The Maritimes -August 2018 - Post #4 - Halifax, Peggy’s Cove and Shabbat

On Friday morning, I attended shul again and there were about 14 men present. 

We left for Lunenburg and we have to say that the roads in the Maritimes have been quite good. Mostly 4 lane highways with minimal traffic jams and in general we have been making good time getting from place to place.

It took us a bit over an hour to reach Lunenburg and it really is a very colourful, quaint, and very small fishing village. It is most famous as the home of the Bluenose fishing and racing schooner. 

The original Bluenose was launched in 1921 and was built by the Smith and Rhuland Shipyard, which was established in 1900 in Lunenburg and which, until it ceased operations in 1967, built 270 sailing vessels. 

Bluenose captain and builders had something to prove. Their sights were set on the International Fishermen's Race. For a working fishing schooner, speed was a tremendous asset. Those who made it to port first fetched the best price for their catch. The Fishermen's Race was a real race for real fishermen who made their living on the sea. Nova Scotia's pride and shipbuilding reputation sailed with Bluenose.

The Bluenose took home her first Fishermen's Trophy in 1921, and for the next 17 years, no challenger — American or Canadian — could wrest the trophy from Bluenose. She earned the title "Queen of the North Atlantic" and was well on her way to becoming a Canadian icon.

Bluenose came to symbolize Nova Scotia's prominence in the fishing and shipbuilding industries. She represented Canada around the world. 

The majestic image of the Bluenose has adorned the Canadian dime since 1937 and three postage stamps, as well as the Nova Scotia license plate.

In 1946, the Bluenose struck a reef off Isle aux Vache, Haiti. Despite the loss, the legacy and admiration for the once mighty schooner lived on in the hearts and minds of Canadians — especially Nova Scotians.

In 1963, Bluenose II was launched. It was built by many of the same people who had worked on the original vessel at the same shipyard in Lunenburg. Bluenose II was gifted to the Government of Nova Scotia in 1971. It continues to serve as Nova Scotia's sailing ambassador — an enduring symbol of the province — living history under sail.

Bluenose II sails out of Lunenburg and visits ports throughout Nova Scotia and North America. It is regularly open to the public, but unfortunately when we visited, she was out for a cruise in the beautiful bay. 

It is only a short drive from Lunenburg to Peggy’s Cove, but there was a very emotional stop along the way; but first a little background.

We had sent out our first posts about our trip to the Maritimes earlier that week and I got an email from a good friend, Rabbi Raphy Butler, who wrote that it was exactly 20 years earlier that he had been to Halifax. When I asked him what he was doing in Halifax, he wrote that 20 years ago, almost to the day was the tragic crash of Swissair 111 into the ocean just about 5 kms. off Peggy’s Cove, with all 229 passengers and crew perishing at sea. The crash was a result of a fire that broke out on board and the swift spread of the fire brought on by faulty materials used to build that Macdonnell Douglas plane. Rabbi Butler’s connection was that his very good friend, Mr Stanley Klein (someone that we had met at the Shabbat table years earlier at Rabbi Butler’s home) was aboard that flight, and he flew with members of the Klein family to Halifax. 

Very little was recovered from that flight and the search and cataloguing of bodies, body parts and debris took over 4 years and it was the largest program of using DNA to identify those who perished in the flight. Only one body was recovered that was recognizable by sight. Apparently, only Mr. Klein’s empty tallit bag was recovered, which suggests that when realizing that the end was near, he took out his tallit in order to say his final tefilot. 

A JTA article at the time spoke about the efforts of the Halifax Jewish community in housing and feeding the grieving relatives who came to Halifax seeking information about their loved ones who perished and that all 6 rabbis in the Halifax area at the time participated in counselling and support efforts. 

Rabbi Butler’s email exchange with me took place on Friday morning, as we were leaving for our visit to Lunenburg and Peggy’s Cove and after a quick google that informed me of a memorial to Flight 111 between Lunenburg and Peggy’s Cove, I wrote to him and asked for Mr. Klein’s name so that we could recite a chapter of Tehillim and a Keil Maleh Rachamim in his memory at that site. 

(While googling, we discovered that there were two other tragedies that are associated with the Halifax area and we will write a bit about them in a coming post; The Halifax Explosion and The Sinking of the Titanic).

