One of Dartmouth's industries now is the building of drilling rigs.  One of them is under test in the harbor now, slowly going up and down.

In WWI, a tremendous explosion happened in the inner harbor when a ship (SS Mont Blanc) filled with explosives caught fire and exploded. A gun barrel was hurled 2 miles. The shank of one anchor was thrown over a mile. Over a thousand people were killed or injured. There was massive damage to the town. This incident is the subject of several books.

I went to the harbor and parked at the ferry terminal. It’s directly across the harbor from the Canadian Forces Dockyard. There were several destroyers and frigates tied up to the piers. One submarine was at a pier and another was up on blocks in the drydock. 

We had seen the four submarines the British sold the Canadians when we visited the Lake District a few years ago. Then, they were tied up two by two at the Vickers shipyard in Barrow-in-Furness. Now, we see two of them again, here.

I picked up D from church and took her back to the harbor. I showed her the dockyard across the river and the skyline of Halifax. We went into the terminal and had a breakfast for lunch in the little cafeteria there – surprisingly good. A market was in session, so we bought some pickles and brownies there. We found a restaurant that’s located there and decided to come back for dinner. Then we went back to the trailer for a bit.

After reading the Sunday Herald, we went out to a local thing called Fisherman’s Cove – a gathering of small craft stores and ice cream places and fish/lobster shops in the little town called Eastern Passage. That’s down the harbor toward the sea on the Dartmouth side. We picked up a few small things and returned to the trailer again.

We went down the road to the terminal, parked, and went into MacAskill’s restaurant. MacAskill was the “gentle giant” of Nova Scotia. He stood nearly eight feet tall. He didn’t seek fame, but the tales about his strength made him famous anyway. A sick person could not get to a doctor one winter, so he shouldered the man and walked 20 miles to the doctor – without putting the man down once.

We were shown to a great table overlooking the harbor and skyline. The service was excellent. Dolores had an appetizer of mussels (there were more than three dozen on the platter she received) and lobster (who could have guessed?). I took an orange-fennel salad and poached salmon with dill and scallion veloute’. We had a bottle of Canadian Chardonnay with this.

I’m going to document the salad here so I can make it again when we get home. The main ingredients were julienned strips of fennel, cut sweet onion, various lettuces, some mandarin orange pieces and black olives. Garnishes were an orange slice, a few pieces of red cabbage, and julienned strips of carrot. The dressing was balsamic-orange vinaigrette. I’ve never had anything quite like it, and it was delicious.

Dolores did in most of the mussels and destroyed the poor lobster, saying that both were very good. My salmon was done just right. The wine was a good complement to the food.

We walked briefly afterward, then returned to the little house in the campground to digest. This campground is part of a city park and is owned by the city. The contract to manage it is competed annually. The campground has grassy parking sites and the usual washrooms/showers/laundry. There are no sewer hookups, but our site has 30amp electric and water. Some sites only have 15amp electric and water, and the tent camping sites have no services. It’s not plush, but it will do for our stay here, especially because it’s so convenient to the harbor and central area.

Tomorrow, we’ll go to the ferry terminal, cross the harbor, and walk/tour Halifax.