Point Pleasant Park

Point Pleasant Park
Halifax Regional Municipality (Land under lease from Government of Canada)

Point Pleasant Park is a large, mainly

.

Plays are performed in the park every summer by a professional theatre company called

Shakespearean

productions and original musicals based on classic fairy tales for audiences of all ages. The company also operates the 80-seat Park Place Theatre in the lower parking lot of the park, which is used as a rain venue during the summer, and for fall/winter indoor productions.

Point Pleasant Park originally was owned by the British government

History

18th-19th century

St. Aspinquid Chapel

between two Mi'kmaq chiefs (1760).

Establishing Halifax

In 1749,

.

There were a total of seven fortifications constructed: Chain Rock, Chain Battery, Point Pleasant Battery, Northwest Arm Battery, Fort Ogilvie, Prince of Wales Tower and Cambridge Battery. Most were rebuilt or modified four or five times over the subsequent 200 years.

There were four defences that were constructed during the French and Indian War: Chain Battery, Chain Rock, Point Pleasant Battery and Northwest Arm Battery. The defences were built of logs, earth, and stone. They were built with wood-burning fireplaces, and furnaces were later added for smelting cannon shot. Chain Battery and Chain Rock were basic fortifications built on the natural terrain to protect the Northwest Arm. Unlike most of the other fortifications, the battery here was not rebuilt in the 19th century, so it retains its original 1762 layout. Because it was abandoned so early, the area has been reforested for most of the historic period. Point Pleasant Battery is one of the oldest fortification batteries. Though Point Pleasant Battery was first constructed in 1762, what is visible today dates mostly from the early 20th century. The fourth battery - the Northwest Arm Battery - was built during the war, just west of Point Pleasant, was damaged in 1895 and was falling into the sea. It was moved further along the Northwest Arm shore. Northwest Arm Battery was first built in 1762 and disused after the 1860s. Archeological remains associated with its barracks include a summer house built for the Park in the 1880s. The battery here retains its early 19th century configuration.

Martello Tower in North America

(1796), Point Pleasant Park Halifax Nova Scotia

In 1792, during the

. Ogilvie named the battery after himself.

In 1796-97, a battery was built on high ground behind the point at a location capable of defending the point batteries. A few years later, the battery was converted to a large round stone tower known as the

rubble masonry, with 8-foot-thick (2.4 m) walls. The original construction permitted six mounted guns on the roof and four guns on the second storey.

Further modifications were made over the next seventy years. By 1813, the Tower mounted four 6-pound guns on garrison carriages on its barrack level, two 24-pound

guns

on traversing platforms and six 24-pound carronades on traversing slides on top. After 1864, the Tower was used as a self-defensible depot magazine.

The park was the site of several small farms during the early settlement of Halifax. A rock outcropping at Black Rock Beach was used to

in 1809.

Cambridge Battery is situated back from the Point Pleasant and Northwest Arm batteries along the shore. It was approved in 1862 and completed in 1868. The battery was named in honour of the Duke of Cambridge, who was the head of the military during much of Queen Victoria's reign.

The Cambridge Battery was abandoned by the time of the

.

In 1929, the military temporarily vacated the park before returning in 1938 during the Second World War. Although the

. Fort Ogilvie and Cambridge Battery were upgraded with modern weapons during the Second World War. A gun from this era is still visible at Fort Ogilvie.

Small amounts of stone were quarried in the park in the 19th century, the small quarries today forming a pond near the park entrance. In the 1920s, the Halifax

line was extended into the park as far as the Prince of Wales Tower but the route was abandoned in the 1940s.

The park was the target of a "group" calling itself "

" in 1994, when they planted a pipe bomb in a garbage bin. Nobody was injured.

In 1943 a large Canadian steamship, SS Point Pleasant Park, was named after the park. The mayor of Halifax presented the ship's captain with a framed picture of the Yonge Street gate which was displayed in the dining room aboard the ship until it was torpedoed in 1945.^[5]

In 2000 the Canadian Food Inspection Agency planned to cut 10,000 trees to halt an outbreak of brown spruce longhorn beetles (Tetropium fuscum). This plan was challenged by the Friends of Pt. Pleasant Park in the courts, which resulted in a temporary injunction stopping the cutting. The injunction was later removed but there was a reduction in tree cutting to less than 2000.^{[citation needed]}

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In September 2003, Point Pleasant Park was devastated by

.

Assistance from the Canadian federal government allowed Halifax Regional Municipality to make significant progress in the recovery and renewal of the park. As of June 2008 over 70,000 Acadian forest trees had been planted in the park, surpassing the number of trees lost to Hurricane Juan.

The comprehensive plan for Point Pleasant Park proposed long-term care for the park's forest based on Canada's national standard for sustainable forest management. The process of

would be used to guide the renewal and care of Point Pleasant, one of Canada's oldest urban parks.

Point Pleasant is the location to numerous monuments associated with the heritage of Halifax and the sea. The largest is the Halifax Monument, better known as the Sailor's Memorial, which commemorates members of the Royal Canadian Navy, the Canadian Merchant Navy and Canadian Army who were lost at sea. It was first erected in 1924 in a headland near the park but moved to Citadel Hill in 1954 when names from World War II were added. However the cross on Citadel Hill had decayed by 1966 so it was replaced in 1967 by the present monument in Point Pleasant.^[6] The current memorial consists of a Cross of Sacrifice inscribed with the names of 3257 Canadian men and women who were buried at sea as a result of the World Wars. The most well-known casualties listed on the monument are the nursing sisters who died on the HMHS Llandovery Castle during World War 1. (415 Canadians from naval and merchant ships who died in the Atlantic Ocean during World War I.) The original monument has been replaced by two later monuments.^[7]

Halifax, Nova Scotia

, Canada

The ship's anchor from the aircraft carrier

in 1813.

Flora

• 
  Walter Hose Monument
• 
  Point Pleasant Park South Side
• 
  Point Pleasant Park South Side View to McNabs Island
• 
  Map of park at main entrance, July 2005

Point Pleasant Park is served by Halifax Transit's route "29 Barrington", which terminates at a turning loop at the Tower Road entrance of the park.^[13]

• Military history of Nova Scotia

• HalifaxTrails.ca - Point Pleasant Park