Our Babe". The coffin was placed in the Grave of the Unknown Child along with two other young children.

The Northover family gave the shoes to the museum and, after extensive testing including scanning electron microscopes and DNA, the little boy was identified as Sidney Leslie Goodwin, 19 months, from England. He died along with his five siblings and both parents. Frederick Goodwin, Sidney's father had been enroute to Niagara Falls to follow up a job offer.

The museum has other Titanic exhibits like an original deckchair and bas-relief wood panels from the lobby and dining room.

Other museum exhibits detail the horrific Halifax Explosion of 1917, largest man-made explosion until the atomic age. More about that in another tour.

The skull of pirate Edward Jordan has been displayed at the museum. That is all that is left of Jordan, who was hung in 1809, then tarred and placed in a gibbet, a wire cage just big enough to hold a body upright. The cage was hoisted on a gallows on Black Rock Beach, now a popular sunbathing spot not far from where we started our tour. It gradually rotted away until all that was left was the skull.

The British Navy used gibbeting to deter potential deserters. Sailors who had tried to desert were hanged, tarred and placed in gibbets hung from gallows on what became known as Hangman's Beach on an island across the harbour from Black Rock Beach. Sailors arriving in Halifax would look to their right and spot bodies hanging from several gallows and become convinced to stay with their ships.

Let’s walk to the right and have a look at the Acadia, a venerable research vessel.

We might not know Eastern Canada’s coastline quite so well if not for the Acadia, a research vessel that played many roles from rescuing Arctic adventurers to serving as an armed warship during both world wars.

Acadia has an elegant, Edwardian look imparted by its Canadian naval architect, R.L. Newman. Built in Newcastle, UK, her hull was reinforced in Canada for service as an ice breaker. And a good thing too for she was able to perform many rescues, the first being evacuating the crew of a ship crushed in ice in Hudson Bay.

Powered by steam, she was only capable of eight knots, but was fitted with a deck gun and used in anti-submarine patrols all over the east coast in World War I.

On Dec 6, 1917, Acadia was on duty as a guard ship in Bedford Basin when she became one of the few ships to survive the Halifax Explosion, the biggest man-made blast before the atomic age.

During World War II, Acadia was used as a patrol ship at the entrance to Halifax Harbour.

In 1961, Acadia rescued hundreds of people from forest fires in eastern Newfoundland, evacuating 600 people.

She became a museum ship in 1982, moored along the boardwalk in summer.

The crew of Acadia welcomed two official cats during this period, appointing them to the post of rodent control officer. The last cat, Erik, retired in 2015 with a party in his honour and died in 2017 after a short illness. In naval tradition he was buried at sea.

If you look across the wharf from Acadia you’ll see his successor, a tabby cat statue sitting on a bench. It’s okay to scratch between his ears.

Let's keep walking along the main boardwalk to see some interesting art.

Everybody notices Sail, a 21-foot wire mesh sculpture by Italian artist Edoardo Tresoldi, where the Boardwalk meets Prince Street. But what many people don’t realize is that it’s just one of many works of art owned by Queen’s Marque, a hotel, office and apartment complex with an inner courtyard right next to us.

Sail, by the way, takes much of its hull shape from Nova Scotia’s iconic Schooner Bluenose, which proved itself in international races from 1921-38 to be the fastest fishing schooner in the North Atlantic fishery. Most Canadians carry Bluenose with them in the form of a Canadian dime which has featured an image of the vessel since 1937. The Bluenose II, a near-identical reconstruction, still sails today as Nova Scotia’s goodwill ambassador.

You might want to have a look at Sail late in the evening. Internal lights in the sculpture turn it into a breathtaking sight against the harbour.

We’re right at the edge of Queen's Marque, an elaborate tribute to Nova Scotia, developed by Armour Group of Halifax. With the motto “Born of This Place”, it uses local materials in its construction and artwork. The courtyard inside is a playground of upscale dining, public art and luxury accommodations at the very spot where Edward Cornwallis landed in 1749 to establish Halifax.

Let’s walk through the passage to the courtyard.

The first artwork you’ll see is Queen’s Landing, an improbable set of 10 massive granite steps leading right down to the ocean floor. It’s a great opportunity for people to put their feet into the Atlantic Ocean, especially during our chilly winters!

We have more steps just ahead in the form of Rise Again, a gentle set of 35 timber stairs leading two stories up to a spectacular view of the harbour. At the apex is Tidal Beacon, an interactive light installation that changes its light patterns in response to the ocean tides.

At four points of the compass are The Sirens, mirror-like sculptures of mythical Greek sirens, symbolizing the harbour as both a haven and point of departure into the world.

At the entrance to the hotel is a pair of glowing columns called Light Chocks, made of abstract Fresnel lenses that mimic lighthouse lenses.

All around are Muntz Metal panels covering the sides of the building, decorated with drawings and poetry. That material was used to stop the hulls of ships from rotting during long ocean voyages.

Whenever you're ready, lets walk out the courtyard to Cable Wharf.

