A Maritimes AdvEVenture Part 5

The last leg of our trip was spending two days in Halifax. 

Fishermen's Cove Dartmouth

Fishermen’s Cove is an adorable little spot near the mouth of the Halifax Harbour. Unfortunately MacGyver and I did not communicate properly and he took us there first thing on Sunday morning when they weren’t open until noon (autumn hours). He is Mr. Efficient when it comes to planning a route, which I totally appreciate, because I am the same. However, checking business hours for shopping is not high up on his list of priorities. Still, there was a silver lining to my disappointment at not finding something unique and handmade to take home: the lack of people meant that I got a couple of pretty sweet photos of a quilt that’s going into Make Modern next spring!

That's the Mi'kmaq flag hanging from the Angus L. MacDonald bridge between Dartmouth and Halifax.

On our first day, the first order of business was charging. MacGyver was excited to try the chargers at the Petro Canada which, according to PlugShare, were very good. And they were! These are in a corner of the gas station, and are even equipped with garbage and window cleaning supplies. You may think, wait, gas stations have this; charging stations do not? Sadly, most do not. 

Well-marked parking spots, big and bright fast chargers

These are 200 kW chargers, and, had we pre-conditioned the battery, something MacGyver investigated more while we were travelling, and then after this charge did some experiments, had we pre-conditioned here, the battery would have accepted a higher level of kW faster, which would shorten the time. It didn't take long to get to 128 KW, and we went from 35% to 80% in 19 minutes. I wish all Petro Canadas would install these!

MacGyver wanted to do the furthest away activities on our first day, so we headed out towards Peggy's Cove. I didn't know a thing about it other than there's a cool lighthouse and I think opportunities for great sunset photos. Well! I was about to be educated.

A picture-perfect day. low tide.

View from part of the village

That lighthouse 😍

What I wasn't prepared for was the rock. On our way the landscape suddenly changed, and it became similar to the wild and weatherbeaten, moss, lichen and dwarf plants-like terrain in the fragile parts of the Cape Breton Highlands. Big boulders were strewn around, and we figured it was due to a glacier. It actually is created by the shifting of tectonic plates, as well as glaciers that together have transformed ancient ocean sediments into these granite rocks.

This gives you an idea of the size of some of them as well as the scope!

Nothing but Atlantic Ocean until France!

From here we took the scenic route along the coast towards Lunenburg. We stopped at this idyllic beach. People were sunbathing on a spectacular day.

Mahone Bay

Lunenburg is well worth the trip. It has been designated a UNESCO site. The colourful houses and buildings delighted me (again quilt inspo!).

Lunenburg is home to Bluenose II, a replica of that famous Canadian ship which won so many races. 

The colourful houses are not just along the waterfront but everywhere throughout the town. It's quite hilly, which reminded me of stopping in Seattle on a quilt bus trip to Sisters, Oregon, many years ago. Many of these homes are heritage homes, the one below was built in 1765.

From colourful paint to thoughtful trim, to architectural design, it's a feast for the eyes.

On our second day, we started off at Fishermen's Cove, as mentioned at the beginning of this post.

One of the must-go-to items on my Halifax list was visiting the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21. Up until air travel became more accessible in the 1950s, immigrants arrived by ship, and this is where they were processed. With the current hatred towards immigrants, I want to shine a light on this wonderful museum, and the history lovingly and respectfully enfolded therein. My mum came over on a ship in 1958, but she did not come through here, however, because she was only staying in Canada for an brief extended time, visiting her BFF, my Auntie Norma who had been here for a few months. They planned to work at the Royal Bank of Canada for a couple of months, and then continue on their world trip, heading to Australia next. All was going to plan, until she met my dad, and Auntie Norma met his brother... But I digress.

When I taught grade 7 Language Arts, one of the novel studies I did for a few years with my students, The Eternal Spring of Mr. Ito by Sheila Garrigue, was a historical fiction novel set in WWII. The protagonist was a young girl, an evacuee from London during the Blitz, who was sent to her uncle and aunt's home in Vancouver, Canada. During one of my conversations about the book with my mum, she told me that her school had had an evacuee and everyone wanted to be her friend. Mum was about seven years old. The innocence of children, right? Clearly, prejudice is taught. Her uncle's Japanese gardener and friend figures prominently along with Canada's wrongful internment of Japanese Canadians during this time. It's a powerful book.

