An Overview of the Andersons' Halifax Vacation Part I

It is hard to believe that our time in Halifax is almost done.  We have been here six days, and today our son asked multiple times if we were coming back because there were so many things we didn't get a chance to see.  

Monday: Adelle did her first away-from-home dialysis treatment.  Just like back home, the nurses are all very nice.  There are some things that are a little different -- like the machines they use -- but still mostly the same.  The trip home was interesting as she had been dropped off and intended to use the public transit system to get back to the house we are staying at.  She found out the ferry by the hospital only runs during rush hour, and she turned the wrong way when leaving the hospital.  However, the people at the bus stop were kind enough to point her in the right direction, and the bus drivers knew where they were going, so she made it back to the house.

While Adelle was doing dialysis, the rest of the Andersons went to the Citadel.  It was very interesting. Especially watching the cannon being fired.  Bruce tried to take a picture of the cannon being fired, but when they fired it, all he got was a picture of the sky because he jumped so high!  They took an hour long tour where Bruce and the kids learned all sorts of neat things about how they lived at the citadel, why they had the cannons they way they did, and even that they were sneaky and had hidden cannons so that any spies who reported on how to breach the citadel wouldn't realize that it was a trap!  Oh, and they thought it was funny that the school room was right next to where they stored all the gun powder.  

In the afternoon everyone went to Pier 21.  This was the first time Bruce and Adelle got lost driving in Halifax.  Immigrants came into Canada, WWI and WWII soldiers left and came home, and their war brides came to Canada through Pier 21.  It is not used now, and so it is a museum to remember what has happened there.  Approximately 1 in 4 Canadians have an ancestor that came through Pier 21.  Adelle's grandmother immigrated to Canada from Hungary, but we are not sure if she came by boat or by plane.  And Bruce's dad served in WWII, so he probably went through Pier 21.

We ended the day with supper down by the water.  We all had something sea related - fish or lobster.  While we were there, we saw fog roll in.  It started from a ways out and then eventually blanketed the whole area.  It was very different from anything we have seen in Saskatchewan.

Tuesday:  We had planned to head out to the Bay of Fundy, but the rain delayed our plans.  Again, this was weather we had not seen in Saskatchewan, but apparently it is not typical for Nova Scotia, either.  There were heavy rain warnings as we crossed the bridge to visit the Bedford Institute for Oceanography.  (Both bridges between Halifax and Dartmouth are toll bridges.  It costs $1 to cross the bridge.) Our tour included learning about lobsters, crabs, sea cucumbers, sea urchins and star fish (which have been renamed sea stars as they aren't really fish) which we all got to hold as well.  A lot of research happens and we found out that the Halifax harbour is the 2nd deepest natural harbour in the world.  That means that the harbour hasn't been dredged to make it deeper, and they can study all sorts of sea life in it still since it has not been destroyed.  Note - it was very hard to find the entrance and someone eventually took pity on us and let us in through a locked door because we all looked like drowned rats - which they have a lot of in Halifax, apparently.

Because Quintins had a GPS and we did not, we were following them to make sure we didn't get lost again.  Adelle was driving and was following their blue car back home.  However, when we started seeing highway signs indicating that we were heading toward the airport, we realized we were following the wrong blue car.  Thankfully we had a map of Halifax and Dartmouth that the car rental gave us, so we turned off, found out where we were and successfully navigated our way back home.  

After supper the rain  let up and we decided to go downtown to see the Maritime Museum.  We caught the tail end of a tour and heard about the unsuccessful privateers including a boat that was captured by the Americans, auctioned off, then captured by the British and bought back by her original owners.  There was also a short film about the Halifax explosion.  So far this trip has been as educational for the parents as it has been for the kids.

Wednesday: The weather was nice and so we made the trip out to the Bay of Fundy to see the tides.  We went to Blomidon Provincial Park.  One thing we noticed was how red the sand, rocks and dirt were.  The tide was at its lowest when we arrived, so we walked out a long way to the water and explored.  We had lunch and then decided to visit a winery and cheese-making farm while we waited for high tide.  When we went back at high tide, it was amazing at how quickly the water came in.  The kids tried skipping rocks in the waves, and our daughter stood on a rock while the tide was coming in.  Adelle took many pictures trying to capture the tide rising around our daughter's feet.

We followed the Quintins to the park, but figured that it was fairly safe for us to get back to the house on our own.  We did well until we took the wrong exit to get to our house which had us going in the wrong direction - away from Halifax.  After turning around and heading the right direction, we again made a right turn instead of a left, and started heading out the city again which we realized when we saw the sign to Peggy's Cove.  We made a loop and even without the GPS, we managed to make our way home.  However, we now have a well-earned reputation for getting lost.  It has become the running joke amongst us.

