Adventure to Fort McNab's

“Adventure is Worthwhile” (Aristotle)

   This past weekend I got the opportunity to ride my bike across McNab’s Island, located in the Halifax Harbour. It is especially exciting because it is difficult to access, requiring chartering a water taxi., but also because it is so close to the rest of Halifax, just difficult to get to. To frustrate things, most water taxis’ are not more than little tin boats that don’t really have the space or tonnage to transport several riders and their bicycles over. Enter the Meetup.com group: Halifax Outdoor Adventures. They organize about a dozen meetups a week along with several seasonal meetups such as cycle McNabs. They were able to harness the power of collective planning to secure a larger boat to ferry us from Eastern Passage to the Island for a day of exploration.

   To start my day I had to bike out to Eastern Passage to catch the chartered ferry, which for those unfamiliar with the layout of Halifax, far out on the Eastern side of the harbour. It turned out that it was about a 15km ride away from my place of residence, not an insurmountable distance but not one that could be taken lightly either, especially when a schedule needed to be kept and most of the terrain was unknown.

   As it turns out the Dartmouth side of the harbour is effectively one large chain of rolling hills, which always makes for pleasant cycling. Fortunately I left plenty of time and I arrived in Eastern Passage about 30 minutes early, so I just wandered around Fisherman’s Wharf looking at the little tourist village that is nestled between the legitimate fishing piers.

   Over the course of the half hour more and more meetup cyclists arrived and I was able to strike up a conversation with a few. It was quite stunning the variety of people that attended. There was a daughter with a father, several couples, a bunch of hard core cyclists (but less than I would have thought), the enthusiastic event organizers and a few others. Within no time they were loading the bicycles on the boat and it started looking like there wasn’t going to be any space for the people!

This is the only way to get to McNab's Island with a bicycle, that is until they invent FLOAT-icycles.

   Although all the ferry’s leave from Eastern Passage, it doesn’t mean they’re conveniently located. The landing site for McNab’s Island is on the Halifax side at Garrison Pier, meaning you have to boat all the way around the 5km island to get to the other side.  This does afford time to take in the view of both sides of the harbour. You get an excellent view of the Dartmouth side which in parts is quite lovely, and a head on view of downtown Halifax and the South End Container terminal.

I'm on a boat!

   McNab’s Island was part of an extensive defense works of Halifax Harbour. It featured a fort at either end that both boasted state of the art (for their time) breech loading artillery that could fire far into the furthest entrances to the harbour. Along with Point Pleasant Battery, the York Redoubt, Georges Island and the Citadel it provided a formidable defensive network that would be able to bombard an oncoming fleet of any size as it attempted the funnel shaped mouth of the harbour. With steep bluffs and harsh terrain surrounding it, the entrance to the harbour was the natural landing point for any invader, and the strong defense works served as a mighty deterrent for Canada’s entrance to the Atlantic. Halifax was so well defended because it was the access point to Canada to ferry raw supplies to Britain during the post-American Revolution colonial era.

   Once we landed on the island at Garrison Pier we had a brief rundown of the plan for the day while my fellow cyclists got ready to go. I stayed with the main group that was touring Fort McNab, Fort Ives, the Teahouse and a few lookout points. Other cyclists who had either been to the Island before or were more adventurous we allowed to set out on their own. While the main group was supposed to be travelling at a ‘beginners pace’ (which was necessary given the rugged state of the ‘roads’ on the island) there were still a number of challenging hills along the way.

A group of cyclists is called a Peloton, or as motorists refer to as: "Those jerks who hog up the whole road doing stupid bike things"

   Our first stop was to the Rifle Range, which were concrete protobunkers in which soldiers could practice their aim. It doesn’t look like much now, but I imagine the trees would have been cleared back in the day for a proper rifle range. As well, based on how the range was facing, I imagine they could be used as emergency defense bunkers should an enemy landing ever be undertaken. In either case, they were in surprisingly good condition seeing as they’ve had virtually no upkeep for sixty years.

Fortunately they weren't manned when we got there or we'd have several more holes to get used to

   Past there we went straight to Fort McNab, and while the ruins aren’t in great shape, they certainly shed light on military life at the turn of the twentieth century and beyond. Most of the facility is underground and connected by decrepit tunnels (the public are no longer able to access that part) and of the above ground areas were most likely used for observation and training.

