The Dingle Memorial Tower

The Dingle Tower. A slightly strange name right? On many a dog walk we have viewed this tower across the Northwest Arm of Halifax, and wondered to ourselves what this tower is all about. So the 3 of us jumped in the car the other day and set off to investigate. Turns out there is quite the history behind this structure…. No surprise there! Do we all know who Sir Sandford Fleming is? Scottish born Canadian engineer and inventor…Specifically? Well, most notably, he proposed Standard Time. How does someone come up with that? Well, if you miss a train because the schedule listed pm instead of am, you might come up with a 24 hour worldwide clock to avoid this problem in the future! What a show off! Anyhoo, getting off topic, and seriously I have no idea how he came up with that…. So the Dingle Tower came to be when Sir Fleming donated 95 acres of land to the people of Halifax. The tower was built between 1908 and 1912 to commemorate Nova Scotia establishing itself as it's own province in 1758. The tower is 10 stories high and built of ironstone, granite, iron and copper. The inside is just as impressive as the outside. The tower was constructed with donations from the British Empire and beautiful old plaques representing the donors are featured throughout the tower. It is said to have cost approximately $50,000, what a bargain! In 1913 the Royal Colonial Institute of London donated the majestic bronze lion sculptures that stand guard at the tower's base. These lion's were influenced by the lion's at London's Trafalgar Square. Cool right? I love history! I wish school would have been a travelling classroom! I may have paid more attention! So back to the name Dingle! Dingle: A deep wooded valley or dell. There was a slightly more entertaining version that had to do with an animal and what might get stuck and dangle off the hair of it's butt. Nuff said.

Sir Fleming had this stone sent over from France. It is said to be a stone from the gateway to explorer Samuel de Champlain's home of his birth in Brouage France, dating back to 1567.

Judging from Mango's hairy eyeball, she isn't to happy about being 10 stories up!

A view of Dalhousie University in the background, founded in 1818.