It is late and we have another busy day ahead of us tomorrow as we head to PEI.  Part II  and pictures will have to come later.

Halifax, wow!

We are really enjoying Halifax! I couldn't possibly begin to list all the things we have done and learned in the last couple of days (although, we have learned that  a GPS does not help the following car if we get separated lol).

On our first night here, we got to our vacation home and found a grocery store for food for the six of us for the week. The house is perfect for us - it sleeps eight, has three separate bedrooms and an extra bed in the second living room, and has two bathrooms, a large kitchen, and a full laundry. I don't know that I'll ever stay in a hotel again with a vacation home as an alternative, this is so comfy. For a full week, it couldn't be better. We're also within walking distance of almost everything, but we did rent vehicles for our day trips, and for days when it's pelting rain, like today.

On the first day, Adelle was up bright and early for her dialysis in Dartmouth and the Quintins and remaining Andersons spent the morning at the Halifax Citadel. What an amazing place! We learned mostly about it's defensive capabilities - it's an eight pointed star rather than a rectangle, so that the walls are harder to breach, and so that the guns point in all directions (no blind spots). Sneakily, they left a deliberate gap to lure attackers in....but had seven cannons hidden on the third floor of the barracks house trained directly on the gap. Such a neat place!

In the afternoon, we found our way to Pier 21, Canada's Immigration Museum. While it wasn't really exciting for the kids, the movie was very powerful and showed them how different people with different reasons for coming to Canada would have found their journey and their experience. I found it very emotional - not only did Pier 21 welcome immigrants, but it also said farewell to WWII soldiers, and welcomed them home, along with refugees and war brides.

In the evening we decided to splurge on a supper out and the kids tried lobster. It's still in our fridge :) While we were sitting on the patio, the fog rolled in like a carpet, and the day went from sunny and warm to....100% fog. It was impressive to watch.

Today we had a quiet morning in the house. When we finally had eaten enough pancakes, hashbrowns and bacon, we tore off across the harbour in a deluge to get to the Bedford Institute of Oceanography for a guided tour. They need more signs, because man, it was hard to see where to go! We finally found a nice person who opened one of the several locked doors we tried, and she led us to the main entrance (never would have found it). Our our started shortly and we were happy to discover we had a private tour, as the people we were tagging along on had had to come earlier! Serendipitous. We got to pick up lobster, crab, sea cucumbers, sea stars, oysters, and mussels; check out a pool of pollock, salmon, and a sturgeon, and see the experiment tanks full of enormous lobster. Very neat.

We came home and had a massive chicken supper before we set out for the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic. That's a place I might have to spend a bit more time at before we go - we didn't get a chance to see the Titanic exhibits at all, but we saw an amazing video about the Halifax explosion. We had no idea. When we were in the gift shop, the clerk told us her grandma lived four hours away and all the glass in their house shattered; another man told us that his grandma lived four or five miles away, and the blast blew the front door up to the third floor. Also, there is a cannon from one ship that was blown two miles away - where it still sits. The anchor from the same ship, weighing half a ton, was blown 2.3 miles in the opposite direction. It was the biggest man-made explosion before Hiroshima and killed two thousand people.

After the museum closed, we wandered the boardwalk for quite some time, one family heading closer to a cruise ship, one heading the other direction to see it from a distance. It was so big, it dwarfed the island in the middle of the harbour that has a lighthouse.

It rained buckets today; tomorrow is supposed to be decent, so we are hoping to head for Peggy's Cove and Lunenburg, and hopefully Blomidon Provincial Park to see the Fundy tides. Should be a fun day! Please check the page at  https://www.facebook.com/KidsTrekTravelClub for a photo album of the last couple days. Check back tomorrow night!

S Anderson Gets to Halifax

We started our trip in the boring train station in Saskatoon.  Until our cousin Caity came with Auntie Cheryl.  Caity was very very very very very funny!  Then we went on the train and thought it was going to be fun... but I was wrong.... IT WAS THE FUNNEST TIME I TRAVELED!!!  The food was sooooooo good! We also met a girl named Molly.  We watched movies, did a scavenger hunt, did riddles and played this weird game where an exclamation mark turned people into chocolate bars.  We slept on the train for two nights.  Then we came to Toronto and had to say goodbye to Molly.  We missed the train and had to take an airplane to Halifax.  And here we are in Halifax in a house and I am writing a thing.

P.S. in Toronto we went to the CN Tower.  IT WAS FUN!!! Until it got boring.