It got me thinking, not least about how in the world parents could handle sending their kids, many much younger than seven, to faraway places. I had a conversation with our teacher-librarian, who told me about the Pier 21 site, where former evacuees had sent in their stories. From there, I designed a research project where pairs of students would choose one of the evacuees; one would 'be' the kid and the other would be the interviewer, and we'd create a radio show, that would theoretically be on the wireless in the early 1940s, complete with a couple of news reports, one on rationing (my mum was a good source of info there, still had her ration card) and news intro/outro music from CBC. So this place, and especially, this section, were near and dear to my heart. That section of the Pier 21 site is still available if you care to read some of these stories.

❤️🇨🇦❤️

This plaque, just outside the entrance, made us pause, and not just physically. We both found the entire museum deeply moving, and we both got emotional at various points.

I tried to darken the photo as much as possible to make it more legible, with limited success. Here is the text:

Through these doors have come immigrants and refugees from every part of the world, often bringing with them little more than hope and dreams for a better life for themselves and their children.

History records that many of these citizens overcame hardships, and often outright discrimination and hostility. Yet they endured, settling the land, building communities and forging links across this vast land. 

We, today’s Canadians, owe much to their commitment, hard work and loyalty. The heritage which they bequeathed to us is a unique multicultural nation, committed to the full and equitable participation of individuals of all origins, bound together by citizenship and the common values of peace, respect for diversity, and adherence to the rule of law. 

The honourable Hedy Fry, P.C., M.P.

Secretary of State (Multiculturalism)

                              (Status of Women)

Of course, prior to walking to the museum, we had plugged in to a flo slow charger nearby. This one was just 6.1 kW, not much more than our garage charger at home, but we were downtown for a good three hours. We started off at 33% and got up to 58% for a whopping $7. Not too shabby!

The museum is right on the harbour where not one but two cruise ships were docked. Both were Boston to Quebec City one-week cruises, one going north and the other south.

Halifax Harbour looking north

After Pier 21 we walked up to the Halifax Public Gardens, one of the finest surviving true Victorian gardens in North America, established by the joining of two gardens into one in 1836. Oh, to have politicians like they, passionate about horticulture, in today's world!

What a unique tree, full of personality! It's a weeping elm. I stood under its canopy for several minutes, soaking in its goodness and purified air. 💚

Although the garden was not at its best, there was still a lot of colour. Dahlias and roses were gorgeous; even MacGyver could smell some of the roses!

Can you imagine if this were a quilt? Would you tend to judge, noticing the imperfections, the lack of perfect symmetry, and uneven colouring?  Probably. Yet look at what Mother Nature creates, and all we see is glorious beauty. I think there's a lesson there.

The Bandstand, over a century old, restored to its original detail in 2011.

MacGyver had one specific request: visit the Halifax Seed Company to get seeds for castor bean plants. They had many fine specimens at the gardens which thoroughly excited him. I loved seeing him photographing various plants. At HSC, he was successful. And... we may have picked up a few other seed packets, and some spring bulbs packets, even a garlic to plant! Sure, we could've got that right here, but it's kind of cool to plant and harvest garlic next year that we bought in Halifax.😍

Since we were only at 58% after leaving downtown, before we went back to our apartment, we stopped in at the GM dealer where the PlugShare app had rated this free fast charger as very good. Although it was only a 50 kW, it put out 48, and while we perused a few of the EVs on the lot, and then I knitted, we charged up to 100% which took 30 minutes. On the lot we saw the second Vistiq of the trip, one that was sold. The first one was on the road, the owner of which said it was the first on on PEI, a beautiful SUV. There were a couple of Lyriqs and Equinoxes as well. EVs are happening' and it makes me so happy!

A note about why we don't usually charge to 100% while on the road: up to about 80% is the window of efficiency; after that the charger cuts back in kW because there is less space in the battery to charge, so you will sit much longer. Remember how fast your phone charges up to the high 90% area, and then to get to 100% takes a lot longer? EVs are the same. MacGyver told me of a great analogy he read: it's like an empty parking lot; when you first go in, there are tons of empty spots, but as the day goes on, the spots fill up, and it's harder to find a spot.

