Halifax says goodbye to drab, hello to fab

Picture-postcard views of verdant tidal marshes and weathered fishing villages greeted us around every bend in the road as my wife and I drove up the Lighthouse Route, the scenic slow road from Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, to Halifax, the historic seaport and provincial capital.

We had been deposited in Yarmouth late the night before after a rough, 212-mile crossing from Portland, Maine, on the year’s maiden voyage of the high-speed CAT car ferry. Now, decades after spending part of my childhood in Halifax, where my father was based as a captain in the Royal Canadian Navy, I was going home.

We timed our early June visit to beat the city’s short summer high season, when most tourists visit. This year, Halifax is expecting even more visitors than usual as it celebrates Canada’s 150th birthday with a visit by 40 tall ships.

They’ll be putting into port at the end of July before setting out on the last leg of the 2017 Rendez-Vous Tall Ships Regatta from Halifax to LeHavre, France. Free open-air concerts, nightly fireworks displays and food events on islands in the harbor will accompany the ships’ visit.

What we found was a pleasant surprise: Once-drab Halifax had become a gleaming jewel of a town. Not only had it sprouted a new high-rise skyline, but there was a two-mile-long waterfront boardwalk, a bumper crop of excellent new museums and some stellar new restaurants.

At the same time, the city — founded in 1749 by the British to counter the French presence in the region — had not just judiciously guarded its historic sites, but, in places, spruced them up. The Citadel, a massive star-shaped fortress, still stood guard atop the city’s highest hill, but now offered parking for the military museums inside.

The round Prince of Wales martello tower (a type of fort) still presided over Point Pleasant Park in the city’s South End. St. Paul’s Church, the oldest building in the city, where I had sung in the boys’ choir, still anchored the Grand Parade, now a park filled with brightly painted deck chairs.

Stone mid-18th century warehouses had been restored and opened to commerce. Alexander Keith’s Nova Scotia Brewery occupied its original 1822 structure near the water, but centuries of soot that I remembered from my childhood were gone.

Elsewhere, in the heart of town, the 16-acre Public Gardens, first planned and planted in 1836, offered a lush respite from the city’s bustle.

Ice cream and immigrant dreams

Diagonally across the street from the gardens, the Dairy Bar, a second-year startup, was serving honey-goat cheese-flavored soft ice cream when I stopped by, a testimony to the city’s increasingly sophisticated palate.

Daniel Crowther, who with Kaiah Singh was filling cones, told me he was bullish on business despite a slow start due to cooler-than-usual June weather. On warm days, he said, business had never been better.

The new Seaport Farmers’ Market, a striking new structure at the southern end of the boardwalk, was buzzing. Vendors were selling the season’s first produce. Others offered meats, fish, cheeses, baked goods, local wines and craft ciders.

Massive staircases to the second floor were packed with spectators who used them as bleachers to listen to buskers of every musical persuasion.

Outside, a small plaza was dominated by a statue of Samuel Cunard, the Halifax native who launched the steamship line that bears his name and who got his start in the shipping business by building the first cross-harbor ferries. Cunard became an ardent foe of racial segregation after learning that Frederick Douglass was confined to his cabin on one of his ships during an Atlantic crossing in 1845.

In close proximity, the Canadian Museum of Immigration, a high-tech showstopper, tells the stories of Canada’s immigrants, many of whom arrived at this spot, Pier 21. One exhibit is dedicated to the tens of thousands of Syrian refugees welcomed to Canada since Justin Trudeau became prime minister.

A free genealogical service allows visitors to track their ancestors’ arrival in Canada. We tried my wife’s family, who came from Ireland to Nova Scotia before heading off to Kansas, but we struck out.

We struck gold, however, when we found that my late grandmother had, in 1911, arrived in Halifax from Liverpool on the Cunard liner Caronia, when she was 20 and single.

The Royal Canadian Navy’s Sackville, the last World War II Flower Class corvette (corvettes were tiny but nimble warships), is docked at Battle of the Atlantic Place; it serves as Canada’s official naval memorial.

Like its corvette sisters, including the ones that my father commanded, the Sackville escorted convoys of Canadian and U.S. cargo ships carrying munitions, fuel and food from Halifax to the besieged British Isles in World War II.

It’s open to the public, as is the nearby tugboat Theodore, the star of a Canadian television show for children.

