Try super Nova Scotia
A Canadian welcome for those who hail from the old Scotia
JUDGING by the relaxed air of the passengers trooping ashore from the Queen Mary 2 in Halifax, Nova Scotia, their six-day passage from Liverpool was no great hardship. One would hope so. Cunard’s £460million flagship, now the second largest cruise l i ner i n the world, has 15 restaurants and bars, five swimming pools, a casino, ballroom, theatre, mahogany-panelled library, spa and the first planetarium at sea.
It was a rather different story for the first pioneers from the UK to land in Canada back in 1773. Their voyage on The Hector from Wester Ross to Nova Scotia took 77 days, some travelling in the wrong direction to avoid a hurricane off Newfoundland.
Outbreaks of smallpox and dysentery killed 18 on board, conditions were horrifically cramped and squalid and, when the vessel did finally land in the port of Pictou, most were close to starving.
Yet they and the thousands who followed them across the Atlantic from Scotland became key architects of modern Nova Scotia. The clue, of course, is in the name.
To visit this enchanting province as a Scot is at once to drink in the unmistakeable sights of Atlantic Canada – the spruce forests, the elegant timberframed houses and the Maple Leaf flags proudly flying from almost all of them – and to feel right at home. That home from home feeling goes beyond the kilts worn by the tourist guides and the 78th Highland Regiment soldiers guarding the historic fort defending Halifax at its highest point, Citadel Hill.
Scotland is everywhere – in the street names, the place names, the people’s names and in the wistful look forming in their eyes when you tell them where you are from. Ah, the ‘old country’. It is said, only half in jest, that almost everyone here with a Mac in their name had an ancestor onboard the Hector.
On my first morning in Halifax, I fancied hopping on board one of the old Routemaster doubledecker tour buses for an overview of the city. That was until I saw the alternative – a tour of the waterfront by Segway.
Of course, you don’t just leap on one of those machines and roar off down the boardwalk. You need to do the training course first. It takes five minutes.
After my induction I spent a hugely enjoyable hour weaving along the shoreline on two wheels as guide Max Rastelli offered commentary and context to the sights.
Prangs? None whatever. After just 20 minutes, Segway-ing feels almost as natural as walking. On our journey we circumnavigated a busy boardwalk restaurant called Murphy’s, so it seemed natural to try it for lunch.
From there you can watch the comings and goings i n the harbour over lazy spoonfuls of delicious chowder and sips of
the local brew. Or, if you’re feeling more energetic, do battle with the lobster you picked – maybe a little queasily – to be removed live from the restaurant’s tank and put in the pot for you.
Seafood – and lobster in particular – is the speciality of this peninsula province. Indeed, lobster is so ubiquitous that prisoners used to complain if they had to eat it on several consecutive days. And it is so affordable even McDonald’s can offer Nova Scotians a McLobster sandwich.
After lunch it was just a short stroll to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic where curator Richard MacMichael delivers achingly poignant narratives on Atlantic Canada’s sometimes tragic seafaring past.
This year is the 175th anniversary of the l aunch of the f i rst regularly scheduled passenger ship service across the Atlantic by Halifax’s most f amous son, Samuel Cunard, so naturally our guide’s knowledge of the magnate is encyclopaedic.
But, if you can, hear his moving discourse on the RMS Titanic in the city which received the dead from the 1912 disaster. And listen to his powerful telling of an even greater, but far l ess known, tragedy five years later. Almost 2,000 perished in the Halifax Explosion of 1917 and, almost 100 years on, it is deeply embedded in the city’s psyche.
But don’t allow Halifax to detain you at the expense of the delights beyond. For me, the small town of Pictou on the Northumberland Shore was an essential stop, if only to step on board the magnificent, full-size replica of the Hector in the harbour. To go below deck, view the narrow, rickety bunks and consider that it was not one each but one per family, is just to scratch the surface of the dreadfulness of that journey.
Rather more rewarding boat trips are available these days. I loved canoeing in the gorgeous calm of the River Mersey as dragonflies flitted noiselessly across the water. The name may have been borrowed from the Liverpool waterway, but there the similarities end. This one is in t he r ather more scenic Kejimkujik National Park and was canoed for centuries by the native Mi’kmaq before the first immigrant arrivals.
Then there was the excursion many might consider the highlight of any Nova Scotia holiday – whale watching on a Zodiac boat in the Bay of Fundy. We saw three humpbacks – or parts thereof – but, sadly, little in the way of tail-flipping action and certainly no majestic leaps like those pictured on the brochures. Our final stop, the gorgeous little fishing town of Lunenburg, a world heritage site f or i ts architecture and British colonial grid layout, cemented my attachment to the ‘new country’.
My room was the sumptuous Junior Suite in the 185-year-old Mariner King Inn, a fabulously ornate gem in the heart of the old town.
With its uneven, ancient floorboards and sitting area filling the architectural flourish known as the ‘Lunenburg bump’ – an enlarged dormer over the eaves – the suite offered a first floor view of a ‘new Scotland’ as rich, diverse and characterful as the old one.
Many Nova Scotians experience the tug of the land of their ancestors. But their own land turned out to be a difficult one for this Scot to leave without a si milar t ug. And I hadn’t expected that.