In its day, the warehouse known as Cable Wharf, built in 1913, stored more than enough copper cable to span the Atlantic. Today it’s a great place to buy ice cream.

The huge spools you see on the courtyard are 4 to 5 metres wide but with 150 km of cable wound around them, the diameter extended to 10 to 15 metres. Cable laying ships typically carried over 40 such spools, more than enough to span the Atlantic Ocean.

These cables changed the world, allowing news and information to cross the ocean in minutes rather than weeks.

Today the oceans are laced with submarine cables including two that land in Herring Cove 14 km from downtown Halifax, connecting directly to England and Ireland. Many specialized ships are required to maintain and repair these cables. Sometimes they make interesting discoveries like the wreck of the German WWII warship Karlsruhe, sitting on the ocean floor just 15 metres away from a cable off the coast of Norway.

But undersea cables weren’t always so sophisticated. It took 16 hours to transmit Queen Victoria’s 98-word telegram to the U.S. to mark the opening of the first cable in 1858. Today’s fibre optic cables can handle 84 billion words per minute and support 150 million conversations.

Today there are over 650 active and planned undersea cable systems worldwide, spanning more than 1.5 million kilometres across the ocean floor. These fiberoptic highways carry 99% of all international and internet data.

When you’re ready we’ll walk across to the Dartmouth Ferry Terminal.

It took nine horses walking in a circle to drive a paddlewheel and push the first specially-built ferry across the harbour to Dartmouth, the only way to get there until the Angus L. Macdonald Bridge opened in 1955.

Things improved: Halifax now has five specially-built ferries that run without horses or paddle wheels. The service employs 48 people and operates over two routes, one connecting downtown Halifax with Alderney Landing, 2 km across the harbour and the other connecting downtown Halifax with Woodside about 5 km away. The two ferry routes see about 5,600 passenger boardings per week.

A fast-ferry system of five catamarans that can cruise at 70 kph is set to start working in 2027 or 2028 operating between Bedford and Halifax.

Only a few mishaps have interrupted traffic. In June 2026 the service was cancelled because the crew couldn’t get to the boat. They were stuck in a traffic jam caused by a bridge being closed for maintenance.

In 2019 the crew of the Vincent Coleman rescued a passenger who fell overboard midway through the crossing. The ferry stopped next to the man and the crew threw him a safety net, but one crew member jumped into the water when it became clear he was having trouble.

In 1980 rowdy fans coming home from a winter rock concert wrecked a ferry because they were angry at having to wait outside the terminal in the rain. They ripped out the ceiling and tossed a 20-passenger lifeboat overboard in about ten minutes. Police kicked the crowd off the ferry meaning most of them had to walk home in the rain.

In December 1944 the ferry Governor Cornwallis developed a fire in the engine room which spread throughout the boat. All 400 passengers, many with Christmas shopping packages, were safely let off the burning vessel. It was towed out into the harbour and beached near Georges Island where it sank in deep water.

Let’s walk ahead to the next building where privateers and smugglers brought their ill-gotten gains to sell.

Imagine frantic shouts in crowded warehouses as government-sanctioned pirates sold

stolen goods to anybody who would buy.

The warehouses in this part of Halifax, called Privateers Wharf in the early 19th century,

were bulging with loot seized from captured ships by armed privateers who defied

blockades to supply British forces.

Overseeing the commotion were privateers like Enos Collin, who started as a cabin boy

and eventually owned the most feared privateering vessel of the time, the Liverpool

Packet and other ships. Though basically uneducated, Collins connived his wartime

wealth to start Collins Bank, which later became the Canadian Imperial Bank of

Commerce, the fifth largest bank in Canada.

Folk singer Stan Rogers memorialized Privateers’ Wharf in his song Barrett's

Privateers.

Privateers were people or ships that were given permission — called letters of marque

— to attack enemies. Their activities were Nova Scotia's main contribution during the

War of 1812. During the war over 35 Nova Scotian privateers seized more than 200

American ships bringing them and their cargo to Halifax. Merchants bought the goods

and sold them, sometimes to the original owners. But privateering was risky: almost a

quarter of the boats belonging to local owners were captured, burnt or lost.

Collins Bank warehouse is one of the seven original buildings. They had all fallen into

disuse but were declared to be of national importance which saved them from the

wrecking ball. They were completely refurbished and are now called Historic

Properties. Today the stone buildings, dating back as far as 1790, now boast modern

restaurants, boutiques, gift shops and offices.

Despite a career of risk and adventure, Enos Collins lived to a ripe old age. He retired

in 1840 to devote himself to charity and the Conservative party. In 1871 at the age of 97,

he died as the richest man in Canada.

This is the final stop on our tour and a great place to end it considering the buildings around us go back to the earliest days of Halifax.

I've added a feedback form to our tour. You can reach it by pressing the "Next" button at the bottom of your screen. I'd appreciate any feedback or suggestions you have.

Thanks for walking with me and I hope you enjoy our lovely city as much as I do!