Have you been inside the museum? We should go…meet the dinosaurs ~ “The Next Ten Minutes” The Last Five Years
Well, there aren’t any dinosaurs at this particular museum, since the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic is – as the name implies – strictly nautical, but more and more I’m finding that such tends to be my favorite kind. Other than art galleries of course, everything is other than art galleries…
I’d been intending to go for weeks, but I didn’t know where the place was. I was, in fact, under the mistaken impression that it was on the other side of town. But when I was out shopping for office supplies during our last call in Halifax, I stumbled upon the fact that the museum is actually only about a ten minute walk down the boardwalk from where we dock. So, at somewhere around 9:30 I phoned Amras who – thankfully – was awake,
Wanna go to the museum?
Which museum?
The Maritime one…
Oh wait is that the one with the Titanic stuff?
Yes…
My big brother knows me well enough to know that I can’t not go to a Titanic exhibit, it’s just one of those things, he also knows me well enough to know that said artifacts throw me for a loop emotionally and therefore that it’s usually not so great for me to go alone. So the two of us ambled hand in hand down the boardwalk and paid our $9 each to explore Halifax’s nautical past. They pack a lot into such a small building, huge models of old steam ships, including the ill-fated Lusitania, who was the inspiration for White Star’s building of the Titanic in the first place, replicas of the floating bombs that took out so many ships during the war. A torpedo that stretches half the length of one room. As we wandered through all of this I eventually pulled out my map and checked it
Titanic is top side…
Huh?
The Titanic exhibit…it’s upstairs
Okie Dokie then…
It’s not a large exhibit really, the traveling one that came to Victoria was much bigger, but they do pack a lot into a small space. Halifax has a strong connection with the Titanic, before the truth filtered down through the rumours they had thought they would welcome the survivors of a ship that was only damaged here…as it turned out, only the dead would come to Halifax. It was from here that the funeral ships went out, with crew paid double time and extra rum rations to go through the grizzly work of salvaging the bodies from the unforgivingly cold waters of the ice-choked Atlantic.
The museum has one of the largest collections of surviving wooden objects from the wreck, including an intact deck chair, and a large piece of the first class newel post. But it’s always the little things that get me the most, the pair of leather children’s shoes from the only child’s body that was recovered – despite so many perishing – the dinner menus, the perfectly intact first class tea cup.
Just…no one ever thought it could happen.
Heh, hey look – crew lodged right up front.
Yeah, sound familiar?
Some things never change…
I was standing staring at the section of the newel post when Amras came up behind me and rested a reassuring hand on my shoulder.
You okay?
Yeah…a little dizzy but okay…but we should probably get food
Food, yeah food would be good.
Which is how we found ourselves sitting on a rooftop patio in the sunshine, with fresh air and the general yumminess of comfort food (hey, everyone needs comfort food once in a while).
The past is what it is, but here, now and in the present? This was one of those good days.