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Originally Posted by zoomer
Lots of lonely widows - sound strategy!  Good point, despite being Canada’s west coast naval base, the navy does seem to be taken for granted in Victoria. Besides the welcome sign to Victoria and a few statues around town there is little recognition and it’s rarely mentioned even by Victorians. Is this the case in Halifax? |
My impression is that the navy is much more recognized in Halifax. It feels like more of a port town (finger wharves and now modern container terminals) and has the shipyard. The naval history is much deeper on the East Coast; in the 1700's and early 1800's the navy was what held the British Empire together, but by the late 1800's the railways became more important.
Halifax was founded as one of the primary British naval bases in the Americas; a stopping point between Britain and the US coast or the Caribbean.
Practically all of the big military campaigns of Canadian history were based out of Halifax. Quebec, Washington DC and Baltimore in 1812, etc. Even Crimea and the Northwest Rebellion ended up involving troops deployed from Halifax. A lot of the monuments around town relate to those events.
I think this is largely forgotten today but the British ran the naval facilities in Canada until 1907. Until that period many of the people living in Victoria or Halifax were from Britain but deployed in Canada. The naval officers were some of the local establishment figures with admirals being like governors.