Kissing the tips of her fingers, she tenderly touched the top of the headstone before walking back to the waiting tour bus.
Everyone who saw the movie Titanic, released in the UK in 1998, remembers handsome Jack Dawson, the romantic liner passenger played by Leonardo DiCaprio.
Twenty years on, many of the cruise- ship crowd and other tourists who visit Halifax, Nova Scotia, on Canada’s eastern coast make a beeline for the J Dawson grave in Fairview Cemetery — where 121 victims of the 1912 maritime tragedy are buried.
There is just one thing, though. It was erected in memory of a different Dawson — Joseph, rather than Jack. But a local tour guide friend later advises me over a drink in a downtown bar: “If you spot a female fan of the fictional Jack Dawson putting flowers next to the J Dawson headstone, my advice is, ‘Keep shtum!’.”
For anyone interested in RMS Titanic — the supposedly unsinkable ship that hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage and sank in the North Atlantic with the loss of more than 1,500 passengers and crew — a trip to Halifax is a must.
The one-time British garrison town has a good claim to be the place with the strongest link to the doomed ship. Not only was it the nearest major seaport to the site of the sinking, about 400 miles off the Canadian coast, but it is the final resting place for more Titanic victims than anywhere else. There are 150 in all, buried in three cemeteries.
The excellent Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, on the downtown harbourfront, should be your first port of call if you want to learn more about the sinking.
Among the many exhibits are a deck chair from the liner and the original transcript of the ship’s distress call, all of which help bring to life the full horror of the disaster. But a visit to Halifax is not all about doom and gloom. There is much more to this handsome city than its Titanic link.
You are just as likely as in Glasgow or Edinburgh to see a kilt being worn or the bagpipes played, as the locals are proud of their Anglo-Scottish roots.
Head up to the Citadel, the mighty star-shaped fortress above the city’s old town, which is now “guarded” by actors dressed in period uniforms worn by troops 200 years ago. The views from the top are magnificent, though it can be pretty blowy on some days.
The Pier 21 immigration museum is also well worth a visit. It is housed in a former immigration terminal which hundreds of thousands of British people passed through from 1928 to 1971 en route to a new life in Canada. They included my dad, who later returned to the UK after several years across the pond.
Halifax also has much to recommend it on the food and drink front, with more pubs and clubs per head than almost any other city in Canada.
Try a warming seafood chowder at the Five Fishermen restaurant, enjoy a pint of Halifax-brewed Alexander Keith’s beer at the Old Triangle Alehouse and, last but not least, sample a delicious Cows ice- cream on the waterfront boardwalk. The waterfront also has plenty of shops.
You can hop aboard the oldest running saltwater ferry service in North America to head along the harbour shore to Dartmouth, with its own quaint shops, galleries, restaurants and pubs.
Farther afield, McNabs Island at the mouth of Halifax Harbour is a hidden gem with hiking on secluded trails and a beautiful beach to relax on.
But for all Halifax’s historical and culinary charms, it is the Titanic connection — and the thought of all those lives snatched away by the unforgiving Atlantic more than a century ago — that is most likely to linger in your mind as you wait for your flight home.
God bless their souls.
GO: HALIFAX, CANADA
GETTING THERE: Air Canada offers return flights from Heathrow to Halifax from £616.77. See aircanada.com or call 00 800 6699 2222.
STAYING THERE: Rooms at the Westin Nova Scotian in Halifax are from £125 per night.
See thewestinnovascotian.com or call 001 902 421 1000.
OUT & ABOUT: See novascotia.com
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