Halifax

Wednesday, 10 October, 14;15 (Atlantic Daylight Time), Aboard The Ocean, VIA Rail Train 15, Halifax to Quebec.

We pulled out of the Halifax Station at 12:15.  We are scheduled to arrive at Charny, on the south side of the St. Lawrence, at 05:45 where we board a shuttle to take us across to the Quebec City train station.  From the Gare du Palais, we have a short walk to the hostel and, after Montreal, our second chance to redeem our attempts to say something useful in French.

We woke to rain this morning.  Since our flight landed last Thursday afternoon, clouds and possible rain were in most of the weather forecasts and either failed to materialize or it sprinkled when it didn’t matter (to us).  We did the volkswalk, walked the harbor front, and wandered the streets safely and dryly.  Several days were windy and cool.  It’s October.

Halifax was our longest stop, built into the schedule as a way of banking some time should any of the difficult and tedious connections in Atlantic Canada go wrong  and because Halifax seemed interesting.  Another day was added for the Thanksgiving holiday on Monday and the fact that The Ocean does not run north on Tuesdays.  We appreciated and used our time well.

Most of the Canadian hostels are well-sited.  The Halifax Heritage House Hostel is about three blocks from the VIA Rail and Acadian Bus station, a similar distance from the Seaport Farmers Market, and, for a bonus, the cruise terminal with often three ships daily and 3-5,000 people wandering around saying, “Martha, what is this town?”

Three blocks from us, Laura’s Cafe served a good, inexpensive breakfast and offered a sizable Russian menu.  For lunch yesterday we shared a large bowl of Borscht and a plate of Perogies, both foods our ancestors borrowed from the Russian people during their hundred year stay.  Perogies were renamed Kaseknoepfla (cheese buttons) but the similarity is there.

I’ve known borscht as an end of the season what’s-left-in-the-garden soup, based on beef broth and an assortment of late season vegetables such as beets (the basis of Russian Borscht), cabbage, turnips, onion, carrots, potatoes, and all those strange little things still growing in a corner of the garden.  It, like anything else, is best served with sour cream.  There are borscht recipes and there are borscht purists.  Neither should be taken seriously.

All that being said, Laura’s Borscht was a delicate soup of finely sliced beets, onions, carrots, and potatoes--and a joy to eat.  Laura’s background was southern Russian, near Georgia.  We talked about the differences of traditional Russian to the Georgian-influenced food.  As is common, more spices and heat are present in the southern versions.  

Beyond eating together, Pat, being more artistic, visited shops, art galleries, and the Nova Scotia gallery of art, making friends with artists she had never known.

I spent an afternoon at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, fascinated with Halifax’s recovery role in the days following the 14 April, 1912 Titanic disaster and, five years later, the lesser known but devastating Halifax Explosion.  The latter, the result of a collision between the SS Mont-Blanc, a French cargo ship loaded with munitions and fuel, and the the Norwegian SS Imo, killed several thousand people and leveled a large section of Halifax. It is considered the largest human caused explosion ever until atomic bombs began dropping.

We attended Sunday service at St. Paul’s Anglican (1750), the oldest Anglican church in Canada still in use.  St. Paul’s has in its cemetery victims of the Titanic sinking, as do several other local churches.  The original cemetery, located a short distance from St. Paul’s on Barrington St., holds many of the area’s pioneers and shapers of Halifax and Nova Scotia.

In spite of all the exceptional eating opportunities of the neighborhood, we ate most of our meals in, preparing locally grown and mostly organic food from the Seaport Farmers Market in the hostel kitchen.  

Most hostels have large kitchens with multiple appliances and counters for people to prepare meals.  A simple meal is often a gathering point for stories, travel tips, plans, and local lore.  It was at the Charlottetown Backpacker’s Hostel, for example, that we first learned of the Water Prince restaurant. 

Staying at the Halifax Hostel were three young Germans from Saxony (Leipzig-Dresden area), in Canada working and traveling under a special cooperative program agreement (in which the US does not participate).  All three left while we were in Halifax:  Two young men to work on an organic farm an hour from Halifax and Z-, on her way to western Canada, hoping to work in a hostel.  She is halfway through her year while the guys arrived only three weeks earlier.

Finally--not because I am out of Halifax stories but, as my uncle used to say, “This has got to stop!”--one of the delightful and meaningful things done by the hostel staff on Monday evening was to prepare and serve a traditional Canadian Thanksgiving meal (eerily similar to a US Thanksgiving meal, except for the absence of the candied yams and mini-marshmallows and the fact that it arrives almost two months earlier) for all of us staying at the hostel.  It was good food and a delightful evening.

Evening is coming on and the cloud-gray sky is losing its light.  We are in central New Brunswick traveling through a forested and fairly flat area.  We see more autumn color in the leaves here.  Several beautiful rural and small town scenes of golds and reds rushed by before we could get out the camera.  We are surrounded by beauty.