John Linders, B.ScEng, B.Ed, M.Ed
REMAX nova
Cell: 902-488-4388
Fax: 902-462-1174
Toll Free: 877-762-2626

 

Halifax

The City of Halifax (est. 1841) is the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County, and was the largest city in Atlantic Canada. Until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996. It is no longer an incorporated city. The Town of Halifax was founded by the British government under the direction of the Board of Trade and Plantations under the command of Governor Edward Cornwallis in 1749. After a protracted struggle between residents and the Governor, the City of Halifax was incorporated in 1841. On April 1, 1996, the government of Nova Scotia dissolved the City of Halifax, and amalgamated the four municipalities within Halifax County and formed Halifax Regional Municipality, a single-tier regional government covering that whole area. Today the area of the former City of Halifax is now referred to as an unincorporated "provincial metropolitan area" by the provincial government's place name website, and the area is referred to as "Halifax Nova Scotia" for civic addressing.

The area is now administered as two separate community planning areas by the regional government for development, Halifax Peninsula and Mainland Halifax. It forms a significant part of the Halifax urban area. Residents of the former city are referred to as 'Haligonians'.

History

In 1750The Mi'kmaq called the area Jipugtug (anglicised as "Chebucto"), which means "the biggest harbour" in reference to present-day Halifax Harbour. There is evidence that bands would spend the summer on the shores of the Bedford Basin, moving to points inland before the harsh Atlantic winter set in. Examples of Mikmaq habitation and burial sites have been found throughout Halifax, from Point Pleasant Park to the north and south mainland.

Acadian period

 

The territory, which included much of the present-day Maritimes and Gaspé Peninsula, passed from French to English and even Scottish hands several times. In the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, Acadia was relinquished to England, however the boundaries of the ceasefire were imprecise, leaving England with what is today peninsular Nova Scotia, and France with control of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The colonial capital chosen was Annapolis Royal. In 1717, France began a 20-year effort to build a large fortified seaport at Louisbourg on present-day Cape Breton Island which was intended as a naval base for protecting the entrance to the Gulf of St. Lawrence and extensive fishing grounds on the Grand Banks.

In 1745, Fortress Louisbourg fell to a New England-led force. In 1746 Admiral Jean-Batiste, De Roye de la Rochefoucauld, Duc d'Enville, was dispatched by the King of France in command of a French Armada of 65 ships. He was dispatched to undermine the English position in the new world, specifically at Louisbourg, Annapolis Royal, and most likely the eastern seaboard of the Thirteen Colonies.

The fleet was to meet in Chebucto (Halifax Harbour) on British-held peninsular Nova Scotia after crossing the Atlantic, take water and proceed to Louisbourg. Unfortunately, two major storms kept the fleet at sea for over three months. Poor water and spoiled food further weakened the exhausted fleet, resulting in the death of at least 2,500 men, including Duc d'Anville himself, by the time it arrived at Chebucto. After a series of calamities the fleet returned to France, its mission unfulfilled. 1016 men were left behind, buried along the western shore of the Bedford Basin. The ghost of Duc d'Anville is said to haunt George's Island, his original burial place, to this day.

English settlement

Between the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713 and 1749, no serious attempts were made by Great Britain to colonise Nova Scotia, aside from its presence at Annapolis Royal and infrequent sea and land patrols. The peninsula was dominated by Acadian residents and the need for a permanent settlement and British military presence on the central Atlantic coast of peninsular Nova Scotia was recognised, but it took the negotiated return of Fortress Louisbourg to France in 1748 to prod Britain into action. British General Edward Cornwallis was dispatched by the Lords of Trade and Plantations to establish a city at Chebucto, on behalf of and at the expense of the Crown. Cornwallis sailed in command of 13 transports, a sloop of war, 1,176 settlers and their families.

