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All Canada Nova Scotia Halifax Five Fishermen Restaurant
Gastro Obscura

Five Fishermen Restaurant

How would you like to dine in the same room where some of the Titanic's victims were embalmed?

Halifax, Nova Scotia

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Coffins were stacked outside Snow & Co. in the aftermath of the Halifax Explosion   Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management
The Five Fishermen Restaurant today   Image capture Oct 2016
150 victims of the Titanic disaster are buried in Halifax cemeteries, including these at Fairview   archer10 (Dennis)
Devastation from the Halifax Explosion of 1917   Nova Scotia Archives and Records Management
Snow & Co. was to the left, with Fleischman Yeast in part of the larger section on the right   Image capture Oct. 2016
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There is a seafood place near Halifax Harbour that was once home to the city’s oldest mortuary. It’s now the Five Fishermen Restaurant, but was once Snow & Company Undertakers, who tended to the bodies of not one, but two major tragedies of the early 20th century.

In the morning hours of April 15, 1912, 350 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, the R.M.S Titanic went down. Rescue operations took place out of Halifax, the largest nearby port, and many of the recovered bodies were brought to Snow's funeral home, including John Jacob Astor IV, the richest of the ship's passengers.

Five years later on the 6th of December, 1917, the Halifax Explosion, at the time the largest manmade explosion in history, claimed nearly 2,000 lives when a French munitions ship struck another vessel in the Harbour. Again, Snow & Co. was overwhelmed with bodies, with a photo running in the newspaper showing the funeral home with coffins stacked high in the street.

The building was originally constructed as a school house in 1817, right across from St. Paul's Anglican Church, the oldest building in Halifax. In 1883 the building was sold to John Snow, and the family’s mortuary occupied the space until 1973. They are still a Halifax business today.

There are many claims that the Five Fishermen Restaurant is haunted, but don't let this deter you. Their food is apparently to die for.

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Restaurants Shipwrecks History Disasters

Know Before You Go

The Five Fishermen is in downtown Halifax, just a few blocks from the Harbour and ferry terminal. The restaurant is open Tuesday to Saturday from 5pm to 9pm, and the Grill is open Monday to Friday from 11:30 to 10pm, Saturday and Sunday from 4pm to 9pm.

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SamM

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Luije

  • Luije

Published

January 5, 2017

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  • http://www.fivefishermen.com/history/
  • https://alookthrutime.wordpress.com/tag/john-snow-and-company/
  • http://www.dignitymemorial.ca/ja-snow-funeral-home/en-ca/history.page
  • http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/the-great-halifax-explosion
Five Fishermen Restaurant
1740 Argyle Street
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Canada
44.647899, -63.575302
Visit Website
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