Dartmouth is the opposite of Halifax. It’s on the opposite shore of Halifax, the architecture makes no sense, it’s inconvenient to live on the schedule of a half-hourly ferry, and it’s expensive to cross on the two toll bridges to Halifax. If they put Province House in Dartmouth, it would be what Victoria is to Vancouver – a coastal retirement village with military instalments.
The Peace Pavilion next to Dartmouth’s ferry pier is a strange hybrid between a pyramid and an amphitheatre. The apartment building behind it looks like a well-folded Habitat 67. The market in the ferry pier looks like it was a makeshift space for wedding banquets. Its streets remind me of the maritime-themed bars of White Rock and the people are an odd mix of cotton-candy-haired old people and university-aged youth.