The charging station below was in Témiscouata-sur-le-lac in Québec. I got a kick out of seeing three Ioniq 5s charging, each one a different colour! The black one has two kayaks on it! We saw a ton of Ioniq 5s throughout Québec. It was sweltering that entire day: 27C, not normal for the first week of October. We were thrilled to get 178 kW at this 180 kW charger. MacGyver had started his experiment at this point: he had set the pre-conditioning of the battery (the car's computer knows when to start the pre-conditioning because he set the destination of the charger into the GPS), and he'd been driving in the Auto setting of the Econo mode. I tell you, it's a smart phone on wheels, as he often says. It only took 18 minutes to go from 21% up to 83% which is where, you guessed it, if you've been paying attention, the kW drops off a cliff. MacGyver has thoughts as to why, but that may be in another post because it's a bit technical. This charging centre is good because it's at the back of a mall where there are public toilets just inside the entrance .

Some of the rock formations in this Témiscouata area were mesmerizing. I had to roll down my window and snap a couple of photos (yes, at 110 kph!). Rather than point your phone in front or to the side, aim it towards the back as you’re zooming along and you can get a clearer shot. I haven’t enhanced or coloured this photo, and no, photos do not do justice to these colours . 

The charger below was a first: a charging station at an On the Run gas station in Port Hope (I waved to you Lisa!). Apparently they are putting a thousand of these across Canada. We got to chat with the service repairmen who were servicing the other charger, as well as an inspector who happened by in his Mach-E. These chargers are different from all the others in that they have a massive battery inside them that constantly recharges. This way if there is a power outage, power is stored and available. A common jab non-EV adopters have said to us is that we're hooped if the power goes out. Well so are those of you who drive ICE cars because the gas pumps won't work without electricity either! This technology seems like a pretty good idea, but there is a drawback: as the massive battery goes down in power while you're charging you vehicle, the speed with which it charges goes down as well, and then it needs time to charge itself back up. Again, as MacGyver has said, we're in the infancy stages of infrastructure so it's a learning curve. We both appreciated the huge screen, easy to navigate.

One of the service dudes was in an Ioniq 5! When we were on our Ottawa/Montréal trip with Brady two years ago, a serviceman there was driving a Ford Lightning, "best vehicle I've ever owned," he told us. In our opinion, they need more service people as we've come across many chargers that are down, some vandalized, others where the credit card reader isn't working. The PlugShare app also indicates which ones are down, and how long they have been inoperable.

The best part of the long two-day drive home from Halifax was meeting up for a quick lunch in Whitby with my dear friend and instigator of Quilt Tales for the Heart and Mind presentation, Cathy, the same Cathy who shared their Maritimes itinerary with me. Did she have a melt-my-heart surprise for me: a group of her stitching friends used the scraps from her Postcard from Sweden quilt which she'd made during my QAL several years ago, and which was the start of the friendship, along with some background yardage. They made my pattern, Sunset Strip, knowing that they wanted to give it to me to quilt and find its forever home. And we trust in the quilt goddesses that that perfect much-needing a quilty hug of comfort home will let itself be known. Isn't it such a happy version of Sunset Strip?

I love the Canada flag flying in the background!

I'll do a summary of the trip in the next post. I've totalled our hotels and food, and MacGyver has been tasked with adding up the charging costs which may take him a couple of days he says. We put on 6305 km from driveway to driveway! A couple comments from yoga students at my first class back were, "Did the car hold up?" (like did you think it would fall apart or catch on fire or what?!) "Did you find enough chargers?" (a valid concern, and we were pleasantly surprised especially in Cape Breton) "Wow, that must've taken a lot of planning." Well, to do a road trip of several days takes planning no matter what vehicle you're driving, ICE or EV, especially if you're going on secondary highways (which we did do at times) where gas stations are not as prevalent (ask MacGyver about the stretch between Sault Ste-Marie and Thunderbay, and that's on the Trans-Canada!). Don't you have a plan as to how far you'll go each day, and approximately where you'll stop for gas and food? I don't know anyone who just throws clothes into a suitcase, jumps in their car and hits the road for two weeks away covering this kind of territory without some level of planning. 

It can be done and done in comfort and without blowing tons of CO2 into the atmosphere!💚