And so, along the meandering road leading through very picturesque fishing villages and coves, we came to a sign which directed us to the memorial for Swissair 111.

You walk from the parking area to a small hilltop which looks out on the cove of very widespread huge and very smooth rocks that line the shore. There on the hill was the memorial. The memorial is a large rock with three vertical cuts at the top of the rock, which indicate the numbers 111 and which, when looking through them at the sea will line up with the very spot where the flight went down. Surprisingly there were many visitors to the site....I say “surprisingly”, because we spoke to a number of them and unlike us, we could not find anyone who had a direct connection to anyone on the flight and had no specific reason for stopping, other than caring and wishing to pay tribute to those who had died in this horrific tragedy. 

It was definitely a lesson that we learned that day; the concern for all of Hashem’s creations, whether you personally know them or not.

When I emailed Rabbi Butler with pictures of the site, he informed me that the day before was the actual yartzeit observed by the family of Mr. Stanley Klein, Yisrael Mordecai ben Tzvi Hirsch, zichrono livracha. 

We continued a short way up the road to Peggy’s Cove. 

As we approached the Cove, we got the same feeling that we had at Hopewell Rocks a few days earlier. All of the tourists in Nova Scotia, must be here. It was swarming with people. It is a sight to behold. Brightly coloured cottages and even more brightly coloured fishing boats and Adirondack chairs surrounding the beautiful and majestic lighthouse, set among wavy sea and those huge smooth boulders, creates a unique image, likely not duplicated anywhere in the world. 

And unlike so many tourist “traps”in the world, everything here is absolutely free. The site itself and the parking are all for the world to enjoy with no charge. The local residents could have easily formed an association and set a charge for visiting or for parking...but it seems that their utter pride in the place just makes them want to share it with the world. 

We found a parking spot and began our trek through the area. 

It is easy to see why this place is a magnet for photographers and artists. The combination of huge waves over the boulders surrounding the lighthouse and the almost glass like calm waters in the various caves that dot the fishing village coupled with the vivid colours everywhere, makes this a “Kodak moment” dream spot.

The village is likely named after Saint Margaret's Bay (Peggy being the nickname for Margaret), which Samuel de Champlain named after his mother Marguerite.

However there has been much folklore created to explain the name; the wife of an early settler; or the name of the sole survivor of a shipwreck near the Cove who was too young to remember her name; whatever the theory, it is a name associated with a place that evokes the picture that is uniquely Peggy’s Cove. 

The village was founded in 1811 when the Province of Nova Scotia issued a land grant of more than 800 acres (320 ha) to six families of German descent. The population peaked in the early 1900s at 300 and today relies on fishing, lobster trapping, and tourism as the mainstays of its economy.

We did not bump into many other Jewish travelers on this trip, but while walking thru one of the gift shops, a woman came over and said hello. She identified herself as Jewish, introduced her husband and we had a wonderful conversation. It seems that their family of 6 are 6 of only 7 Jews in Welland, Ontario. 

One of the benefits of wearing my kippah while travelling (that is not to suggest that I cannot just as easily identify a couple as Jewish when he is wearing a baseball cap and she has some sort of head covering with a jean skirt) is that I am very visibly Jewish and it has lead to wonderful encounters and games of Jewish Geography over the years. 

We still needed to cook for Shabbat lunch (or so we thought) and we headed back to our apartment in Halifax.

The time for the Friday night Kabbalat Shabbat was 6:30 at the shul and we drove there, as our apartment was a good 25 minute walk from the shul. 

Fran walked over to the home of Rabbi Yakov and Lisa Kerzner to light candles and after davening, we assembled at their house. There were a couple of students, the new shlicha (emissary) of the Jewish Agency assigned to work with the Halifax community, a professor of Marine Biology (who we later discovered is a granddaughter to the late Don Schelew with whom we davened for many years at Bnai Torah), an amazing couple with their three week old baby together with the non Jewish parents of the wife of the couple. The couple were both at the end of an incredible journey to conversion to Judaism which was to occur sometime in the coming week. 

As you can imagine, this wonderful mix of people led to great conversation, which coupled with Rebbetzin Lisa’s great cooking and the Kerzner’s warm and welcoming hospitality, resulted in a very long and most enjoyable Friday night dinner. 

