Steaming into Halifax aboard the SS Stavangerfjord in January 1946 is an experience Patricia McLean will never forget. The Sudbury, Ont., resident was a 21-year-old war bride and she remembers holding her infant son in her arms while looking at the bright lights ringing the harbour. It was a far cry from blacked-out, war-torn Britain. Once inside the terminal–at Pier 21–she and her compatriots enjoyed the warm welcome they received from the Canadian Red Cross, and the seemingly endless supply of food. "It was like a dreamland. You could have anything you wanted." That sense of optimism pervades the recollections of many people who first set foot on Canadian soil or who reacquainted themselves with their homeland at Pier 21 after years away at war. From ...

Nearly every Canadian province maintains one or more public gardens of significant repute, but only one–the Historic Gardens in Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia–invites the exploration of 400 years of agricultural history that began with the arrival of explorerSamuel de Champlain and 79 French settlers in 1604. This hardy band of pioneers was recruited by Pierre Dugua de Mons who, in 1603, was directed by Henry IV of France to begin colonization of Acadia, a territory known today as the Maritime provinces and part of the State of Maine. De Mons arrived in May 1604 with two supply ships led by Champlain. By the end of June, the expedition had explored the Bay of Fundy and Minas Basin. The settlers wintered on an island at the mouth of the St. Croix River. The river, which rises in th...