From YHM to Where? Hamilton to the Halifax Harbour

Experiencing all the Nova Scotia city has to offer – history, waterfront beauty, art, brew pubs, seafood and so much more – is just a short flight away from Hamilton.

If you’re craving some fresh east coast sea food, Halifax is closer than you think – thanks to direct flights from The John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport via West Jet. As more commercial airlines are seeing the Hamilton Airport as an attractive alternative to the chaos of Pearson Airport, options for travel increase – and Hamiltonians benefit.

Where can you fly to from the Hamilton airport? A surprising number of cities across Canada, thanks to West Jet, including one of my favourite: Halifax, Nova Scotia land of the blue tartan and more ocean gazing than you can wedge into one visit.

That’s right. You can fly direct from Hamilton, Ontario to Halifax, Nova Scotia for a long weekend or more. Thanks to WestJet keeping several of the (now defunct) Swoop routes, Hamilton residents can fly to the east coast bypassing Mississauga traffic

There’s much to experience in Halifax. But in this installment of from YHN to Where, let’s stroll the Halifax waterfront. In my view, the waterfront is the crown jewel of any visit to Nova Scotia’s capital.

Fly from Hamilton to Halifax

Frankly, you shouldn’t visit Halifax without visiting the waterfront. In fact, visiting the waterfront while in the capital of Nova Scotia makes for a beautifully leisurely long weekend. After all, Halifax has managed to restore its industrial waterfront in a way few North American cities have by creating four kilometres of mixed-use boardwalk appealing to both locals and tourist while maintaining it as an active commercial harbour.

On a sunny summer’s day, the Halifax boardwalk pulses with people: locals walk dogs, nearby office workers take a break in one of the seaside hammocks, tourist shop in boutique stores specializing in pewter jewellery and artisan chocolate. And those with time on their hands, wile away the afternoon over a beer with a side of fresh ocean air.

Halifax art and history

Halifax is a maritime city, no question. City streets slope from sea level to an elevation high enough to build a citadel to protect the province – which they did two hundred years ago. Guided tours of the military citadel May to October (especially the after dark ghost tours) are popular tourist activities. And yes, the cannon still fires daily at noon as it has since 1857.

Stay overnight at the elegant Weston Nova Scotian hotel because it’s the ideal access point to the Halifax waterfront. Augmented with history of its own thanks to its 1930 origins and a visit from Lady Diana in the 1980s, this stately 300-room hotel is also an easy walking distance to the Nova Scotia Museum of Art (NSMA).

The lower level of the NSMA houses the Maud Lewis permanent exhibit – almost mandatory viewing or you’ll miss a key part of Maritime history and Nova Scotian identity. If you don’t know who folk artist Maud Lewis is, you will by the time you leave the east coast.

Halifax waterfront: Immigration curation

But today our focus is on the waterfront. Any given day the harbour is brimming with large freighters laden with shipping containers destine for warehouses beyond Halifax. The city’s been an eastern entrance to the country for centuries, and there’s an immigration museum on its shores marking that historical truth.

The waterfront’s gem is the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. This museum documents the ongoing story of Canadian immigration, not just the history of the port as the first point of entry for many at the turn of the last century. Exhibitions change at the museum as expected, but the core experience remains the same – a surprisingly moving testament to promise of immigration.

Many Canadians have ancestors who made the long journey across the ocean to this strange new land. Visitors can spend hours here, sometimes tracing their own family history, before heading out to explore the Halifax waterfront.

Halifax waterfront: Brew pubs and pups

Stop for a beer at the Garrison Brewing Company, one of the many craft breweries edging out a space in a province defined by Alexander Keith’s beer. Keiths was established in 1820 making it one of the oldest breweries in Canada but is now owned by Anheuser-Busch.

The Garrison, however, is comparatively the new kid on the block. The flagship brewery location adjacent to Pier 21 has been serving up seasonal beer flavours along with its staple Tall Ship brand since 1997 – and it’s dog-friendly, on the patio and indoors. {linking to my site article here would be cool: https://dogtrotting.net/archives/26592}

Then follow the still developing meandering boardwalk (called the Seaport) along the shore of Halifax’s Harbour terminating at Casino Nova Scotia, but don’t think it’s a direct route. There's a lot of distraction along the way - especially if you like to eat ... and shop.

Halifax waterfront: Salt yards and souvenirs

So many café, restaurants, pubs, and even food vendors line the boardwalk – you can sit for hours fine dining at The Bicycle Thief specializing in Italian fare (including seafood linguine), saddle up for a lobster roll and fries at the casual Stubborn Goat Beer Gardens, or grab a fish sandwich from any of the kiosk-style food vendors in the ‘Salt Yards’ area and find a bench seat at the outdoor event square. If you’re lucky, a cadet marching band might parade into the space surprising those taking in the ocean view with a medley or two.

And if you can’t find the perfect Halifax souvenir at the Salt Yards, you likely won’t find it. Along the wharf, there are two large warehouses filled with shops of maritime-theme merchandise much locally made or at least branded with Nova Scotian tartan. The converted warehouses are the genesis of the waterfront reinvention, but a couple of stand-alone shops a little further away can’t be missed: Peace By Chocolate and Amos Pewter.

First, Peace By Chocolate is a reasonably new. The artisan chocolate company run by Syrian immigrants and now based in Antigonish, Nova Scotia, has a retail outlet along the Halifax waterfront. Peace By Chocolate catapulted into public attention several years ago thanks to a boost from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Second, the more established Amos Pewter jewellery, based in Mahone Bay, has been designing silver-toned jewelry since 1974 that’s iconic in the province.

Halifax waterfront: Harbour tours

Open waters beacon, and if you’re called to experience the shore from the vantage point of a sailor, there are several options available including a Tall Ships sailing tour of the world’s second largest natural harbour. And yes, it is a two-hour tour – but this time past the Georges Island National Historic site, visible from the shore.

Or hop on the ferry that’s part of the city’s municipal public transportation system (so it’s the cost of a bus ride) and head across the harbour to Dartmouth in minutes. Return on the next ferry thirty minutes later because the Halifax Harbour boardwalk is the place to be morning to evening – especially when you can now fly direct from Hamilton in about two and a half hours thanks to WestJet airlines.

But if The Rock is on your bucket list of travel, check out From YHM to Where? St. John’s, Newfoundland as an option – also a direct flight from Hamilton.

Sherri Telenko is a freelance writer and Hamilton college instructor who travels regularly with her dog and writes about it at dogtrotting.net.