Famous "sons & daughters" of Halifax Canada

#FamousSonsDaughters_HalifaxNovaScotiaCanada

As i write this story about some of these people, i purposefully scaled it so once you visit my beautiful city the buildings highlighted here are on just two streets of the downtown historic section
 Give yourself an afternoon to absorb all the history found here in Eastern Canada
Lets Start

Pier 21 
Arriving New "Sons and Daughters"
Its called the "Gateway to Canada" with over one million immigrants that came through this building between 1928 to 1971, mostly to flee oppression due to armed conflicts or to start a better life for themselves and / or their families

Some Famous People Who Came Through
A) Winston Churchill; the British Prime Minister passed through multiple times to attend high level military meetings in Quebec and Washington

B) Princess Juliana of the Netherlands; the future Queen arrived here after the Nazi invasion of her country and lived in Ottawa for the remainder of the war

C) Rosalie Abella; was born in a German Displaced Persons Camp, she arrived in 1950 as a child refugee and went on to be the first Jewish woman appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada

D) Peter C. Newman; arrived as a child in 1940 fleeing the war, then became a famous Canadian journalist, author and was the former editor of the Toronto Star plus the MacLean

E) Luba Goy; entered Pier 21 as a youngster with her Ukrainian parents and would go on to have a great career as a comedian and star in Royal Canadian Air Farce Troop

 

War Bride Train

Pier 21 was the departure point of 500,000 Canadian Military Personal deploying overseas
during the Second World War
Some of these soldiers would meet their future spouses while fighting in Europe, so once they returned and got sent to their military base here in Canada, the women followed months later to be at first processed they sent by rail to be with their future or newly wed husbands
(which numbered 40,000 ladies and also included 20,000 of their newborns)
Hence why the railcar is part of the museum

Some of The Notable Passengers
A) Olga Rains; she was a Dutch war bride who became a vocal advocate for the preservation of the immigration history and to help raise public awareness of the unique struggles and
triumphs of her "group"
B) Betty Carr; she arrived from the United Kingdom and went on the write The Story of the Canadian War Brides which was a definitive firsthand account as she was living the experience 

 Melynda Jarratt
 Growing up in New Brunswick Canada she became the foremost war bride historian, authoring numerous books on the subject
Her beginnings began as her Masters Thesis on the subject (1987) with her research on a local woman Jenny Langin who was a Scottish war bride

Samuel Cunard

One of our most famous sons, born in Halifax in 1787 and amassed a personal fortune from banking, coal mining and iron
Of course most know the name from his shipping empire that first started out as a Royal Mail Service, which meant a strict schedule plus technical innovation
That was (having foresight) a perfect trial run for carrying people
Eventually he launched his passenger version with a paddle steamer Britannia on her maiden voyage starting in Liverpool to Halifax onto Boston (1840)
Into 2026 and what we see today is the MS Queen Anne (2024)

Fun Facts
A) Queen Anne; is the 249th vessel of the 180 year history of the
Cunard Shipping Family
B) Prefix; RMS was Royal Mail Ship, now the modern fleet uses
 MS which is Motor Ship
C) Queen Mary 2; launched in 2004 it is the only ocean liner that is still in
active operation built to handle the heavy seas of the North Atlantic
 Its structurally engineered with a  thicker hull and a deeper draught (it lowers the ships center of gravity which gives it better stability in the open ocean)
D) Pet Lovers; its the only passenger vessel equipped with kennels and features a New York fire hydrant and a Liverpool lamp post for those pee breaks 😀

William Alexander Henry

Born in Halifax (1816-1888) he was a lawyer, politician (Mayor of our City) and one of the first justices on the Supreme Court of Canada
But most famously he provided critical expertise during the drafting of the constitution and the legal language for the British North America Act 1867
This legislation formally established the nation of Canada with the four Provinces (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario) to form the Dominion
Thus he is known as one of the Fathers of Confederation

Henry House
Designated as a National Historic Site of Canada in his honor, so drop by and raise a
glass to another famous family member of Halifax 

British Major General Robert Ross
He is one of our "adopted sons" who is laid to rest here and led the raid of the White House after the attack on present day Toronto by the Americans
This story at length #BritishHalifaxCanada_WhiteHouseBurning

Khyber Building (1888)
Originally opened as the Church of England Institute with a library, gym
 and lecture halls

The Turret Club (1970s-1980s)
Operated by the Gay Alliance for Equality which the space hosted one of Canadas earliest queer nightclubs with the society trying to have it recognized as the countrys first official queer heritage site With that moving forward Canada Post did put out a stamp depicting the famous turret on
one of their issues

Centre for the Arts (1990s - 2014)
Cultural "Sons and Daughters"
Some famous local musicians got their start here after the space was transformed into a venue to host Indie Music plus the Art Scene

A) Joel Plaskett; started his career here and named his debut album
Down at the Khyber
B) Classified; the Juno Award winning rapper and now producer used the space to help build his fan base because of the all-ages and alternative gig nights that happened here
C) Sloan; its members were studying at NSCAD with the Khyber Club being part of the campus, thus it served as an early live venue for the band
D) Emily Vey Duke and Cooper Battersby; they are an award winning media artists duo, who showcased their early video art pieces here
E) Shary Boyle;  she is known for her sculptures, drawings and performance art that represented Canada at the 2013 Venice Biennale and like the others, got her start at the Khyber
F) Kelly Mark; she is an internationally acclaimed conceptual artist who helped establish the buildings identity in the early beginnings

