Halifax, Sunday, 4-Jun-2023
On our last full day in Halifax, we went up to the Halifax Citadel. The rest of the day was low-key, including a walk down to the waterfront.
We had been watching the weather all week and figured our best bet would be to tour the Halifax Citadel on Sunday morning, which had the chance of the least amount of rain. The gamble paid off; we had no rain during our whole visit.
The Halifax Citadel was kitty-corner across from where we were staying, so it was a short walk up the hill to the entrance. We knew we wanted to take the guided tour, but we had a lot of time beforehand to look around. After going through the small exhibit in the Information Centre, we went into the main courtyard.
Figuring that we had enough time, we went to look at the north viewing platform (which is on the east corner). The view was pretty obscured, but seeing that we could walk all the way around the inner wall, we zipped up our coats against the wind and began.
A couple sets of stairs on the north and west corners led down to defense casemates, where cannons were pointing into the dry ditch. This was to protect against attackers who happened to make it up the hill and over the outer wall. There were also prison cells in these areas.
From the city, you can't really see the citadel walls, but you do see two signal towers where flags were raised for communication. We were able to walk right under them on the south corner. There was also another viewing platform that gave us a great view of the water.
It was almost time for the tour to begin, but we went inside the information centre to stay out of the wind. We heard someone talking outside, figuring it must be the tour guide. However, when we got to the courtyard, we saw that what we heard was the beginning of the changing of the guard (one is posted at the entrance, another on the inside of the entrance tunnel). They change every hour.
Not long after that, our guide came out. We joined the tour in English, and just like the Immigration Museum, it was quite a large group. The French tour had about half a dozen people in it. After giving a brief history, we saw a rifle demonstration. While the first rifles used at the citadel were ones where you had to reload from the front, the rifle being demonstrated was a breechloader, where the round is inserted near the back. The rounds were quite large; naturally, blanks were used for the demonstration.
We then went into the dry ditch between the citadel and the outer wall. The toru guide then led us into the musketry gallery located inside the outer wall. It was almost completely dark, but several people were using their phones to light the way. In the gallery were slits pointing into the dry ditch for riflemen to defend against intruders.
Our next stop was the building used to store the black powder. It was stored in barrels that could hold 100 pounds, and each barrel needed to be rolled each day to prevent caking due to the humid weather. As with the musketry gallery, it was almost completely dark inside.
Our last stop was near the south defense casemate where the guide talked about them and the signal posts.
After the tour, we went to the second floor of the information centre building to look through the Army Museum.
Wanting to get to lunch before the rain, we dropped things off at the room and then went to a restaurant. We ended up ordering a bit more than we needed but were able to take home a salad that we could have with dinner. Dropping that off at the room, we picked up our laptops, then went down to the waterfront.
We wanted to try a different ice cream kiosk at the waterfront, but it was closed for the day. We ended up going back to Cows; yes, we were the people eating ice cream outside in 50° weather.
There was a café not too far away, so we hung out there for a bit. So far so good with the rain, but we were expecting it to start while we were there. The place was crowded when we arrived, but we found a table. Within about 20 minutes, however, only about a dozen people were in the place.
To our surprise, it was at worst a slight mist when we left. We made a beeline to the store to pick up some more snacks and the rest of dinner. Not long after we returned, we saw that the ground was wet, so we felt weather-lucky for the day.
