Citadel Hill - Halifax - Nova Scotia
The first two nights of our trip to the east coast in September 2014 were spent in the Hampton Inn in downtown Halifax. After a nice lie in and breakfast on day one, we took a walk up to Citadel Hill to see the town clock which was built for the garrison at fort George in 1803.
The clock faces directly down Carmichael street to the harbour where we had wandered for our evening meal soon after getting off the plane from Calgary
A pedestrian pathway leads from the clock to the top of the hill where Fort George sits on the summit. Looking back from the hilltop the harbour remains in view throughout. The clock tower is now camouflaged in the right hand corner of the image.
The fort is now operated by Parks Canada and is restored to the Victorian period, it is an impressive structure with a star shaped design surrounded by a deep ditch, the only access is via a small bridge seen here from inside the fort.
Once inside the fort is largely a huge open space with replica cannon still looking for the French (the reason the fort was built in 1749)
A walkway encircles the garrison and makes for some great views out across the city, inside at ground level you can visit the barracks, cells and other such areas where re-enactors keep you informed of the history of the fort and life within it.
Looking to the east it is easy to see why the French never took the fort, expansive views over the inlet and harbour would make any sea attack doomed to failure and any land attack would have to charge the hill only to find that enormous ditch surrounding the fort and gun positions bristling all around.
With most of the internal structures buried under huge mounds of soil built into the walls even lobbing cannonballs over the top for a prolonged period of time would have little effect, it is actually a really clever design overall.
There is a noon gun firing exercise by the Royal Artillery but we were out of there before then but we did see some of the re-enactors carrying out demonstration firing of their muskets.
After a little exploration of the lower sections we made a full circuit of the upper pathway stopping to check out the view from every one of the gun positions along the way and for Sarah to capture this shot of the fort from the western corner.
This cannon is clearly aligned to the Angus L MacDonald bridge that crosses the harbour from the CFB Halifax which was the other part of this garrison, no doubt these positions offered protection to the harbourfront positions.
The re-enactors were well turned out and keen to share their knowledge with anyone raising a question, they were well informed about the lifestyle of the people based here and provided a real sense of life to the fort.
As we exit the view across the top of the clock tower and harbour is perfect, it's hard to imagine any aggressors managing to get their forces through this narrow channel and easy to understand why they didn't.
A last shot shows the scale of that ditch from the lower level, even then we are standing on a bridge half way up the wall, imagine trying to breach this place from the floor!
We enjoyed our visit to Citadel Hill but were keen to get going to the coast so we left the fort, walked back to the hotel to pick up the the car and headed southeast.....