St Pauls Anglican Church

Many Lost "Sons and Daughters"

Halifax Cenotaph Grand Parade
The church was built with the founding of Halifax (1749) so its intimately tied to the cities military history, with a dedicated Second World War chapel and plaques commemorating regimental colors

Titanic
The church held a service six days after the sinking and before the body recovering vessels chartered by White Star returned to Halifax Harbor
For more in-depth story #TitanicHalifaxNSCanadaConnection

Halifax Explosion
The building survived the blast and the church was used for an emergency hospital and morgue
Visitors today can view inside the building, there is a metal piece of the original window frame embedded above the doorway plus the famous "Face in the Window" silhouette

George Henry Wright

"Lost Son"
Was a parishioner of St Pauls Church which held a memorial service for him after he went down
 on the Titanic
He was a prominent businessman, developer and philanthropist from nearby Wrights Cove and
 based in Halifax
On Barrington Street you can see on of his many structures in the city;
The Marble Wright Building

At the same Grand Parade

Halifax Explosion December 6th 1917
The harbor was the gathering place for all the First World War vessels
 They were heading across the Atlantic Ocean and were being escorted by our Canadian Navy for protection from the German U-Boats
The French munitions ship SS Mont-Blanc collied with SS Imo which ignited a fire and then the largest manmade explosion up to the atomic age happened
The blast killed 2,000 people, injured another 9,000 ( many were blinded by flying glass, this was the start of the CNIB.... Canadian National Institute for the Blind ) and 6,000 more of our citizens
 were left homeless

"Sister City"
Within hours of the tragedy the City of Boston sent by train many trained medical professionals,
 food and supplies
 So as a way of saying thank you, we started sending a Christmas Tree the following year in 1918
 (and after a brief pause)
 The Tree for Boston tradition was officially revived by the Province
 of Nova Scotia in 1971 

So before leaving this area look for the City Hall Clock Tower on its northern face, the dial hands are purposely frozen at the time when the explosion took place to pay homage to
our lost "sons and daughters"

Enos Collins

Entrepreneurial "Son"
Was born (1774) outside of Halifax in Liverpool NS (150kms-93 miles) but was based here and was widely acclaimed to be the richest man in Canada
He was one of twenty six children and received little formal education and went to work at sea at
very young age 
By age nineteen he was the master of a trading vessel and then became owner of the Liverpool Packet which was a legendary privateer ship (a pirate who gets permission from the British Government to be their protection of this port city)
So this is how the wealth started as it was wartime profits beyond capturing ships and all its cargo, he would break naval blockades to supply the British in their various wars and also buy other ships seized by the courts at a huge discount

Historic Properties
Look for the Collins Court sign on the facade of the above picture, this was
basically his work space and office buildings

Start of CIBC 

Financial "Sons"
In 1825 Enos Collins, Samuel Cunard and Henry Cogswell formed the Halifax
Banking Company

So full circle moment if you remember the Confederation of Canada and Alexander Henry
The Canadian Bank of Commerce was founded just months before in 1867 in Toronto and then established an office in Halifax in 1903 ( 5171 George Street) by merging with the above Halifax Banking Company from its Historic Properties location

This eventually is the present day CIBC with its 900+ corporate banking centers in Canada, United States, Asia, the UK and the Caribbean

Viola Desmond

"Civil Rights Daughter"
So next to Historic Properties is the Cable Wharf and our water transportation, you can board her namesake to cross the harbor or maybe keep as a souvenir a Ten Dollar Bill with her likeness

She became a highly successful entrepreneur but in the beginnings was blocked from attending beauty schools in Halifax because (i am ashamed to say) of her race.
 So her training was done in New York, Montreal and Atlantic City then returned home to open a Studio of Beauty Culture plus launching her own line of cosmetics
Then founded a the Desmond School of Beauty plus mentoring and training many generations of black women to become financially independent business owners

Roseland Theatre
Traveling outside Halifax on a business trip, her car broke down near New Glasgow (160kms - 100 miles from the City)
To pass time she went to the theatre and sat in the main floor, apparently it was a "whites-only" section, but she refused to move
Police were called, she was forcibly removed, jailed overnight and prosecuted
The legal process was ultimately unsuccessful due to technicalities, but her public stand laid the groundwork for the country of Canada and its civil rights movement

Todays Legacy
The Government in 2010 gave a posthumous apology and an absolute pardon thus correcting the historical legal record
She was named a Person of National Historic Significance in 2017

Alexander Keith (1795-1873)

He was not born here but we claim him as one of our own jajajaja
He immigrated to Halifax in 1817 from Scotland and bought out a local brewery a few years later
Thus started his journey, which today it is one of the oldest working breweries in North America

But he also was the Mayor multiple times and a Freemason which maybe brought on the paranoid, as he built a series of tunnels between his residence of Keith Hall (one block north) to his business plus rumor has it, a few other tunnels within the city 

So (highly recommended) when you do the brewery tour here, you indeed travel the tunnels and finally have some samples of his India Pale Ale in an underground pub (6 meters / 20 feet deep)
This is why he is one of our "favorite sons" of Halifax

Government House

Our "Royal Family"
This is the oldest consecutively occupied vice-regal residence in North America
It serves as the official home to the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia since 1805 which is
now a ceremonial role
Today it functions as the central hub for diplomatic receptions, official state events and hosting
 visiting royals

This historic property also served as a command post and relief hub during the 1917 Halifax Explosion, so which in closing is how all of us "sons and daughters" within any area you live should act
 Always Helping Each Other