The Andersons Get to Halifax

We had planned to take the train all the way from Saskatoon to Halifax.  Our trip started well, even though it began in the Saskatoon train station.  For anyone who ever has or ever will see the Saskatoon train station, please do not judge our city by the station.  Even we thought it was dumpy.  The train trip to Winnipeg was great.  Our first day on the train the kids met a friend who was their age.  We ate great food, watched a movie, played games, read books, and visited with others on the train who were from as far away as Australia. 

In Winnipeg we had an unexpected-to-us two-hour stop while the train switched crews and did whatever else they needed to do.  Fortunately, we were able to meet up with friends of ours.  The Winnipeg train station is nice and close to The Forks, so we wandered around, took pictures and visited with our friends.  Once we re-boarded the train, we got ready for our first night sleeping on a train.

We had a sleeping cabin.  Or more accurately, we had two sleeping cabins with the wall between removed.  The kids both slept on the top bunks.  And we all let the rocking of the train put us to sleep.

Our second day was good, too.  Many times I heard the kids declare that the riding on the train was the best way to travel.  And by now in our trip we had moved from endless prairies and sky to endless trees and rock.  At one point near the end of the day, Bruce was heard to say he longed to see a great open space for a while.  Once a prairie boy, always a prairie boy!

Our second night on the train was also restful.  When we got up, we packed up because we were planning to switch trains in Toronto.  However, this is where our actual trip deviated from our planned trip.  The train was running unbelievably late, and our two-hour layover turned into being almost an hour late making our next connection. 

Since we missed our train to Montreal, Via Rail arranged for our family to take a plane the next day from Toronto to Halifax.  Normally we would have just continued to Halifax the next day by train and been a day late.  However, because Adelle has dialysis, we needed to be in Halifax for Monday morning.  It was disappointing to realize that we weren't going to finish the trip by train, but with one unexpected night in Toronto we decided to make the best of it.  We explored downtown Toronto a bit, went up the CN Tower, and found the Toronto Railway Museum. 

After a restful sleep in a hotel in Toronto, our propeller plane flew us to Halifax with a brief stop in Ottawa.  We didn't get off the plane, but the kids got to sit in the pilot's seat!  However we got here, we are thankful to have made it safely and to see so much of Canada - on land and in the air!

P.S. - pictures to follow after we get home.

Last Day in Ottawa

Hey guys it's Morgan. So day three of Ottawa we went to the National Art Gallery, the War Museum and the Royal Mint. My favourite part about the war  museum was the War of 1812 exhibit. I liked the exhibit because I am interested in that war. I saw a piece of the White House and a blunderbuss. 

A blunderbuss!

A piece of the White House that the British burned in the War of 1812!

A diorama of Paschendaele from the WWI.

One of Hitler's cars from WWII. 

I didn't like the museum of civilization but I liked looking at the art at the art gallery and the meditation pool there. Then we drove up to the top of the Gatineau hills in Quebec to look at the Ottawa valley. It was peaceful and foresty. 

We also went to the national Royal Mint and I got to hold a 24 pound gold bar that was worth $700,000 dollars .

The next day we left for Halifax on a train. I had 2 poutine at the Montreal train station!

  

The sleeper car we were in on the train was awesome. It was a bunkbed room. 'Twas awesome we could see all around in the observation car. I didn't like the food but I tried lots of new ones. Here's me hanging off the top bunk before I fell asleep for fifteen hours.

Halifax!

We were so hot and tired after our second full day in Ottawa, we couldn't even write in the blog, but we'll make up for it today. 

On Friday we managed to see a LOT of Ottawa. First off we went to the Royal Mint and the National Art Gallery. The Mint is in a beautiful old building, and it was a fantastic tour provided by a young woman named Pascale (she said to call her Ann if we didn't like the tour). The Ottawa Mint makes collectors' and inventors' coins along with the coins for dozens of foreign countries. We got to see some really neat things including the coils of silver and gold that are used to press out the blank coins. We saw the 2010 Olympic medals and tons of collectibles - including Star Wars coins! In the photo below, Morgan is holding a $700,000 gold bar. Big smile (security guard just off to the left!). They have some amazing artists and supporting technology at the mint. It's the only mint in the world that can test the purity of gold to 99.999. But first, we spent an hour looking at the art in the National Gallery, where we unfortunately can't take photos, but it was interesting to see all the different styles of art up close. 

At the Mint with the gold bar:

The Star Wars coins ($230 each): 

 We really enjoyed the National War Museum and we only got through about a third of it (next trip to Ottawa, we definitely go there first). Morgan found it really interesting. He got to dress up as a British solider in the War of 1812.