The Rabbi and Rebbetzin were of course the beloved leaders of the Mizrachi Bayit minyan in Toronto before moving to Halifax two years ago and our children Ari and Liz were very close to them when they were in Toronto. They have endeared themselves to the community in Halifax and it is easy to see why. 

On Shabbat morning, there were about thirty people in shul and as is my custom, I had volunteered to lain the Torah. The gabbai, whose wife we were later to discover is related to Fran through marriage, told me that he had chosen the Torah (from the many owned by the shul) to be used for this Shabbat, because it was donated by his grandfather who was a native “Haligonian” (person from Halifax). 

It took quite a while to get a minyan, so once we reached Yishtabach, we paused for a 20 minute discussion on the sedra while awaiting the completion of the minyan. The davening ended with the Rabbi’s inspiring sermon and then we were all invited to the kiddush in the downstairs hall. We had prepared lunch, not knowing that there is a weekly dairy kiddush/luncheon sponsored by the shul. 

It was an assortment of salads and desserts coupled with a talk by the new shlicha who we had met the night before at the Kerzners. She, being an Israeli of Russian descent, whose parents immigrated to Israel when she was very young, spoke about the challenges facing new immigrants to a country and why it is so important to be creative in the attempts to integrate them into the community. 

She was especially referring to the more than 100 Russian Jewish families who had been sponsored in recent years to immigrate to the Halifax area and the difficulty that the local community was facing in absorbing them as part of the community. It was a very professional and interesting presentation.

We ended up staying at the shul for quite a while meeting and speaking with members of the Halifax Jewish community. 

After a long walk home and a brief rest, we walked back to shul again for mincha, Seudah Shlishit (where we met the local Chabad leader), maariv and Havdala.

It was a very pleasant and enjoyable Shabbat and it gave us a chance to understand and empathize with the challenges facing the future of small Jewish communities and the Halifax community in particular. 

On Sunday morning we packed up and headed to Cape Breton Island and hopefully great Celtic Music and Great Ocean Drives. More to come and in the next post, we will detail the Halifax Jewish Community history as well as the other two tragedies associated with Halifax.

All the best

Fran and David

 

Maritimes - August 2018 - Post #3 - Charlottetown

We crossed into PEI on the Confederation Bridge, a  curved, 12.9 kilometre (8 mile) long bridge, which is the longest in the world crossing ice-covered water, and which is recognized as one of Canada’s top engineering achievements of the 20th century. Until the Bridge was built in the 1990s, the only way to get to PEI was by ferry or by air. 

One word about tolls. You only pay the toll for crossing the bridge when you are travelling from PEI to New Brunswick. And therefore, if you take the route that we took, by entering PEI by Bridge and leaving by the car ferry to Nova Scotia, you save the toll. 

On the way to Charlottetown from the Confederation Bridge, we stopped at the quaint little village of Victoria-by-the-Sea, a fishing and artist village, where we had lunch and browsed the local shoppes. People were so friendly and in every shoppe where we stopped, the proprietor engaged us in conversation and we were able to learn much about their lives living in a small village in Canada’s smallest province. 

Note the contrast in the next picture. This was in a local potter’s gallery. The proprietor was very friendly and he explained that he was the “last person on earth” who does not own a cellphone. He still uses his trusty old cash register, though you can see a bank card processor beside the cash register because his cash register only goes up to $99.99 and cannot process credit card payments. He still hand writes his receipts on carbon paper.



We arrived in Charlottetown mid afternoon and were staying at The Harbour House on Grafton Street. It is a boutique hotel located in a very large, very well maintained old house, about three blocks walk from Confederation Square and about two blocks from the boardwalk along the Charlottetown Harbour. The room we had was large with a fully equipped kitchen.

We took what was remaining of the afternoon to walk thru the downtown area. This is a very small city (only 36000 people; think one third the size of Modiin, Israel), so hard to believe that it is a provincial capital and that it is the place where Canada was declared a country in the 1800s. 

In terms of Charlottetown’s Jewish community, the first recorded Jewish settlers on Prince Edward Island arrived at the turn of the 20th century, although there was a branch here of the “London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews” in the latter part of the 19th century — but no Jews to try to convert.

