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.