HRM Point of Interest #14: Halifax Farmers' Market (260th Birthday)

Founded in 1750, the Halifax Farmers' Market is the oldest continually operating Farmers' Market in North America. Located inside the Alexander Keith's Brewery, the "Old" Halifax Farmers' Market (a new one opened just last month on the Waterfront) celebrated its 260th birthday on October 2, 2010.

In honour of this momentous occasion, many of the vendors donned "period costumes". In the picture above a vendor sells some of her home-made fudge to an eager customer. Incidentally, the chocolate covered peanut butter balls in the front left corner were amazing, as was her vanilla fudge. Furthermore, this vendor also sold me the best tasting Jona Gold apple I have ever tasted, way back in May, just before I headed to Vancouver on the train.

Fall is upon us, and with thanksgiving and Halloween coming soon, the pumpkins were out in full force. After I work through my backlog of potatoes, beets, and turnips I plan to buy a large one of these and live off of cooked pumpkin for a month. On this day though I appeased my hungry stomach by eating delicious samosa from a Greek vendor, triangle kimbab from a Korean vendor, and some sort of soft round moist bread-like patties from a South American (possibly? I'm not sure exactly where she was from actually) woman.

HRM Point of Interest #7: Camp Hill Cemetery

Camp Hill Cemetery is a burial ground in the heart of Halifax that was established in 1844. It was built to replace the old cemetery known as the Old Burying Ground, which still exists, that had been established nearly a century earlier in 1747. According to one long-time Haligonian I interviewed, Camp Hill Cemetery is purportedly one of the finest examples of a Victorian era cemetery in Canada.

Camp Hill Cemetery contains the graves of more than thirteen prominent historical figures, including Abraham Pineo Gesner - the inventor of kerosene - and John Taylor Wood - a Civil War Confederate Naval Officer and grandson of the nephew of Confederate President Jefferson Davis - as well as many others.

(The final resting place of Joseph Howe, widely considered to be the greatest Nova Scotian who ever lived. Howe was a champion of free press, responsible for Nova Scotia becoming the first British colony to secure responsible government, and Canada's first ever federal separatist.)

(Memorial to Alexander Keith - former mayor of Halifax, former president of the North British Society and founder of Alexander Keith's brewing company.)