A newspaper item from 1908 reports a celebration of Passover by the Jews of Charlottetown. At that time the brothers Louis, Israel and Abie Block arrived from Riga, Latvia, established three families, and became prominent entrepreneurs under difficult, pioneer conditions. There were approximately a dozen other Jewish families who operated businesses for various, briefer periods before World War II and the number of Jews increased temporarily during the war when the Air Training Station was active.

Today there are about 50 Jews in PEI. It is the only Canadian province that does not have a Synagogue. An article in the JTA in 2001 spoke about one of the residents Joe Naylor as being the only PEIer to keep kosher, importing his chicken and meat by the freezer load to Charlottetown from Montreal. But a quick Google search revealed that Joe died in 2011 and most probably there is no one today in PEI observing kashrut. 

And so it was quite amazing that when browsing thru a local health food store in the centre of town, I found this in the refrigerated section; Baldwin Kosher Hot Dogs....when I asked the proprietor why he was carrying that particular brand, he answered that his distributor carries it and he has had good feedback on the quality of the product from his customers. 

There is an organized small community that meets for various holidays and celebrations. The Atlantic Jewish Council which oversees the various small Jewish communities in Atlantic Canada has a full time chaplain, Rabbi David Ellis, who lives in Halifax and visits the various communities to conduct High Holiday services and Pesach seders etc., and essentially serves as the roving Rabbi to a number of the remote, sparsely populated Jewish communities. 

After a very delicious dinner of fresh Atlantic salmon and locally grown veggies (at the only kosher restaurant in PEI....our hotel kitchen), we walked back to the centre of town to see the Anne of Green Gables Musical at the Confederation Arts Centre. 

The Theatre was packed and it was a very professional production. Most of the attendees were tourists like us and many were from the cruise ship docked in town. Apparently during the summer there is almost always a cruise ship in town, and during the months of September and October, there could be up to three docked per day. People come from all over to see the fall colours. 

On Wednesday morning, we first walked back again to Confederation Square, did some more craft browsing and interacted with the characters milling around the area who were dressed in period dress from the time of Confederation, and who played the parts of some of the key political figures of the time. Below is Fran with a very stiff looking Sir John A, and then Fran again with still stiff but much more alive characters of confederation. 

We then drove to the area near the cruise port which is the very old part of town, with original wooden, brightly painted buildings on narrow streets. The area was full of visiting tourists, lots of souvenir shoppes and craft stores. 

By 1 PM we had to move on in order to get to the ferry port at Wood Islands where we would sail for a little over one hour to reach Nova Scotia, and proceed with our almost two hour drive to Halifax. 

We reached Halifax in the early evening and checked into our residence for the next four nights. It was a newly built duplex (we had the upper floor), very spacious and very well equipped with 2 bedrooms and a full kitchen. Really a great place to be over Shabbat, though it was a 25 minute walk to the Beth Israel shul on Oxford Street. Once we checked in, we went over to Sobey’s on Queen Street which reputedly had the greatest selection of kosher food in the Maritimes. 

They did have a section labelled KOSHER and carried various packaged cheeses, cold cuts, hot dogs, etc. In their freezer they had a large selection of kosher frozen raw meats, but in the chicken category, it looked as though they were waiting for a stocking order from their supplier. They did have chicken wings and bones for soups, as well as turkey breasts, but they had no supply of whole or cut up chickens. 

We had been invited to the home of Rabbi Yaakov and Lisa Kerzner (formerly of the Mizrachi Bayit on Wilson) for Friday night, but we needed to prepare something for Shabbat lunch, so we decided on fresh salmon and turkey breast as well as a potato salad. 

On Thursday morning I went to shul (the Beth Israel advertises itself as the only daily minyan east of Montreal), and we had a minyan of 14 men. I lained and was also scheduled to lain on Shabbat. Apparently, they usually get a minyan in the morning, which is followed by a complimentary breakfast in the Youth Lounge. 

Rabbi Kerzner told me that there was a relatively new kosher bakery in town, The East Coast Bakery on Quinpool Road, which carried bagels, challah and cookies, all highly recommended by the Rabbi. So on the the way back from shul, I went to the bakery, bought some bagels and ordered challah buns for Shabbat. One caution, the minimum order of bagels or challah buns is six, so if you are just two people like us, prepare to have some buns or bagels that will need to be carried over for a few days use.