They had an amazing display of a WWI trench (this is lightened, and 

they had the background noises blasting). 

On our way back to our hostess' home, we stopped to see the rocks on the Ottawa River. There is a fellow who spends his whole summer balancing rocks there. No adhesives - pretty impressive. 

A drive to the Gatineau Hills....very beautiful at Champlain Lookout. 

On Saturday we got up bright and early and said farewell to Morgan's new friend, Penny, a Nova Scotia Duck Toller. She's a gorgeous dog. After a few more ball tosses and licks with Penny, my friend Laurie drove us to the VIA station in Ottawa, where we waited for our commuter train to Montreal. 

So tired. 

Awesome, top bunk! After a couple hours exploring the train and watching the scenery, 

he slept for fifteen hours in there. 

As we left Montreal, we learned about the Victoria Bridge. It was built by 3000 boys aged 10-12. 

Child labour in Canada. Morgan was appalled!

The VIA Rail cabins are quite cozy! This small space had two bunks, a couple cubbies, and 

a bathroom (no shower). But it had a bathroom! The bottom of the ladder is at 

the opposite wall of the cabin.

Trying new foods was on the menu, even if it wasn't successful. 

This is in the dining car while waiting for supper. 

A beautiful view of either Quebec or New Brunswick. A gorgeous way to spend the day. 

Mike from Parks Canada was on the train providing information about Acadian history, which was neat because it wasn't something we'd heard much about in Saskatchewan.

Finally! Andersons beat us to the vacation home in Halifax as they finished their journey on a plane. They will update the blog on their adventures tomorrow. The kids had a fun evening eating lots, enjoying have space to play in, and hanging out. We have a great house to ourselves for a week with a full kitchen and laundry; we managed to find the 24 hour Sobeys to stock up on groceries for the week.

Tomorrow starts our exploration of the City of Halifax. Stay tuned!

IT'S REALLLLLLLY HOT IN OTTAWA!

I'M IN OTTAWA!!!!

Ottawa is the capital of Canada.

Hey guys I call this Big Mini Ben.  It's the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill. It was big and grandiose and we got to go up inside it. It was really hot and full of marble. We got to see giant bells in the tower on the way up. 

The view from Mini Big Ben. It's the Ottawa River, the Parliament Building library and Quebec on the left. The library was overrated. I thought it was just a giant dome with a lot of books in it. There is a book worth $14 million dollars in it though.

Really tasty ribs!!!! They're having Rib Fest till monday. People were serving ribs all down the street. 

After this we went to a museum and my heels started hurting and I was totally bored. The best thing was giant whale blubber and a display of an old codfish processing table.

I'm really tired because it's so hot here so I will write more tomorrow.

The East Coast Journey for Kids' Trek Has Begun!

We've started our journeys!

Yesterday,  Morgan and I got up bright and early to catch a non stop flight to Ottawa. When we left it was a cool foggy morning.... and when we landed, it was so hot and humid that the walls of the corridor from the plane felt like they were on fire. It was quite a shock! We had a fairly relaxing first travel day - my friend Laurie picked us up at the airport and we drove out to her home outside of Ottawa to get our bearings and make some plans. We had supper with friends and then crashed at Laurie's house - the early morning and heat took it's toll!

This morning was our first day to check out Ottawa proper. It was over 40 celsius with the humidex and we didn't really want to spend the day outside in that - standing still made us sweat buckets. So, we decided to see if we could catch a tour of the Parliament Buildings. It was an abbreviated tour (mumble mumble something about summer holidays starting after today) so we couldn't get in to see the House of Commons or the Senate, but what we saw was great. We were able to take the elevator to the top of the Peace Tower and look around. Fantastic!

Here is Morgan trying to stay cool in front of the Peace Tower.

We were crossing the road and I took this photo of Morgan, and it happened that the Prime Minister's motorcade and security detail were in the background. They didn't seem to mind.

After the elevator to the top of the Peace Tower - this is looking down at the Library. Morgan counted over 45 Canadian flags starting with almost twenty visible from the tower. We were right under the clock. 

True.

Some interesting facts about the tower. 

From there, we went to the Memorial Hall. This hall contains the names of every Canadian killed while on active duty since the Boer War, right through to Afghanistan. It's very impressive. The pages of the books are turned every day at 11 a.m. so that every page sees the light of day in its turn. The hall is neither heated nor air conditioned, to give an idea of the conditions people fight in (they did have fans on today so that people wouldn't 'drop like flies' as one security guard said). In the winter, it is so cold in there that water freezes on the floor if it's spilled. There was so much detail in this beautiful hall.

These floor markers are made from melted down WWI shells.

Some of the books of remembrance.

