The busiest weeks of Halifax’s cruise season are still ahead, but as June comes to a close, 32 cruise ships have brought an estimated 46,000 visitors to Halifax’s waterfront so far in 2023. There’s good and bad that comes with that: As The Coast has reported, environmentalists warn that cruise ships are among the most […]
Halifax Harbour
Posted inNews + Opinion
A Roman orator meets a deadly snake in Halifax Harbour this week—sort of.
We’re odd creatures, us humans. It’s one of the great mysteries of the universe that our species can send astronauts to the moon and ships to all corners of the globe—but ask us to name those ships, and our inspiration stops after about… seven names. (And that’s not counting Boaty McBoatface.) On Wednesday, the Danae […]
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Cruise ships meet delayed car carriers in Halifax Harbour this week
The ancient Greeks had a thing for swans. Zeus, it is said, turned himself into a swan to seduce the Spartan queen Leda. The former king Cycnus transformed into a swan after his death. So, too—depending on the story’s teller—did Orpheus, after he was murdered. If you look into the night sky in summer and […]
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Halifax Harbour’s giant crane ship bids farewell to Nova Scotia this week
A familiar sight will soon disappear from Dartmouth’s skyline: On Friday, the 178-metre-tall Orion crane ship is set to depart from the IEL dock at the Woodside Terminal, where it has towered over Halifax Harbour since the beginning of May. Both the Orion and the GPO Grace heavy load carrier have been in port assembling wind […]
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Halifax’s biggest cruise ship of the year (so far) arrives this week
If you’ve been anywhere near Halifax Harbour in the last two weeks, you’ve seen the Orion crane ship looming over Dartmouth’s skyline. One of the world’s largest offshore construction vessels, it can lift 5,000-tonne loads up to a height of 178 metres—more than twice the height of the Purdy’s Wharf towers. Since Saturday, it’s been […]
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More ship delays in Halifax Harbour this week
The ancient Greeks had a word, kairos, to denote time—specifically, “the opportune and decisive moment.” The North Atlantic Kairos chemical/oil products tanker was projected to arrive in Halifax as early as late Sunday afternoon, inbound from Come By Chance, Newfoundland, but instead—and indeed, by chance—reached Halifax Harbour at the inopportune hour of 11:15pm. That’s on […]
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What’s the story behind the French naval ship in Halifax’s waters?
If you took a stroll along the waterfront near the foot of Morris Street on Monday morning, you’d have walked right past it: A 40-metre patrol vessel painted Navy grey, flying French and Canadian flags and docked within a skip and a jump of the Bicycle Thief. Ordinarily stationed out of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, […]
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Nova Scotia’s worst shipwreck sets the tone for Halifax Harbour this week
This week gets off to an unusually quiet start in the harbour. But that’s a fitting way to honour the weekend’s anniversary of a massive shipwreck in the North Atlantic. The doomed vessel was a proud steamship of the White Star Line, sailing from England to New York, and when it went down taking hundreds […]
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What’s up with all the ships bypassing Halifax Harbour?
In normal circumstances, the 39,938-tonne Vayenga Maersk container ship would stop in Halifax on its cross-Atlantic voyage from Montreal to Bremerhaven, Germany—only this week, it’s skipping Nova Scotia altogether. That it’s doing so isn’t altogether unusual—from time to time, shipping lines omit port calls to make up for delays or scrap stops if demand dwindles—but […]
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The Brooklyn Bridge is coming to Halifax Harbour this week (just not the one you’re thinking of)
St. Patrick’s Day weekend was bound to end in a hangover, wasn’t it? It certainly feels that way looking through the Port of Halifax’s expected arrivals this week. Take a glance, and you’ll spot a whole flotilla of familiar names that were supposed to reach port last week, only to run into slowdowns and other […]
Posted inNews + Opinion
One behemoth of a ship arrives in Halifax Harbour this week
Do you remember the first time you watched Star Wars? There’s a moment right at the beginning of Episode IV: A New Hope that fundamentally changed my understanding of scale and shattered any imagined limits of just how utterly enormous a thing could be. I’ll describe it for you if you’re unfamiliar: The scene opens […]
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Marvel comics meets Shakespearean tragedy in Halifax Harbour this week
As a rule, I loathe emails and would spend a fortune to never read another. But there are exceptions: Coast readers are a wonderful bunch, and I’ve been nothing short of delighted with many of the correspondences I’ve had with them. This past week was no different. One reader, Al, wrote in about our weekly […]