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More than jobs will be lost when Ben’s well-known Halifax bakery closes this fall.
The 104-year-old Pepperell Street bakery is shutting down in November so owners Canada Bread can shift operations to eager-to-please New Brunswick. Over 100 employees will be out of work, and the property will be put up for sale.
It’s a major blow for workers and the loss of one more production centre in Halifax. Gone with the bakery will also be the warm, cozy smell of baking bread that greets anyone strolling down Quinpool.
Many a nose gobbles up that fresh-baked perfume without even realizing a bread factory squats on the other side of that wavy, concrete piece of brutalist public art.
Naturally, that made us turn to Twitter to try and distill some of the city’s other more prominent odours. There’s the sour ferment of the Oland’s brewery, fresh-cut grass on Citadel Hill and of course, the vinegary slosh of harbour breezes sliding down your throat.
Take our smelly tour below, and be sure to add any funky fragrances we missed in the comments section. We’ll update this map periodically, for future generations to inhale.
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This article appears in Apr 2-8, 2015.
Dartmouth:
The delicious scent of roses and lake water on the rose bush lined hiking trail around Lake Banook.
The fragrance of sun-warmed pine along the hiking trail at Albro Lake.
The aroma of fresh cooked seafood surrounding John’s Lunch.
The many notes of Casaroma’s lovely olfactory contribution to the Alderney Landing.
Halifax:
The delightful aroma of books in the stacks at Dalhousie’s Killam Library.
The delicious aromas that greet you upon arrival at Jean’s Restaurant on Spring Garden.
Perhaps there should be a heritage category for fragrances that were well know but have disappeared (like Ben’s shortly). The most well know was Moir’s Chocolates when their large factory was next to the Grand Parade (where the WTCC is today). The delicious chocolate smell would sometime mingle with a whiff of salt cod that dried on the roof of the AM Smith fish plant, where the new section of the Maritime Museum is located. Subtler was the fragrance on Mayflower (our provincial flower). For a couple of 100 years Mi’kmaq brought bouquets of Mayflowers downtown to sell. I recall a salesman on Barrington St in about 1980 with bunches of flowers in elegant waxed paper wrappers.
Clean laundry going by the Old IWK entrance on South Street.
Fresh salty sea breezes, but every once in a while, a shot of stank, harbor side in Halifax. You can look for the source or try to avoid it, and it’ll always surprise you.
Busker food! Too expensive and not healthy, but to walk by an get that heavenly smell…priceless.