On Saturday, May 4th, 1940, at 11.00 pm local time, the British freighter SS Graig ran aground in dense fog on Flint Ledge, some 60 km east of Halifax on the Eastern Shore of Nova Scotia. The vessel had left Halifax on route to the United Kingdom…

The beginning of horse-drawn sleigh drives can be traced back to the time of Prince Edward during the last years of the eighteenth century. They died out after he returned to England in 1800. However, sleigh drives were revived in 1821 with the…

There is evidence that coasting, or tobogganing, was taking place on Halifax’s steep streets in the mid 1820s. The English name, “toboggan,” likely derives from the word for “sled” in one of the Eastern Algonquian languages – possibly the Mi’kmaq…

In 1893 William Topple purchased 35 acres of land on the Herring Cove Road from Mary Ann Gray, the daughter of William and Elizabeth (Drysdale) Yeadon. The land was part of the 1771 grant to Captain William Spry, acquired by the Yeadons in the 1830s…

The first permanent settlers in the area now known as Brookside, which is off the Prospect Road, were members of the Scottish-born Drysdale family. The son of John Drysdale and Isabella Bonner of Scotland, John Drysdale was born May 2, 1749, in…

Bravo, Straw Hat:In 1825, a Halifax Turf Club was established, and races were held on the Common the last week of every August for twenty years. In 1827, a cocked-hat sweepstakes for untrained horses was added to the programme, for which no handicap…

The area around the tiny village of Peggy's Cove has had a special fascination for artists and photographers for many years. Its fame dates from 1921, when renowned Nova Scotian photographer W.R. McAskill photographed it, calling it "Quiet…

Introduction by Curator, Bria StokesburyIn the nineteenth century, tuberculosis - also known as "The White Plague" - was one of the leading causes of death in North America. The Nova Scotia Sanatorium was built in 1904 to treat patients suffering…

During his service as a soldier in World War One, Private Harold Benjamin Watts wrote two postcards to his friend, Harold Homans, of Port Mouton, Nova Scotia. Together with his service record in Library Archives Canada, these wartime postcards offer…

By the end of the summer 1918, Halifax and Dartmouth were still rebuilding and recovering from the deadly Halifax Explosion that claimed nearly 2,000 lives and devastated both communities. By all appearances, the First World War was slowly drawing…