What's a city significant and well known in your country, but will raise an eyebrow to anyone outside of it? Discussion

7.0k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

192

Halifax is Canada's 4th biggest port and as the largest city in the Maritime provinces it has a lot more culture than you would expect from a 500k city.

19

u/sycgeek Aug 31 '24

you say, "A lot more culture..." and I say, "Oh the year was 1778!"

10

u/MarioMilieu Aug 31 '24

“OH I WISH I WAS IN SHERBROOKE NOWWWWW”

My university drinking days downtown Halifax made it so I can’t not shout this upon hearing it.

6

u/Maytree Sep 01 '24

A Letter of Marque came from the King to the scummiest vessel I'd ever seen.

5

u/icauseclimatechange Sep 01 '24

God damn them all!

6

u/Raging_Inferno61524 Sep 01 '24

I was told we’d cruise the seas for American gold!

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u/ralphvonwauwau Sep 01 '24

We'd fire no guns, shed no tears

4

u/Malarkey44 Sep 04 '24

Now I'm a broken man on a Halifax peir

2

u/donslaughter Sep 01 '24

I'm from Hawaii but as a huge fan of both history and The Real McKenzies, I fucking love Barrett's Privateers and Halifax.

26

u/penywisexx Aug 31 '24

On top of all that the lobster is dirt cheap!

5

u/CaptainCanuck001 Aug 31 '24

I used to tell my family in Ontario that I had a lobster omelet for breakfast and they made it sound like I was a millionaire.

2

u/Ninnjawhisper Aug 31 '24

And delicious

3

u/CoolAbdul Aug 31 '24

Needs a CFL team

1

u/pingieking Aug 31 '24

Only if we don't pay for it. We're poor enough as it is.

5

u/PenguinJack_ Aug 31 '24

Halifax Mentioned!

I really like it here, but we have the lowest wages and highest taxes so a larger than usual percentage of the population is really old, and housing is crazy. (It is everywhere in Canada)

But yeah the biggest representation I see outside of Halifax (which is limited because I live here) is when we get name dropped in movies.

Off the top of my head they mention Halifax as the closest airport in Liam Neeson's Non-Stop, and Lewis buys Salmon from Halifax and in the first Ghostbusters movie.

Shout out to World War Z where Nova Scotia was the only safe zone in the world. (Although based on the ending shot that was NOT filmed in NS lol)

1

u/weedyscoot Sep 01 '24

Halifax's leading export is bootlegged copies of "Boots and Legs," an illustrated encyclopedia of foot coverings and the things that go into them.

1

u/Crushinsnakes Sep 01 '24

Halifax is 100% reliable.

"I'll BE there"

1

u/YYZbase Sep 01 '24

Your comment got me to look up port volumes, and I was not expecting Prince Rupert to be #3 ahead of Halifax.

1

u/Gold4Lokos4Breakfast Sep 02 '24

Reddit. Where most everyone is from urban areas and doesn’t expect much out of a small town of 500k

1

u/danstermeister Aug 31 '24

Honestly asking, is any of that culture NOT linked to the sea?

5

u/jsheehanigans Aug 31 '24

We invented hockey! 3 of the top NHL players over the last decade are city locals - Marchand, MacKinnon & Crosby.

3

u/tabatam Aug 31 '24

There's plenty that's not specifically sea related. Depends on what you want to talk about: food, music, visual art, experiences, etc.

Kitchen parties are not specifically sea related. There's excellent food that isn't seafood. You can also learn about Mi'kmaq, Gaelic, and Acadian cultures, which are more expansive than sea-stuff.

That being said, the sea-related stuff is worth getting to know as well! Beyond the natural beauty and food, being accessible by sea made Nova Scotia a major arrival point for migrants and strategically significant for a lot of important history.

2

u/blue-lloyd Aug 31 '24

Home of the donair, which is peak Canadian cuisine

1

u/CaptainCanuck001 Aug 31 '24

It is the biggest city in the Maritimes and so anyone from PEI , Nova Scotia or New Brunswick (and really also Newfoundland) is going to Halifax first before they try to make it big elsewhere. It is also where most bigger names doing a cross Canada tour will stop in the Maritimes if they are stopping there.

Also some things strangely pass through the city because it is a port. I remember that Sue the dinosaur from the Field Museum was on loan to some place overseas but ended up at the Natural History museum in Halifax just because it was shipping through there.

0

u/danathecount Aug 31 '24

it has a lot more culture than you would expect from a 500k city.

yeah, thats why its being mentioned as an answer to the posted question, not many people outside Canada are aware of its significance.