This is either a fort or the earth is developing an elaborate defense to trap humans looking for 19th century military relics

   Part of the main building is built into the side of a hill to strengthen it from bombardment, and the most extensive concreteworks are the artillery pits themselves. Located next to the artillery pits were the ammo dumps, deep in the damp earth accessible by a steep staircase. There were other rooms but I couldn’t quite figure out what they had been used for in the past.

I affectionately referred to this as the 'Murder Pit' or as soldiers called it 'The Women's Washroom'

   For McNab’s was also the first installation in Canada to have breech loading artillery, which allowed for faster reloading time and the use of shells rather than iron balls. They were significantly more accurate and could fire further than other artillery available at the time, which further added to the deterrent effect of the fort. During World War Two it also served as the first point of entry for ships entering the harbour, requiring a search of each ship to ensure that they posed no threat to the harbour.

The breech blocks are removed when the base is decomissioned, but I really don't see how someone is going to fire one of these by themselves anyway.

   From Fort McNab we went to the other side of the island to Fort Ives, stopping only for a brief lunch at the Teahouse. Despite the rest of the history of the island, the Teahouse was actually built in the 1980’s using materials found on the island (to give it an ‘ancient’ look). Due to poor transportation facilities to and from the Island, the Teahouse struggled through the 1990’s until it was eventually closed. It was extensively damaged by Hurricane Juan, but is still standing across from the one camping site on the island.

I didn't take a picture of the Teahouse, but here is a nice tree

   Fort Ives was built before Fort McNab and was part of an original defense network for the inner harbour. Built in the 1860’s (twenty years before Fort McNab broke ground) it was also a shifting time for naval warfare. It was designed with several hardened artillery emplacements along with quick firing guns. Over its history it faded in importance to Fort McNab and by the time World War Two rolled around, it was basically obsolete (excepting use as a Barracks) (with the idea that if modern warships were already that far into the harbour, the battle was already lost). In the meantime, it has left an impressive ruin.  

Fort Ives was unfortunately not full of moisturizer samples

   Our final stop before leaving the Island was to visit the private residences of the island. While the island is a park, 3% of its land is in the hands of the wealthy American. To be sure, McNab’s island was named after the McNab family who lived on the island from 1782 to 1934, but since then its properties have fallen under foreign control. What got me though was that while the American holidays there for a few months of the year, there is a caretaker who still lives there year round, on an island with no waste facilities and an ancient power infrastructure there is still a guy who lives there even in the winter. Despite the fact that he is employed by a millionaire, he still lives in a little shack beside the ruins of another emplacement. In fact it is so shack like I wouldn’t be surprised if he owned a Davy Crockett Hat and had 22 calibre hunting rifle and said works like ‘git’.

'Git off mer properies!'

   There were also two buildings that have since been condemned as ‘unrestorable’ by the Halifax heritage committee, but while they still stand they certainly look pretty. One of these houses is Conrad House, which was owned by the founder of the Soda Pop factory that existed on the island until 1915.

You can look inside, but all you can see is the half a stack of load bearing newspapers from 1936

   With that we concluded our day by hoping back on the ferry and heading home. I would certainly go back some day, but probably with closer friends to have a more jovial experience, perhaps after acquiring some knowledge on the islands history so I wouldn’t have to engage in extensive guesswork about the heritage of the island, not that that wasn’t fun. For anyone interested you can charter a water taxi for $15 just about any time.

Doors Open Halifax

'Remember what Bilbo used to say: It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step out onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to' (J. R. R. Tolkien) 

   This weekend despite the downpour that visited Halifax I was able to muster the courage to lead the apartment, head out into the storm and participate in Halifax Doors Open 2013 and I have to say I wasn’t disappointed, only wet. So very, very wet. 

   Halifax Doors Open was the first of its kind in the city, taking after events that have been taking place in previous years in New York, Toronto and Ottawa. The idea is that places that are usually not open to the public, or at least not open in a come in and look at everything perspective are for one weekend not only open but staffed by volunteers who are happy to tell you the history, significance and general awesomeness of the building. I personally love visiting buildings old and new, as long as there is a story, quirk or draw behind them. So, having found out about this event the night before, I vowed to visit as many as possible. 

   I actually managed to visit over 2/3rds of the offerings, despite the rain (although I cheated and spread out my viewings over Saturday AND Sunday) and I have to say they were all pretty great. This post is going to feature the highlights of the places I went to that I have pictures for. I’m also going to mention two or three buildings that my camera ran out of battery for but were still really great. 