The gorgeous book pages.

We did our tour of Parliament and learned about the democratic process in Canada. I'd like to say that Morgan was enthralled - I'm just hoping he remembers some of it, some day! The guides are excellent and very friendly.

From Parliament, we went for a cold drink at a little coffee shop, did some souvenir shopping, and discovered Rib Fest - several restaurants bring bbqs to a major outdoor walking mall and cook up racks and racks of delicious ribs. Of course, we had to sample!

After ribs, we went to the Museum of Civilization and the Children's Discovery Museum. Both were excellent, and the bonus was that entry is free after 5 p.m. on Thursdays, and they stay open til 8 p.m. There was so much to see there that it would take an entire day to read it all. Each province has its own little area of the museum representing life in that province. It's a great place to spend time and even if you rush through because the eleven year old has sore feet, you see lots!

The Grand Hall with a Bill Reid replica on the right (original at Canadian Embassy in US I think).

Saskatchewan's ever-present community notice boards made it to the museum :)

Whale blubber!

Tomorrow we plan on the War Museum, the National Gallery and hopefully the Mint. We'll see what we can get through on our second and final full day in Ottawa. It's beautiful!

The Anderson family began their train journey from Saskatoon to Halifax today. We will be meeting them in Montreal on Saturday. I bet they are enjoying their cabin on the train!

One Week From Now....

The countdown is on - we are only a week away from departure for our first official Kids' Trek journey, and oh boy, are the kids getting excited. Our fundraising was a big success - thank you to everyone who came to our movie nights, garage sale, and family games nights; to everyone who bought chocolates and candles; and to all the businesses who supported us on our journey through letting us help with advertising. Watch for regularly scheduled events starting in the early fall in and around Saskatoon (and wherever you live, if you decide to become a member!) as we continue our educational expeditions around Canada each year!

The kids are eagerly reviewing maps of the areas we are planning to travel to. Because one member of our group requires dialysis and is only able to receive it in Halifax, one family is travelling directly to Halifax from Saskatoon. The Anderson family leaves June 21 and they are taking the VIA Rail train the ENTIRE way to Halifax! The Quintin family is leaving Saskatoon on June 20 and flying to Ottawa.   In Ottawa, we will have the pleasure of exploring Parliament Hill and the Museum of Civilization, as well as visiting the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. From Ottawa, Quintins will take a VIA Rail commuter train to Montreal and meet the Andersons at the station stop. We will then travel together by train to Halifax, where we are staying in a vacation home located within easy walking distance of almost everything we want to see in the Halifax area. We are going to ensure the kids visit Pier 21 (Canadian Museum of Immigration), the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, the Citadel,  the Discovery  Centre Halifax, and more. Day trips from Halifax will include some time at the Bay of Fundy and maybe, if we're lucky, the Fortress at Louisbourg.

From Halifax we are driving to Prince Edward Island on Canada Day, to experience the biggest fireworks festival east of Montreal. As we drive in, we hope to spend the day at Cavendish and at the beach in Prince Edward Island National Park (with a stop at Green Gables, of course!). On to Charlottetown for Canada Day festivities, visits to Founders Hall, Confederation Players Walking Tours or a Harbour Hippo Tour, and hopefully a visit to Province House, where the Charlottetown Conference was held in 1864 to hash out Confederation. While in Charlottetown we are staying at the beautiful Hotel on Pownal.

On July 3rd, Quintins hoof it back to Halifax early in the morning to catch a flight to St. John's, Newfoundland, while the Andersons fly home on July 4th. While in St. John's, we'll be staying in a bed and breakfast for three nights before flying home to Saskatoon on July 6th. We are hoping to see the Johnson GEO Centre, Signal Hill, The Rooms, and much, much more - including a lovely lighthouse picnic if the weather holds. I don't think we'll be in time to watch icebergs, but we might see humpback whales!

Do you think we can experience it all??? Stay tuned! Daily blog updates will start on June 20th!

Garage Sale

One of the ways we decided to raise funds for our group was to have a garage sale and BBQ. This works to the benefit of Kids' Trek and to the families of Kids' Trek. We make money and clean out our garages at the same time!

The weather was beautiful. We had a clear, sunny day. It was a little windy in the afternoon, but that kept us from getting too hot.

Occasionally we ran down the street chasing a stray item trying to make a break for it, and the rose vase tipped a few times. But thanks to a tip from one of our supporters, we managed to make it so the roses would not tip over - we put them in one of those big "pickle" jars. At the end of the day, we were able to raise another $300 for our trip.  

Thank you to everyone who came out to our sale!  It was encouraging to talk with our supporters today.