Halifax and the Titanic

On Sunday we decided to take the short trip into Halifax.  We needed to take the rental car back to the airport at some point so we made a day trip into the city.  There is much to see and do there but we decided to go to the Maritime Museum and see the special Titanic exhibit, some permanent and some just for the 100th anniversary, and visit one of the cemeteries where most of the victims recovered by cable ships from Halifax are buried.  The wharf is a fun happening place with play areas for children, restaurants and as we found, Theodore the Tugboat.  We ate out our first meal in Nova Scotia (after cooking in all week) at a great seafood restaurant called Murphy's on the wharf of the harbor watching the fog roll in.  We also watched a huge yacht right next to our table window prepare to sail out of the harbor and across the ocean to Great Britain. 

Looking down at the Halifax harbor from an upper street.

3-D glasses, ready for the Titanic experience at the museum.

Model of the Titanic, there were many of these with various information.  I did a lot of reading a loud to some very very interested children.  I think I know what we will be checking out books on when we return.

Sarah Kelly sitting in a reproduction of a Titanic deck chair.  There is an original chair (below) that was brought back on the cable ships when they brought back the bodies they found.

"Included in the salvage was this beechwood deck chair.  Almost fully intact, it featured the White Star Line trademark, a five pointed star, emblazoned on the headboard.  100 years later and fully restored, this deck chair survives at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.  One of only two known deck chairs remaining, this piece is the heart of the museum's permanent Titanic exhibit." - Taken from a postcard about the chair.  In the bottom left you see a piece of caning also recovered.  They used this pattern to re cane the chair.

A piece of the railing from the first class staircase.

Shoes worn by the unknown babe - more on him later down

Drew and Elizabeth admiring a ship; the boys loved this place!  This huge museum was all about ships from the beginning of shipping (sailing ships) up to modern day ones.  Lighthouses, cable-laying ships, and the special exhibits on the Titanic completed it.  We ended up staying until closing because none of the children wanted to leave. 

A huge lens from a lighthouse.

Where Titanic sank.  The town of Halifax is in red just above.  You can easily see its proximity in Nova Scotia to the disaster site.  This town, closest to the sinking, with many ships in the harbor because of the continuous cable laying operations on the Atlantic and the many activities of the port, was therefore available and had ships ready to head out on a recovery mission.  The White Star Line with an office in Halifax commissioned 4 ships for the recovery mission.

Elizabeth listening to information about cable ships dragging the ocean floor looking for broken cables. 

The unknown babe, now known 100 years later, hence the updated gravestone on the bottom.  Several days before I had read a piece from the April 14, 2012 Chronicle Herald (the Halifax newspaper) about "Our Babe".  You can read it too on this website here, the whole tragic story is there and it will move you.  If you look elsewhere on that website, there are many more stories of the Titanic for those of you who are interested or you can google The Chronicle Herald, April 14, 2012.  It's a special 100th anniversary edition.

Gravestones from some of the victims of the disaster.  All the "box" typed stones were provided by the town of Halifax unless the relatives wanted something else, then they were able to use whatever type of monument they wished.  Bodies were brought to Halifax, the closest port.  The recovery ships located 328 victims and brought back to Halifax 209.  The rest were buried at sea.  Any thought to be Protestant were buried here, in this Fairview Lawn Cemetery.  In recent years, some of the "unknown" have been identified and names have been respelled correctly due to better research.

I drove around the Halifax airport and found these hitchhikers.  I picked them up.

Quote of the Day: "He's my favorite, I have him in the car." - Jackson talking about Theodore the Tugboat and a colorful brochure he picked up earlier in the week and had been looking at it for several days.  Unfortunately, he had not said anything until we happened to see a model of it in the museum and then found the actual tugboat outside on the wharf where we took this picture.  The last "cruise" of the day had left just minutes before.  Had we known about it, one of us would have taken him on this; it was quite inexpensive and he just raved about Theodore the rest of our time there.  I will have to look for the television series on DVD that aired in Canada for several years.

Touching a lobster from the "touch tank" inside a restaurant on the wharf where we ate dinner.