Special Packages Hotels In California | "Glorious culture on display across the province"

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They keep boxes of tissue next to the computers in the museum’s Scotiabank Family History Centre. “Not a day goes by when we don’t have people cry,” says Cara MacDonald, the centre’s reference services manager. “Our job is to collect and preserve living memory. We encourage the side-by-side experience. It’s quite moving and overwhelming for many people.”

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And, suddenly, there it is on the screen: my mother’s boarding card on the ship that crossed the ocean, the false papers that enabled her escape from behind the Iron Curtain, her European passport. I knew these existed; I’d just never seen them before. Thank goodness for boxes of tissue.
In addition to the Family History Centre, the National Historic Site is filled with touchstones of the immigration experience—photographs, a waiting area and immigration desk, an actual Canadian Pacific passenger railcar that would have whisked new immigrants to all corners of the country.
Halifax’s role as a port stretches beyond the immigration experience. In the early 20th century it was one of the top five busiest boatyards in the world – thanks to its superb harbour and strategic North Atlantic location. It’s a story at the centre of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic , just a short stroll from Pier 21.

“The museum is a gateway to exploring the marine history of Nova Scotia,” explains Matthew Hughson, a heritage interpreter at the site. “Shipwrecks, Titanic, the Halifax Explosion and Canada’s naval history.”
Visitors make a beeline for touchy-feely blasts from the past: an original deck chair recovered from Titanic; a small clock, found in the rubble of the Halifax Explosion, arms stopped at 9:05, the moment of the massive blast that levelled more than 1,600 buildings and shattered windows 100 kilometres away; hero Vincent Coleman’s telegraph key where he tapped out a warning that stopped incoming trains and saved lives.
For many people, the Halifax Wrecked display is their first exposure to the full story of the 1917 wall of smoke and flame created when ships collided in the harbour. “At the time it was the largest manmade explosion until the dropping of the atomic bomb.”

It’s Titanic that has always drawn the crowds. Halifax was the nearest major port to the sinking and in 1912 became the centre of world attention. Coffins were piled at the Halifax wharf. Local cemeteries are the final resting place for about 150 bodies, many with no names. The grand ship was shy on lifeboat capacity and despite the declaration that “women and children go first,” the survival rate for men travelling first class was higher than for children in the ship’s third class section.
Just up the hill towards the Halifax Citadel is the small Nova Scotia Sport Hall of Fame , home to the Sidney Crosby Exhibit. The mementoes go waaay back – his baby bottle emblazoned with a Montreal Canadiens logo, jerseys, sticks, skates and pucks that all mark stops along the timeline of Crosby’s success. But it’s the banged and dented clothes dryer that every parent can relate to – it’s the original that sat in the Crosby home’s basement and was at the receiving end of the young star’s blistering slapshot.
While Halifax is the epicentre for the larger museums, galleries and musical venues, a lot more of Nova Scotia’s cultural side is sprinkled across the province.

To the north, on the shores of the Bay of Fundy, picture-perfect and squeaky-clean Annapolis Royal is home to 481 people, a mix of descendants of the once-exiled Acadians, artists and retirees living the good life in rural Nova Scotia.
“From my house I can look down the river and see the exact spot my ancestors built their first homes at Melanson Settlement National Historic Site ,” says Alan Melanson, a recently retired Parks Canada interpreter with Acadian family ties that stretch back to 1657. “It’s a nice feeling. But there are a lot of other Acadians here who can share that feeling. This is the cradle of Acadian settlements.”
Melanson’s knowledge of the Deportation of the Acadians is encyclopedic. “I want people to know this was the birthplace of the movement to preserve Acadian culture.”

Not one to sit still in retirement, Melanson and his wife operate tours of Annapolis Royal – from candlelight graveyard tours that tell the story of the village through the people buried there, to walking tours of the village’s National Historic District (where there are more registered heritage properties per capita than anywhere else in Canada), to an Acadian heritage tour.
Follow scenic Highway 1 ( The Evangeline Trail ) about an hour along the Fundy coast to another touchstone of the Maritime Acadian culture, the Grand Pré National Historic Site . In 1755, Grand Pré was a centre for the Deportation, a tragic event of expulsion that marked Acadian history forever. The quiet fields, memorial church and gardens are the Acadians’ most cherished historic site.
It would be impossible to talk about cultural touchstones without stepping up to Cape Breton for a taste of music (and a dram of single malt whisky).
“I’m a good ol’ Cape Bretoner,” laughs Lauchie MacLean, who owns The Glenora Inn & Distillery Glenora Inn & Distillery on the Ceilidh Trail. “My musical roots go back to when I was born. My mother is related to the Barra MacNeils. My grandfather was a well-respected violin player. I’m more of an amateur musician compared to others in the family.

“ Cape Breton has mainstayed a lot of the Celtic culture. The clan system was able to survive, the Gaelic language has survived, step dancing has survived and Celtic music – including banjo, fiddle and Celtic harp – has flourished to a larger audience.”
According to MacLean, Cape Breton musicians are as esteemed as any in the world. He throws open his doors and practices that world-famous Maritime welcome: “I personally know most of them and have encouraged their music at my home and at the distillery.” Ceilidhs – Celtic gatherings of music, song and dance – are one Nova Scotia cultural touchstone that shouldn’t be missed.