A Road trip to New Glasgow

The humans were up early having slept reasonably last night. It was grey and raining as they loaded the car and went to Tim Hortons for breakfast.

We were early now so we lingered over breakfast and then drove into Halifax again to visit the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia. 

The car was parked in the same place as yesterday and then the way to the Gallery took us via the War Memorial Gardens which had a sort of tent city in it! Were they homeless people or protestors, we never found out.

A little further on in the gardens of a government house we came across a monument to the men of Nova Scotia that had fought in the Boer War, which was a surprise. The monument had been unveiled by the then Duke of Cornwall and York and his illustrious consort in 1901. He later became King George V and his consort Queen Mary the grandparents of Queen Elizabeth II.

On the other side of the house was a statue to Joseph Howe a proponent of free speech and a free press.

In the art gallery we bears were forced to  tick off the various motives we could find. It was fun and interesting, but we missed two so didn’t get the jackpot!

One large exhibit was about Maude Lewis a folk or primitive artist. She suffered from rheumatoid  arthritis from a very early age and lived in poverty in a small house in Marshalltown Nova Scotia. Her house was preserved in the Gallery and was very interesting as Maude had decorated it all constantly.

The house had no running water or electricity. 

There were ceramics in another part of the Gallery

And a replica of the wild boar staue that is in the Uffizi in Florence.

On the top floor were interesting exhibits of Indigenous Native art as well as Native Amazonian Art. 

This piece is entitled Miss Chief’s Wet Dream! The raft on the left represents European culture and history, you see Jesus, Mary Antoinette and Queen Victoria for example and the canoe on the right represents Canadian Indigenous people.

We actually passed this artist as we were going up the stairs and found his hair style intriguing, but thought no more of it till we saw the painting!


After a coffee in the French Café we got on the road. The weather was not nice really, virtually constant rain, sometimes drizzle and at others a real down pour, but Sandy our driver handle all with ease. Had the weather been better we would have had some stunning views of bays and harbours, but even in the rain one can get a feeling for how it would be when the sun shines. 

We stopped for a late lunch of BLTs after an hour on the road in a very small diner and then only stopped occasionally to take the stunning views through the window.

Brec had told us all about his time in 6th Grade when he was so bored that he would study the Atlas and discovered an odd named place in Nova Scotia. He called it Eecum Seecum, but we now discovered it for real as Ecum Secum and so had to take a photo of him when we got there.

It’s at the arse end of the world for we now found we no longer had a mobile signal for miles and miles. Our BBF, however, still managed to navigate us onward.

In honour of Pat and Dan Markovich who sang the Sea Shanty Barrett’s Privateers for us the first time on the Camino in 2015 we had to stop and take a photo.

“Oh the year was 1778

How I wish I was in Sherbrooke now

A letter of marque came from the king

To the scummiest vessel I’ve ever seen

God damn them all! I was told

We’d cruise the seas for American gold

We’d fired no guns, shed no tears

But I’m a broken man on a Halifax pier

The last of Barrett’s Privateers.”

Then it was on to New Glasgow and the Travellodge Suit where we have no decided to stay for three nights.

The humans went to the Shopping Mall nearby to eat in the Boston Pizza and Sports Bar. There was female Ultimate Fight Competition and Baseball on the TV and our BBF said the women took no prisinors, but really went at it and drew blood. Not a pretty sight. 

They returned to us in the hotel and thence to bed. It’s been a long day on the road and tomorrow promises to be as long again.