Beyond the Titanic

The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, with 30,000 artifacts, dozens of watercraft and a 1913 hydrographic ship, is steps away along the boardwalk.

Two exhibits in particular captured our attention. The first dealt with the Halifax Explosion, the 1917 blast that followed the accidental collision of a World War I munitions ship with another vessel in the harbor’s narrows.

Killing 2,000 people and wounding 9,000, the detonation was the world’s largest man-made explosion before Hiroshima.

The second was the museum’s Titanic exhibit. While survivors were taken to New York, the bodies of many of those who perished were brought to Halifax, the nearest port of any size.

Among its collection are a wooden Titanic deck chair, recovered from the scene, a huge collection of wooden artifacts and body bags. Many of the dead are buried in Halifax.

The Art Gallery of Nova Scotia is also a big draw. One exhibit in particular captured our attention: The paintings of the late Maud Lewis, a primitive artist from Nova Scotia who has gained international stature and whose life is the subject of a new movie, “Maudie,” starring Sally Hawkins and Ethan Hawke (it’s playing this weekend at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth).

The exhibit even includes Lewis’ house, painstakingly moved into the gallery. She painted on every surface — even the breadbox and the stove.

I struck up a conversation with Kayliegh Sheehan, the young woman at the reception desk. With a background in writing and the theater, she had spent 10 years in Toronto before being drawn to Halifax by its burgeoning cultural scene.

“Halifax is the perfect size,” she said. “It’s got all the amenities of a much larger city, but the whole place seems like one friendly neighborhood.”

Delicious dining

We had dinner one night at Chives Canadian Bistro, a cheery farm-to-table place praised by critics. We enjoyed our meal and found Chives’ reputation mostly well-deserved.

We also dined at one of the city’s most heralded restaurants, the sparkling Bicycle Thief, named after a character in a 1949 Italian movie, which sits across from a small yacht basin. My lamb chops in a red wine and cherry demi-glacé were superb. My wife chose the expertly crafted linguine fra diavolo.

Before leaving, we made a circuit of the homes my family lived in when I was young. Our visit to one was momentarily distressing; it had been my family’s last stop before my parents’ divorce. Set amid beautiful old homes, it had become the black sheep of the neighborhood, having fallen into an advanced state of neglect.

It momentarily brought to mind the old adage, “You can’t go home again”— but I had, quite enjoyably, too.

Where To Eat in Halifax

Listed from most to least expensive

The Bicycle Thief, 1475 Lower Water St. at Bishop’s Wharf, 902-425-7993, very expensive, http://www.bicyclethief.ca

Chives Canadian Bistro, 1537 Barrington St., 902-420-9626, expensive, https://www.chives.ca/

EDNA (“Eat, Drink, Nourish Always”), 902-431-5683, 2053 Gottingen St., sophisticated cuisine and craft cocktails in a gentrifying area, expensive, http://ednarestaurant.com/

The Arms Public House (Lord Nelson Hotel), 902-420-9781, 1515 S Park St., moderate, http://thearmshalifax.com/

Lemon Tree Restaurant, 1532 Queen St. (off Spring Garden Road), 902-877-7007, Turkish cuisine, inexpensive to moderate, http://lemontreerestaurant.ca/

Bluenose II, downtown near Province House (the legislature), inexpensive to moderate, 1824 Hollis St., 902-425-5092, http://www.bluenoseii.ca/

PAVIA, Halifax Central Library, 5440 Spring Garden Road and Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, 1723 Hollis St., 902-407-4008, very inexpensive salads, sandwiches and baked goods, http://www.paviagallery.com/about-us/

Norbert’s Good Food, 1209 Marginal Road at the Seaport Farmers’ Market, 902-420-0376, inexpensive, open until mid-afternoon, gluten-free baked goods, https://selwoodgreen.com/

Humani-T Café, 1451 S. Park St., 902-425-9535, coffee, paninis, salads, gelato, inexpensive, http://humanitea.com/

Just Us Cafe, 5896 Spring Garden Road, 902-423-0856, coffee and tea house with cool vibe, https://justuscoffee.com/

Dairy Bar at Stilwell Beer Garden, 5688 Spring Garden Road with a window to order on intersecting South Park Street, soft ice cream in unusual flavors, http://www.manualfoodanddrinkco.com/dairy-bar/

This story was originally published July 10, 2017 at 4:26 PM with the headline "Halifax says goodbye to drab, hello to fab."