FRIDAY

Today, Mom, Dad, and Fred went home.  We dropped them off at the airport, and then did a little low impact touring of Halifax.  Since it is the capital of Nova Scotia, we went to the Province House (Canadian for “State House”) with the Provincial Parliament in session.  This is the oldest seat of Government in Canada, and was built in 1812 by the British for their first "Overseas Government".

Actually, it was budget time, so the main room had Q&A (sort of) and there was a second Q&A session in another room, too.  By law, they are required to have at least 80 hours of Q&A for the budget, so if they do two sessions, they can finish in a week. 

Recalling from our trip to Victoria BC, the party getting the most votes becomes “Government” and everyone else becomes the “Opposition”.  They had three parties represented, and one “Independent”.  He was off in his own little corner.  

So, in the main room, the Opposition was asking questions of the Government about the budget released last week.  When we arrived, one guy was asking why the budget for local festivals was cut, and going on about how the “Apple Blossom Festival” needed financial support.  One of the Govt guys had his chair turned most of the way around, his feet up on something, and slouching big time while absorbed on his Blackberry.  Mind you, there are ONLY 51 seats in the whole floor (on both sides), so it wasn’t like he was blending in.  He was in the front of three rows.  The Govt guy who gave the answer (2-3 desks away) started with “That part of the budget was not changed.” And then went on absurdly long about his childhood, and his favorite festivals, and 10 minutes and 6 occurrences of “Apple Blossom Festival” later, we finally got out of there with less than ONE full Q&A, but a realization that the longer they spent on any given question, the fewer they had to answer in those 80 hours! 

During all this fun, a news crew was interviewing the Premiere (like the Governor of Nova Scotia).  Not sure what they were asking but we squeezed past them to get to the “Red Room”*, where the second session was in process.  (*This was confusing, because I think the walls were grey or maybe pink, but definitely not Red!)  A woman seemed to be giving a speech about how “much has been done to help [people in low economic states or other needy groups], but much more was needed, too".  After 3-5 minutes I missed the nostalgia of the Apple Blossom Festivals of someone else’s youth.  Looking around the table this woman was addressing, I think most of them agreed. 

Province House of Nova Scotia (1812)

We also visited the Library, which was in the room in the Province House that used to house the Supreme Court.  It was small, but really neat, and a beautiful room.  This was the room Joseph Howe was tried for criminal libel (1830ish) for printing unsavory things in his newspaper about the government at the time (still British, not yet Canadian).  He found no one to represent him, so he defended himself with a 6 ½ hour speech delineating his evidence against those that accused him.  He was acquitted, and that set the precedent (in Canada) that “truth is an adequate defense” against libel.  It also made him a celebrity as the little guy who won, and made him a bit of a folk hero.

Government House

After the Province House, we walked down the road to the Government House, where the Premiere lives.  The house was built by (or rather for) Sir John Wentworth, previously Governor of New Hampshire, until the American Revolution.  He had a rather high opinion of his "needs" and seemingly had a glamorous wife whom he wished to please with a very nice place (at someone else's expense)!

We went to the Maritime Museum following a wake up lunch after the visit to the Province House.  They had some nice displays, but it was not well laid out.  They had a display on a tragedy that happened in 1917, during WWI.  A French ship was laden with explosives and gasoline.  Somehow, it managed to collide with another ship and the sparks started a raging fire on board.  The ship then drifted to the pier, engulfed in flames.  As firefighters rushed to the scene, it exploded.  The explosion completely wiped out over a square mile of buildings, and killed thousands of people.  But, while the ship was drifting, the railroad telegram operator sent off a message to stop all of the inbound trains.  The blast killed him and stopped all communication.  Because the word was out even before the disaster, military and medical help was arriving before the end of the day.  The State of Massachusetts sent tremendous aid in the form of both materials and manpower and built about 2000 apartments in 4-5 months.  City of Halifax has sent a Christmas tree to the City of Boston every year ever since.

The museum also had a few displays for the Titanic.  After the Titanic sank, some ships picked up the survivors and the drowned victims, and brought them to Halifax.  So, there was a fair amount of stuff there.

Graves of Titanic victims

After we left the museum, we headed over to one of the cemeteries and visited the grave sites of the Titanic victims.  When the mortuary processed the bodies, they tried to identify them.  Failing to do so for many, they gave each a tag with a number, and buried to them in various cemeteries with simple granite stones.  Some of them they were able to identify later, and added the info to the stone.  Some of them were identified, but buried in the same plot with similar stones.  It was stirring seeing the rows of the same markers.

Typical grave marker for unidentified victim of the Titanic.

 

Elsewhere in the cemetery we found a memorial for the people who died in the 1917 tragedy.

 

 

 

 

 

Our plan was to come home tomorrow (and still is), but since we did, we found out a snow storm was heading our way.  We are expecting 10-15 cm (4-6 in) of snow tonight.  It has already started.  It’s beginning to look like a white April!  So, we’re hopeful, but uncertain.  We’ll see soon enough!