HRM Monument #32: Norwegian Soldiers Monument

This sharp looking monument was erected in memory of the Norwegian sailors and soldiers who gave their life in WWII, and who were buried in Nova Scotia or who were lost at sea around Nova Scotia. It has a few practical uses as well, especially when I need to check my hair in my reflection, or when I have to get a few inches higher to take a nice picture of Sackville Landing (the open area in which the monument is located) or the Harbour, both of which you can see in the reflection in the monument.

It's been nearly a year since I originally stepped off the train and dropped my bags off here - in Halifax - during my cross Canada adventure. Although I became a little busy this winter collecting more funds with which to go exploring in the upcoming months, looking at this photo I took last summer I was reminded again about just how strongly Halifax's sometimes sad, but always important history has been largely effected and shaped by war.

HRM Point of Interest #23: Tufts Cove

A few weeks ago I posted an image on my Flickr account of a building near my home. Just visible over the top of the building in that image were the tips of the three red and white smoke stacks you see here in this image.

My friend Sara, with whom I went on the Harbour Hopper Tour back in August, sent me a message informing that the smoke stacks were located in a neighbourhood known as Tufts Cove. As I was cycling across the Macdonald Bridge to work one morning I noticed these smoke stacks for the first time and took this picture.

The name Tufts Cove comes from a prominent Boston area family that came to Dartmouth in 1749. The land itself was also the location for a Mi'kmaq settlement known as Turtle Grove, until 1917 when it was destroyed in the Halifax Explosion.

To be honest though, this isn't so much a HRM Point of Interest, as it is an EP Dave's Point of Interest. The only reason I included this image is because I have seen these prominent stacks in various images of the Halifax Harbour since I came here. However, I could never figure out where they were located, and neither could I find anyone who could remember either.

For this reason alone they had become like an annoying itch in my mind of which I just could not rid myself. And so, like a deeply satisfying scratching of a peeling sunburn, I present you this post so that I can relieve myself of this itch, and perhaps even save you from my "pain" also. I really do aim to provide a public service here at EP Dave's Terra Nova.

HRM Point of Interest #22: Sir Sandford Fleming House

Sir Sandford Fleming House is a one-and-a-half storey Gothic Revival style house on Brunswick street in north end Halifax. Gothic Revival was an architectural style popular in the early nineteenth century. The Gothic Revival features on this home include the lack of intricate wood trim, the small dormer over the central window, and the central door and two major gables on either side, among many others features (just in case you were wondering.)

As its name suggests, the most famous resident of this home was its first, the honourable Sir Sandford Fleming, who was instrumental in engineering our coast to coast railroad, created our first postage stamp, and developed the system of 24 time zones that we still use today to keep accurate time as we travel.

These days, Sir Sandford Fleming House is used by The Saint Leonard's Society of Nova Scotia to help house newly released inmates while they are reintegrated into society. It accommodates 21 male residents, and is administered by a board of volunteer citizens. (And just think about how we have friends who think they need a two-story house and an oversized SUV when we have one child...)