The life preserver was a recent addition to save people from the rain

   To start off I headed to the Maritime Command Museum hoping it could combine my interest in war memorabilia with models of boats, and I wasn’t disappointed! The Museum was originally the house of the Admiral in charge of Maritime Command, but was commissioned into a museum in 1974, as it turns out the Department of Defense operates fifty five museums across the country with the mandate to maintain the heritage of the Canadian Forces. Obviously the MCM focuses on naval history, complete with regalia, insignia’s and torpedoes.  

I can only imagine what kind of fights those sailors would get into over insignias. "Yeah well our boat is represented by a Viking!' 'Oh yeah, well our boat is represented by an arm out of water... SHUT UP'

   The first thing I noticed was the big table commanding a presence in the center of the first room. It turns out to be the table from the Officers Mess aboard the HMCS Uganda, which is notable for being the only ship to vote itself out of World War II. The idea was that it was mostly manned by conscripted personnel, and when the Allied forces won in Europe, Maritime Command was going to redeploy them on the Pacific Front. The conscripts however, had specified terms to serve until hostilities in Europe were ended. When the seamen made note of this, the officers put it to a vote among the service members, and they astonishingly voted themselves out of the conflict. This made them the only shop to vote itself out of a war without mutiny ever.

Well I guess that's that then, we're out of the war!

   The Museum was also full of really neat art and war memorabilia, there were models of ships and beautiful paintings that were owned by naval staff or donated at some point or another. There was also a model of an Aircraft Carrier which I discovered actually belonged to the Royal Canadian Navy, as it turns out during World War Two Canada possessed two Aircraft Carriers: The HMCS Warrior and the HMCS Magnificent both of which were transferred from the UK to Canada during World War Two. There was also the HMCS Bonaventure but she came later.

The HMCS Niobe, the first ship in the Canadian Navy, and the actual Captains desk!

   There were Torpedoes, Machinery, Pictures, Art but what really caught me off guard was the propaganda. Now I know that the World Wars were famous for their propaganda, but I always think of it in terms of the Great Powers. I never put much thought into what Canadian propaganda might look like, and it was hilarious. They had a whole section on the theme of how idle gossip could help spies, but of course the caricature portrayed them as Hitler and Mussolini actually listening into a conversation. I understand the implication but a picture with two ladies on the bus with the two dictators leaning in behind them conjures up the image of a doting mother saying to her kids ‘now be careful what you say in Public dears, you never know when Hitler might be listening!’

Also Hitler perpetually looks disgusted by everything you say, so there is also that.

   The next notable stop was the St. George Round Church, which turned out to indeed be very round. I thought it was interesting that it was not only celebrating the patron Saint George, but it was commissioned by King George the III. I have to say I unfortunately fall under the category of being overexposed to American culture and figure the ‘mad’ King wasn’t much a ruler, but his son the Duke of Kent was apparently a great contributor to interesting buildings in the New World, including the Round Church. 

From this angle it looks a bit like they built a round church and then tried to convert it into a power turbine

   The original building was completely round, and there were additions added to it later that lessened its roundness, but the actual worship area is quite stunning. The whole thing burned down in the 90’s and was the subject of a massive community fundraising effort to restore it, which I’m glad took place because it would have been terrible to consign this jewel to the history bin. 

It's like a legislative building, but with more Jesus praising and less character assassination, only a little less though.

   After the church, the next entry worth mentioning was Government House, which is the official residence of the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia. Nestled between Barrington and Hollis streets, I’ve often walked or ridden past it and wondered what it was like inside and on Saturday I got that chance. As it turns out it was just as grand as I imagined. 

I'm going to build my own mansion, with hookers! And Blackjack! Actually... just forget the mansion

   It was actually built on the plot of land that was assigned for the provincial legislature building to be built on. This is in holding to the tradition that colonial administrators were jerks and really didn’t care about Responsible Government, the Lieutenant Governor commissioned Government House because the existing mansion wasn’t ‘grand enough’ for an officer of the monarchy. The provincial government would not only have to backstop the cost overruns of the extravagant Government House, they also had the convert the mansion vacated by the Lieutenant Governor into what is today Province House, the seat of government, and delayed their getting of a legislature by several years. 

Look at this guy, he's the kind of guy who would smile while he confiscated your family's livelihood. That's right, ALL the chickens

   Government House still operates as the residence of the current Lieutenant Governor and is the site of several gala’s and formal balls a year. It also houses foreign dignitaries when they come to visit, including Queen Elizabeth II (which is why I think so many people wanted to get into it even braving the pouring rain on Saturday).