Halifax was founded on June 21, 1749 below a glacial drumlin that would later be named Citadel Hill. The outpost was named in honour of George Montague-Dunk, 2nd Earl of Halifax, who was the President of the British Board of Trade. Halifax was ideal for a military base, as it has what is claimed to be the second largest natural harbour in the world (Citation needed), and could be well protected with batteries at McNab's Island, the North West Arm, Point Pleasant, George's Island and York Redoubt. In its early years, Citadel Hill was used as a command and observation post, before changes in artillery which could range out into the harbour.

Halifax Explosion

The war was seen as a blessing for the city's economy, but in 1917 a French munitions ship, the Mont Blanc, collided with a Norwegian relief ship, the Imo. The collision sparked a fire on the munitions ship which was filled with 2,300 tons of wet and dry picric acid (used for making lyddite for artillery shells), 200 tons of trinitrotoluene (TNT), 10 tons of gun cotton, with drums of Bezol (High Octane fuel) stacked on her deck. On December 6, 1917, at 9:04:35 AM [2] the munitions ship exploded in what was the largest man-made explosion before the first testing of an atomic bomb, and is still one of the largest non-nuclear man-made explosions. Items from the exploding ship landed five kilometres away. The Halifax Explosion decimated the city's north end, killing roughly 2,000 inhabitants, injuring 9,000, and leaving tens of thousands homeless and without shelter.

The following day a blizzard hit the city, hindering recovery efforts. Immediate help rushed in from the rest of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland. In the following week more relief from other parts of North America arrived and donations were sent from around the world. The most celebrated effort came from the Boston Red Cross and the Massachusetts Public Safety Committee; as an enduring thank-you, for the past 30 years the province of Nova Scotia has donated the annual Christmas tree lit on the Boston Common. The explosion and the rebuilding which followed had important impacts on the city: reshaping the layout of North End neighbourhoods; creating a progressive housing development known as the Hydrostone; and hastening the move of railways to the South End of the City.

Amalgamation

During the 1990s, Halifax like many other Canadian cities, amalgamated with its suburbs under a single municipal government. The provincial government had sought to reduce the number of municipal governments throughout the province as a cost-saving measure and created a task force in 1992 to pursue this rationalisation. In 1995, an Act to Incorporate the Halifax Regional Municipality received Royal Assent in the provincial legislature and the Halifax Regional Municipality, or "HRM" (as it is commonly called) was created on April 1, 1996. HRM is an amalgamation of all municipal governments in Halifax County, these being the cities of Halifax and Dartmouth, town of Bedford, and Municipality of the County of Halifax). Sable Island, being part of Halifax County, is also jurisdictionally part of HRM, despite being located 180 km offshore. Although cities in other provinces affected by amalgamation retained their original names, the new municipality is often referred by its full name or the initials "HRM" especially in the media and by residents of areas outside of the former City of Halifax. However, the communities outside of the former City of Halifax still retained their original place-names to avoid confusion with duplicate street names for civic addressing, media reference, emergency, postal and other services along with Halifax.

Geography

The original settlements of Halifax occupied a small stretch of land inside a palisade at the foot of Citadel Hill on the Halifax Peninsula, a sub-peninsula of the much larger Chebucto Peninsula that extends into Halifax Harbour. Halifax subsequently grew to incorporate all of the north, south, and west ends of the peninsula with a central business district concentrated in the southeastern end along "The Narrows". In 1969, the City of Halifax grew westward of the peninsula by amalgamating several communities from the surrounding Halifax County; namely Fairview, Rockingham, Spryfield, Purcell's Cove, and Armdale. These communities saw a number of modern subdivision developments during the late 1960s through to the 1990s, one of the earliest being the Clayton Park development at the southwestern edge of Rockingham. Since amalgamation into HRM, "Halifax" has been used variously to describe all HRM, all of urban HRM, and the area of the Halifax Peninsula and Mainland Halifax (which together form the provincially recognised Halifax Metropolitan Area) that had been covered by the dissolved city government. The communities of mainland Halifax that were amalgamated into the City of Halifax in 1969 are reasserting their identities principally through the creation of the Mainland Halifax planning area, which is governed by the Chebucto Community Council.