We began our touring of Halifax by visiting the Halifax Citadel, which is located high on a hill overlooking the downtown area and the port. 

Halifax Citadel is actually the fourth fortification built on the site. Although earlier fortifications were built in 1749-50, the year that Halifax was formed as a city; 1776-81; and 1795-1800; this latest rendition began construction in Sept 1828 and through construction delays caused by design and structural problems, completion took almost 30 years, and was finally finally completed in 1855-56.

The fortifications were successively rebuilt to defend the town from various enemies. While never attacked, the Citadel was long the keystone to defence of the strategically important Halifax Harbour and its Royal Navy Dockyard. 

Upon departure of the British garrison in 1906, it was handed over to the Canadian militia. In 1951 the site was declared a national historic park. About 1 million people visit the site annually.

There are guided tours on the hour led by summer students dressed in period dress that brings the 8 pointed star shaped Fortress back to life.

The guides that we had were excellent and gave us an education into what it was like to have lived during that time period in Halifax. As well, we were treated to a demonstration in musket shooting and were also present at the Noon Cannon firing, which happens daily. What followed was a bagpipe and drums marching band, again all dressed in the uniforms of the Scottish Highlanders. 

O






In the afternoon, we went down to the harbour and toured Pier 21, also called the Canadian Museum of Immigration.

Pier 21 was an ocean liner terminal and immigration shed from 1928 to 1971. Over one million immigrants came to Canada through Pier 21 and it is the last surviving seaport immigration facility in Canada. The facility is often compared to the landmark American immigration gateway Ellis Island. 

A picture from the internet showing an ocean liner beside Pier 21 and in front of the long building you can make out the rail line and train to which people transferred once they were approved as immigrants to Canada, and the next picture shows Pier 21 today as a museum with a modern cruise ship docked beside it in the Halifax Harbour. 




Taking advantage of Halifax’s excellent deep sea harbour and therefore its ability to handle the largest ocean liners, the immigration processing centre was erected here and a rail line was extended to an area parallel to the shed. Immigrants could enter, be processed, and then immediately transferred to a rail car that would take them to wherever they were headed in Canada. 

At the end of the Second World War, many Jewish refugees entered through this facility. Some stayed in Halifax, but many continued to join Family in various other Canadian cities.

It is an excellent tour and you begin to gain an appreciation for the difficulty and trauma that was experienced by so many refugees fleeing oppression, and the feeling of exhilaration when finally approved and walking out of Pier 21 as free individuals. In one of the testimonies that we heard at the Museum, the speaker said that he could not believe that immediately after having his landed immigrant card approved and stamped, he walked out as a totally free person, something he had never before experienced. 

In the evening, we went to Shakespeare by the Sea, and watched a live performance of Twelfth Night. This program, now in its 10th year, is held in a Park by the sea, by an acting troupe that takes Shakespeare plays and presents them with a modern and humourous twist. 

Friday morning, we are scheduled to go to the world famous Lunenburg and Peggy’s Cove fishing villages. 

More to come

Fran and David

Edi

The Maritimes - August 2018 - Post #2 - Moncton and Hopewell Rocks.

We arrived on Sunday afternoon in Moncton and made our way to the Hampton Inn and Suites. 

We spent the afternoon stocking up on food and supplies and in the early evening after dinner, we went to see the new Mission Impossible movie at a theatre in the neighbourhood. 

On Monday, we had researched the best time to go to Hopewell Rocks, about a 45 minute drive from Moncton, to see the amazing tides that have made The Bay Of Fundy so famous. Ideally you should arrive some time around low tide and be prepared to stay for a few hours as it moves to high tide, so that you can see the enormous difference in the level of the waters. 

Low tide on the day that we were to visit was about 2:30 in the afternoon, and so we decided to explore a little of the area before heading over to Hopewell Rocks. We had read about a lighthouse and lookout point called Cape Enrage, located about 45 minutes beyond Hopewell Rocks. 

On the way there, we stopped at various craft vendors whose wares were on display and for sale along the Fundy Coast Road. We enjoy various kinds of unique crafts, with a special interest in ceramics, and there were quite a few artists studios located along the way. 

