Nova Scotia’s capital and the largest city in Atlantic Canada has been a military city since the capitulation of the French in Quebec. It suffered what was the world’s largest explosion during the First World War and was a vital transit point for ships supplying Europe during the 1940s. It is the most heavily defended Atlantic port on the continent with fortifications at the Halifax Citadel and Point Pleasant Battery.
The Grand Parade at the base of the citadel was once used for military drills – it is now home to the Halifax War Memorial. Both the city hall and the country’s first Anglican church, St. Paul’s, face the square. St. Paul’s is also the city’s oldest building, built in 1749. Lunenburg as Canada’s second Anglican church.
Province House, Canada’s oldest and smallest provincial legislature completed in 1819, is also nearby. The government has met in one of the finest Georgian buildings in Canada since 1848. As for the Lieutenant Governor’s residence, Government House was built in the 1800s by Sir John Wentworth to gratify his sense of self-importance.
St. Mary’s Basilica is in front of the city’s oldest burial ground, with some graves dating back to the 1710s. The 58-metre tall granite spire is the tallest on the continent. On the other side of the graveyard is St. Matthew’s United Church, the oldest non-Anglican Protestant congregation in Canada opened in 1858. On yet another side of the graveyard stands the Halifax Court House. Designed in 1858 and completed in 1863, the Classical building is an excellent example of textured surfaces. Additions were made until 1930.
In more recent history, Pier 21 was an immigration facility from 1928 to 1971 to process a million incoming war brides, refugees, and immigrants. This of it as Halifax’s Ellis Island. Today, it is aptly converted into the Canadian Museum of Immigration.
