Halifax Gardens and Library

2019-05-13.

Last week we ate at Smitty’s in Halifax after church, and I forgot Ezra’s sippy cup there, so I came back the next day to pick it up and used the opportunity to walk around Halifax a bit, visiting the Public Gardens and Central Library.

The Gardens were smaller than I expected, really just about the size of a large square city block, but still a decent urban oasis with views that nicely hid the city setting.

The Victorian history of the space is well in evidence, and I would not have felt out of place walking about while wearing a waistcoat and monocle.

Nearby, just down Spring Garden Road, is the new Halifax Central Library, recently finished in 2014, with architecture highly evocative of a haphazard stack of books.

The cantilevered top floor has lovely views of the city and harbour — as well as the full science fiction/fantasy section.

As always, I’m gathering photos related to our new Canadian life here in the Halifax photo album.

Memento Mori at Cole Harbour Heritage Park

2019-05-05.

Came across some reminders of mortality and impermanence as I was hiking around Cole Harbour Heritage Park last week.

Overlooking the sea were these crosses marking the graves of dead Halifax Poor’s Farm residents.

Farther down the shore and a bit off the trail, the decaying remnants of some vehicle, a car or a truck, rusting to pieces among the muddy rushes.

And most sobering of all, Papyrus headers on park signs and displays.

Full photo album from Cole Harbour Heritage Park here.

Easter 2019

2019-04-30.

Amy filled some plastic eggs with goodies and I hid them around the living room for Ezra to go on a quick indoor Easter egg hunt before church on Easter Sunday, ending with a gift from grandpa and grandma: his first tricycle.

He had a lot of fun with that, although he seemed a bit confused about being told about the Resurrection of Christ, which I think he may have associated with the elevator at church or something. Will probably have to instruct him in more complex theology later.

NS Art Gallery and Maud Lewis House

2019-04-26.

Visited the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, where we saw the work of famed folk artist Maud Lewis. Her painted house sits in the gallery, where it was moved in 1998, so I got a panoramic interior shot.

Also it’s worth noting that there’s a whole other wing to the Art Gallery that we totally did not notice till later; it’s where all the older non-contemporary/non-Maud Lewis art is, and is not accessible from the outside, only via a basement passage.

That’s where we saw Arthur Lismer’s watercolors of dazzle camo ships.

If you’re visiting Halifax and want to see all this for free, Art Gallery of NS has BMO free access Thursday nights from 5-9PM (admission charged all other days). More on Maud Lewis in the 1976 short film “Maud Lewis: A World Without Shadows.”

Pleasant Sunday at Point Pleasant Park

2019-04-14.

Some shots from a short Sunday walk around Point Pleasant Park on the southern end of the Halifax peninsula. There’s a beach there, called Black Rock Beach, but they advise no swimming since it’s right near the Seaport and the water might be dirty.

An anchor from the HMCS Bonaventure memorializes naval personnel who died in service.

Also there were cooooooorgiiiis

And nice ocean views.

I also spotted the saddest inukshuk.

More photos from Point Pleasant Park. I do hope to grow that collection of pics with more visits as it gets nicer out.

Walking through Forest Hills

2019-04-10.

It’s finally gotten warm enough to melt the snow and ice coating the paved walking paths that wind through Forest Hills in Cole Harbour, so it’s been nice to walk through the local woods to see the trees and lakes and little parks.

There are places where you’d barely know you were just walking between residential backyards, not unlike the forest trail in our old neighbourhood.

Ah, Nova Scotia, truly a land of stunning natural beauty.

More photos from our new life in Halifax here.

Nova Scotia Sunrise Time Lapse

2019-03-22.

Pointed a GoPro out an east-facing window to get a wintry Nova Scotia sunrise time lapse.

(I’m cheating a bit with the sound on this one; the original time lapse video was silent, so to add ambience I snipped some audio from an older video and added it to this one.)

And a still photo of said sunrise if you’d rather not see video.

Nova Scotia Saint Patrick’s Day Shirt

2019-03-17.

Found this very Nova Scotian Saint Patrick’s Day T-shirt at Walmart in Cole Harbour:

Discovery Centre Day

2019-03-16.

Greetings from Halifax Seaport and Discovery Centre, where Ezra had fun running about Someday Street driving various vehicles and browsing the market.

Beach, Moose, Snow

2019-03-04.

Update: now with video.

Turns out we’re just a short drive from Rainbow Haven Beach, so we went down there to take in the Atlantic coastal scenery. Too cold to swim, of course, but Ezra had fun watching the waves.

We also visited the famous Cow Bay Moose, a concrete sculpture by folk artist Winston Bronnum. Ezra is saying “moose” in the photo.

(The moose is at Silver Sands Beach, which used to be a nice sandy beach before the sand was all mined for construction, leaving only rocks.)

It was quite snowy later that day and through the night, with a nice fine powder that was fun to wallow about in the backyard for a bit the next day.

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