   The house itself was very grand, featuring many rooms that only had one use and playing out like a Clue House (It had a Ball Room, a library, a bedroom, etc). Most notably we got to see the bedroom where Queen Elizabeth II actually slept in during her most recent 2008 visit to Canada. Many people oohed and ahhed about it, I simply took a picture. 

If you listen really closely, you can still hear Rule Britannia playing from the bedsheets

   I think what I liked most about it was the portraits, this building was full of them, including a great one of Queen Elizabeth the II but also featuring a very nice coastal scene in the main lobby. I also enjoyed the story that they had to reverse the entrance to the building from Hollis Street to Barrington Street because of activities that sailors on shore leave would be involved in. 

That's a great portrait of a face I see every day on the $20 bill

   Finally, I braved the trip across the bridge into Dartmouth and visited Environment Canada’s Weather Prediction Centre and Hurricane Centre (try saying that three times fast!) which was really cool because of the post tropical depression that was swinging by Halifax on that day. 

   The actual centre was pretty low key, but they had some pretty interesting tech there. They had a room that was directly wired into all the major networks so that reporters can just sit down and get an interview with whatever forecasting scientist they can get their hands on. 

This just in, weather is cool!

   There was also the actual prediction centre, which can house up to eight forecasters at once, which apparently they do get in there sometimes. The centre predicts weather for all of Atlantic Canada, so if there is a winter storm in New Brunswick, and freezing rain in PEI and blowing snow in Nova Scotia they have to track and report on all that. It was all very neat. 

I swear the Federal Government must have some sort of standing pool to see which department can come up with the longest name and get away with it

   Some other noteworthy sites were City Hall, Halifax Club and The Dominion Building. The Dominion Building stands out because it was Halifax’s first Skyscraper but also because it was one of the few public buildings dedicated to King Edward VIII, the Nazi sympathising monarch who reigned for only one year. As well, the Paramount Apartments had their penthouse suite open, and it was enormous. My camera had already died but I cannot impress you that for $4900 a month, you can have all the space in the centre of town on the 17^th floor, it was pretty impressive.

   Overall I was able to visit the Maritime Command Museum, The St. George Round Church, St. Patrick’s Church, The Jesuit Religious Education Centre, the Little Dutch Church, City Hall, Government House, The Scotiabank HQ, Halifax Club, University Club, The Halifax Women’s Centre, The Granary Apartments, The Penthouse of the Paramount Apartments and the Atlantic Hurricane Centre. It was a great experience and I hope they do it again next year to I can encourage more people to go!

Moncton Bike Ride

 "Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride" (John F. Kennedy)

   I really enjoy cycling in Halifax, there is an abundance of urban terrain to cycle over and a park or recreational trail is never too far away. Every so often though, it is fun to get out of the city and cycle in a different backdrop, last weekend I got this opportunity by cycling in Moncton. While also a city, it differs significantly from Halifax in that it is flat and considerably more condensed. In the process of biking across town I covered a variety of backdrops and settings. Hold on to your butts faithful readers! We’re going on a trip across Moncton and this blog post has it all! Excitement! Intrigue! Family Values! A twist ending! 

   The trip starts off from relatively suburban Moncton, or at least as suburban as it gets. Where Moncton is really a mutant being made up of two cities and a town, none of it is particularly suburban as everything is smooshed into the core along the Petitcodiac river. If you had to pin it down, Moncton’s North and East ends have that suburban feel, along with Riverview, and my dad happens to occupy a house in the East end of the city. Starting from his house it was only a hop, skip and a jump away from a multi-use recreational trail behind his subdivision. 

So suddenly you’re going from a scene of this:

Don't let the idylic nature of this picture fool you, this neighborhood is hard core suburbia

To this:

Look at those ducks! They make it hard to imagine you're still in the city! ... Just ignore that overpass over there.

   In my opinion it’s pretty awesome. If you ever are feeling down and want to escape the oppressive sameness that are subdivisions you can just jump on your bike for five minutes and suddenly you’ve returned to your roots. I particularly enjoyed the fact that the trail borders the Trans-Canada highway, so at least to the right side it will always been nice and wilderness-y, at least for 100 metres until it becomes a four lane highway. 

   From the neo-primitive utopia we crossed the street and biked along a creek, stopping along the way to attempt to take a picture of a partridge. I was unfortunately not able to get a picture of the bird, not because it flew away but because this partridge was like the Special Ops of birds, as soon as it saw us biking past it waddled into the tall grass, never to be seen again. 

