Canada Guide
The Maritime Provinces
The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic
Address: 1675 Lower Water St
Opening time: May & Oct Mon– Sat 9.30am–5.30pm, Tues until 8pm, Sun 1–5.30pm; June– Sept daily 9.30am–5.30pm, Tues until 8pm; Nov– April Tues 9.30am–8pm, Wed– Sat 9.30am–5pm, Sun 1–5pm
Price: $8
From the bottom of George Street, it's one block south to the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, which contains a fascinating exhibition covering all aspects of Nova Scotian seafaring from colonial times to the present day spread over two large floors. Beyond the entrance, the ground floor holds a series of small displays, including one on the Allied convoys that used Halifax as a port during both World Wars; a second on the Halifax Explosion, illustrated by a first-rate video, One Moment in Time; and a third on the perilously sited Sable Island lighthouse, stuck out in the Atlantic southeast of Nova Scotia. Upstairs, a collection of small boats and cutaway scale models details the changing technology of shipbuilding in the ‘Days of Sail', but it is the neighbouring ‘Shipwreck Treasures' section that attracts most attention, mainly because of its well-presented display on the Titanic, which sank east of Halifax in 1912.
Docked outside the museum are an early twentieth-century steamship, the CSS Acadia, and a World War II corvette, HMCS Sackville. The first is part of the museum, the second is a (free) attraction in its own right; both can only be boarded in the summer.