What really stood out was the lack of people and the wide open roads. We were warned that the week we were visiting was the height of the season and therefore the place would be packed. When we reached Cape Enrage, there was hardly anyone there. 

It is located on a point that juts out into the sea and supposedly, the waters can get very rough and the winds can be very strong. On Monday, it was sunny, warm, calm seas and hardly any wind. We walked up to the lighthouse, looked at the view, watched a number of people zip lining in the area and found a very welcome picnic table for our lunch. Cape Enrage was nice, but not spectacular.

On the way to Hopewell Rocks, we saw these signs side by side on the highway, and were a bit puzzled......

We also passed by this cemetery marker and thought that someone died laughing......

At 2:30 we arrived at Hopewell Rocks. We now figured out why every other place was empty. Everyone was at Hopewell Rocks. The parking lot was quite full and there were a number of large tour busses as well. You enter by paying the National Park admission fee and then make your way along a forested 1 km. walk to the cliff high above the ocean floor. 

From this vantage point, you can see the ocean floor, the edge of the sea about 100 to 200 metres away and the “flowerpot rock” formations that dot the Shore. There were many people walking on the shore and they were all jockeying for position to capture the great “Kodak” moment with the unique rock formations. The first pic is from the top of the stairs.....and the second is from halfway down the stairs.

To get down to the ocean floor, you need to descend the 100 steps; surprisingly there is no elevator. 

We were warned not to wear good shoes as you are guaranteed to be walking thru mud. After all, a mere few hours earlier, this entire area was covered by about 50 feet of water. And this happens, day in day out. 

So Fran wore her “wellies” and I wore crocs. And it was a good thing we did. 

When we reached the bottom of the steps, right in front of us was “Lovers Arch” and a couple of very high rock formations. 

You can walk along the Shore for a kilometre or two and each new vista is another photo op. The closer you got to the water’s edge, the muddier it became. There were even a few brave souls who actually waded into the water for a swim. You do have to watch the clock as around 5 pm, the tides were beginning to reverse course and begin flooding the area of the Shore where we were walking.

From these pictures you can get an idea of the size and massiveness of the rocks at Hopewell. It was amazing!

We had reserved a 6:30 kayaking trip which would take us directly over those areas where we had been walking. We were to arrive at 5:30, receive instructions and a safety demo, as well as a chance to suit up for our two hour kayaking trip.

We were in two seater kayaks and this trip runs every day, rain or shine, so we gave our thanks to Hashem that our day was not a rainy one. In fact, it was sunny; warm but not too hot; and a perfect time to kayak. There were about 24 kayaks in the water, and the guides split the group into two, each group with a professional guide in the front and another in the back. 

As we glided around the Shore and came to the place where we had descended the stairs to the ocean floor, we were amazed by how far the tide had come in. But we were even more surprised an hour later on our way back when the tide was lapping at the foot of the stairs. 

This was an amazing day; one that we would recommend to anyone visiting the area. We really lucked out as we might not have had such a good experience if it was too hot, raining or rough seas. Highly recommended. 

We returned to the hotel feeling muscles that we never knew we had; and had a very good night’s sleep before heading into Prince Edward Island on Tuesday morning. 

On Tuesday morning, we said good bye to Moncton and drove about an hour eastward until we reached the Confederation Bridge, an 8 mile long bridge that connects the Island Province of Prince Edward Island to New Brunswick and the mainland of Canada. It was completed in 1997 and until that time, the only ways to reach PEI was by plane, ferry or swim.

Once in PEI, we drove the leisurely and picturesque coastal route to Charlottetown, the capital and the place where the Confederation of Canada was officially declared at the Charlottetown Conference for representatives from the colonies of British North America to discuss Canadian Confederation in 1864 and formalized in 1867. Curiously, while the conference was held in Charlottetown, PEI did not officially join Canada until 1873. So there is a lot of pomp and ceremony in the small city of Charlottetown centred around the events of 1867 that tourists can observe and enjoy.

The other big thing in PEI (besides potatoes), is the fact that the fictional character Anne of of Green Gables has her origins in the province.

More about both of these things in the next post.

All the best

Fran and David