   From there we emerged into the downtown core of the city. When I was still a wee lad, around when I was in Kindergarten my family lived in Moncton in the core. We lived in the upstairs of a house that had a sweet sunroom where I always used to hang out for hours on end. I have especially fond memories of when we had a box full of packing peanuts for whatever reason, but I couldn’t get enough of it. In my memories it was a big red house, but a succession of owners vinylized the side of the house so it looks completely different now. 

That's right, it had a fully enclosed second floor porch, that meant that you could yell at kids to stay off your lawn in all seasons!

   What was awesome about the house was that it was only a block away from school, so I was allowed to walk to school by myself which I don’t know about you but made six year old me feel like the baddest mother around. Little did I know was that from the sunroom, the entire walk to school could be observed, so really it was just an elaborate ruse of independence. 

   My old elementary school violently burned to the ground, but it was before my time. What does stand there as a reminder is the original entrance to the school on the side of the grounds. I was always intrigued as a small child, since I didn’t really understand the concept of a building burning to the ground I always thought it was a really fancy entrance. 

Alternatively it was a Magicians style gateway to a Magical University

   From there we cycled up to the Moncton Castle, which I discovered what for sale. It’s already incredibly dilapidated and last I knew they were trying to convert it into a condo development, but for a price of all the money, you could be the newest owner of a Castle! That’s something you can’t say every day. 
The Moncton Castle was originally built as a children’s home in the early 1900’s and was used as a Catholic School and a nursing home over its 110 year lifespan. Despite the fact that it probably needs a gajillion dollars in repairs, for the low, low price of$985,000 it could be yours. While that might seem like a fair chunk of change, keep in mind in a place like Vancouver that might get you a 2 bedroom condo, in Moncton it gets you a friggin’ Castle!

For One Million Dollars you could buy it and live the life of Maritime Royalty, that's right you could start buying both kinds of lottery tickets AND a place to park your Snowmobile

   We did a bit of a u-turn from the Castle and cycled out over to the middle of town, where we biked along the waterfront and the newly reinvigorated Petitcodiac River until we got to the new Vaughn-Harvey Gunningsville Bridge. Cycling under it, we came across a really neat pedestrian bridge that took us further into the river area. 

That tiny blue blip is Dad, he usually didn't realize I had stopped to take a picture :P

   Biking over the bridge also gave a nice view of the muddy mess that feeds into the Petitcodiac River, although at the time it wasn’t looking too impressive.

It was hard not to get sucked into its muddy oppulence

   From there we ended up biking on a big mound in the middle of the river area that gave a really nice view of the city and of the river once you crested the top. It was a mound that held a terrible secret however. 
As it turns out, this mound and the whole area was once a city dump, where all the waste of the Moncton region ended up sitting right beside the river. Amazingly when the dump was closed, the city buried it under tones of fill and converted the whole space into a multiuse recreational trail, the only thing that would give any indication it was anything other than a nice place to bike over are a collection of methane pipes that release excess gas. It’s pretty amazing what twenty years can do for an area, even if there are underlying health issues with the new plan to return the river to its previous flow patterns.

Downtown Moncton, now with three office buildings!

My ride was immediately ruined when I realized I was probably 10 feet away from 40 year old rotting animal carcasses

This picture is like the wheres waldo of methane pipes. To be honest I don't even know if I captured it in this picture.

   From there we biked across the infamous Moncton Causeway (That being the very thing that messed up the flow of the river in the first place) and paid a visit to my Aunt in Riverview.

It's eerie, it's all giant ready to go river on this side, and on the other side it's an itty biddy trickle

We had a good chat and were ready to head on our way after I snapped a picture from her house. 

My aunt didn't want to get internet famous among by 10 readers, so she opted to stay inside

    The cycling fates were not so kind however, after ironically discussing how the bike I was riding (which was notorious for getting flat tires) was having a pretty good season; I got a flat on the front tire. Where I was just visiting and this wasn’t supposed to be a relatively short ride, I didn’t have any repair parts. What’s worse was where it is a road bike, it has presta valves, so you can’t just jerry rig a car tire inflator to pump it back up. I was left to wait at the gas station for a lift home. 

Boooooooo. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

   So that was the twist, I didn’t actually get to complete my ride, but I do have to say that Moncton has an impressive ability to offer a variety of settings for a bike ride. You can go from suburban to nature to urban to residential and if you really wanted to you wouldn’t be too far away from the rural rides of the Salisbury road. Moncton basically has it all in terms of biking, I will definitely be trying to get more rides out there (If I can convince Dad to improve the reliability of his guest bike).