Ron & Anne in Canada; 2016: A great place to start

An immigrant arrives.

A very friendly welcome from everyone we meet in this really beautiful place, nothing is too much trouble for them. It started at the airport where we picked up our car, carried on to the hotel, and continued to the Tourist information kiosk.

But the icing on the cake was our visit to the Immigration Museum, where many thousands of people first arrived in Canada over many centuries.

A guy there sat down at a computer and within a few minutes brought up a record of Grandfather Bob Bailey's arrival in Quebec in June 1913, and quickly followed by a record of Sarah Jane's arrival a year later. Details of the ships they arrived on followed, and then original entries of the census of 1922, which showed the names of my father John B, my Uncle Robert S, and my Aunt Isobel, showing their respective ages, 6,4,and 2. At that time they lived at 55 Garden Ave, Toronto, where Grandfather was employed as a rubber worker. They even had a lodger called Victor Wright.

I have copies of all of these documents, and I shall make them available to all the family who wishes to see them.

While we are here we will try to get a few more documents, like birth and baptism certificates, and visit Robertsville where they lived for w while.

The Citadel gates, firmly closed to us!

It was marathon day here so we decided to leave the car at the hotel and walk the city, starting at the citadel, a very large fort on the top of a hill overlooking the harbour. Unfortunately although our guide book showed it opening at 7am, it didn't, so we had to satisfy ourselves with walking round the outside.

Halifax has the second largest deep water harbour in the world, after Sydney. It was here that the Carpathia brought the survivors of the Titanic disaster, and that most of the dead were brought, many of whom are buried here. A great maritime museum has artifacts from the ship, as well as film and photos of the Halifax disaster in 1917, when a munitions ship blew up in the harbour killing 1600, and injuring 9000.

Unfortunately the rain set in in the afternoon, we must buy a brolly when we can!