The Halifax Explosion
The Largest Accidental Blast Before the Atomic Age
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- World War I
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The resulting blast destroyed most of Halifax's downtown area. Rescue workers battled fires and debris while the nearby community of Dartmouth suffered severe damage. The explosion killed nearly 2,000 people instantly and injured thousands more. Boston sent relief supplies and medical teams to help with recovery efforts.
This account examines the collision, the massive explosion that followed, and the extensive rescue work that followed. It covers the destruction of neighborhoods like Africville and Mi'kmaq settlements, the legal investigation into what went wrong, and how Halifax rebuilt itself. Anyone interested in World War I history or disaster response will find this detailed account compelling.
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Dartmouth lies on the east shore of Halifax Harbour, and Halifax is on the west shore. By 1917, Halifax’s inner harbour had become a principal assembly point for merchant convoys bound for Britain and France. The area had thrived during times of war, with Halifax serving as a major naval base and center for wartime trade. It was also home to privateers who harried Britain's enemies in the American Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, and the War of 1812.
The Intercolonial Railway and its Deep Water Terminal opened in 1880, boosting steamship traffic and spurring growth in Halifax’s port area. By late 1905 and early 1906, the British garrison had departed the city. The Canadian government then assumed control of the Halifax Dockyard, which would later become the command center for the Royal Canadian Navy when it was established in 1910.
Just before the First World War, the Canadian government started a big effort to improve Halifax’s harbour and waterfront. When the war began, Halifax became important again. The Royal Navy took over control of Atlantic trade routes, making Halifax its main base in North America. In 1915, the Royal Canadian Navy began managing the harbour. By 1917, Halifax was home to a growing naval fleet that included patrol ships, tugboats, and minesweepers.
By 1917, Halifax and Dartmouth together were home to between sixty thousand and sixty-five thousand people. The city played a key role in World War I, serving as a departure point for convoys heading to Europe. Ships left from two main locations in Nova Scotia: Sydney on Cape Breton Island and Halifax itself. Hospital ships brought wounded soldiers back to the city, which led to the construction of a new military hospital.
The German Untersee-boat attacks on ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean were so effective that the Allies responded by creating a convoy system. This plan helped reduce losses when moving goods and soldiers to Europe. Merchant ships would gather at Bedford Basin, located on the northwestern end of the harbour. There, they were protected by two sets of anti-submarine nets. The area was also watched over by patrol ships from the Royal Canadian Navy.
The convoys left Halifax harbor under the cover of British warships, including cruisers and destroyers. The city was protected by a strong military presence, with forts, gun batteries, and anti-submarine nets in place. This military setup, along with the growing industrial activity, led to a major increase in the city’s population and its role as a key port. The amount of goods moving through the harbor rose nearly ninefold. All neutral ships heading to North American ports had to stop in Halifax for inspection.
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The Norwegian ship SS Imo, commanded by Haakon From, sailed from the Netherlands toward New York City with relief supplies for Belgium. She reached Halifax on December 3 for neutral inspection and remained in Bedford Basin for two days waiting for fuel and provisions. Even though she had been given permission to leave on December 5, the ship could not depart because her coal did not arrive until late in the day. The process of loading fuel was not finished until after the anti-submarine nets were raised for the night, meaning she couldn’t set sail until the following morning.
Aimé Le Medec commanded the French ship SS Mont-Blanc as it reached Halifax Harbor from New York on December 5. The vessel carried a dangerous cargo including trinitrotoluene (TNT), picric acid, benzol, and guncotton. It was meant to join a convoy gathering in Bedford Basin bound for Europe, but arrived after the harbor nets had been raised. Before the war, ships with such hazardous materials weren’t permitted inside, yet wartime threats from German submarines had led to relaxed rules.
Ships entering or leaving Bedford Basin had to pass through a narrow strait known as the Narrows. There, they were supposed to stay close to the right-hand side of the channel, called the starboard side. When meeting oncoming vessels, ships were expected to pass port to port, meaning they kept each other on their left. The speed limit inside the harbour was strictly enforced at five knots, or about 9.3 kilometers per hour.
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On the morning of 6 December, the Imo received clearance from HMCS Acadia to leave Bedford Basin, with Pilot William Hayes aboard. The ship entered the Narrows well over the harbor’s speed limit, trying to make up for time lost during coal loading. It encountered the American tramp steamer SS Clara, which was being guided up the wrong (western) side of the harbor. The pilots agreed to pass starboard-to-starboard. Soon after, the Imo veered further toward the Dartmouth shore, following the tugboat Stella Maris moving up toward Bedford Basin. Captain Horatio Brannen of the Stella Maris saw the Imo approaching too fast and ordered his vessel closer to the western shore to avoid a collision.
Francis Mackey, an experienced harbour pilot, had boarded the Mont-Blanc on the evening of 5 December 1917; he had asked about "special protections" such as a guard ship, given the Mont-Blanc's cargo, but no protections were put in place. The Mont-Blanc started moving at 7:30 am on 6 December and was the second ship to enter the harbour as the anti-submarine net between Georges Island and Pier 21 opened for the morning. Mackey kept his eye on the ferry traffic between Halifax and Dartmouth and other small boats in the area. He first spotted the Imo when she was about 4,000 feet away and became concerned, as her path appeared to be heading towards his ship's starboard side, as if to cut him off. Mackey gave a short blast of his ship's signal whistle to indicate that he had the right of way, but was met with two short blasts from the Imo, indicating that the approaching vessel would not yield its position. The captain ordered Mont-Blanc to halt her engines and angle slightly to starboard, closer to the Dartmouth side of the Narrows. He let out another single blast of his whistle, hoping the other vessel would likewise move to starboard, but was again met with a double blast.
As the ships approached one another at slow speed, sailors gathered to watch the collision unfold. Both had shut off their engines, but momentum kept them moving. Captain Mackey, fearing that grounding Mont-Blanc might trigger his explosive cargo, ordered a hard turn to port. The vessels nearly moved side by side when Imo suddenly sent out three signal blasts—indicating it was reversing. The empty ship’s height in the water and the force of its right-hand propeller caused its head to swing sharply into Mont-Blanc. Imo's prow struck Mont-Blanc’s No. 1 hold on the starboard side.
At 8:45 am, the Mont-Blanc collided with the Imo near Halifax Harbour. The damage to the Mont-Blanc wasn’t severe, but barrels of deck cargo broke open, flooding the deck with benzol that quickly seeped into the hold. As the Imo’s engines kicked in and disengaged, sparks sparked inside the Mont-Blanc’s hull, igniting the benzol vapors. A fire started at the waterline and raced up the ship's side. Surrounded by thick black smoke and fearing an explosion, the captain ordered the crew to abandon ship. Citizens gathered on streets or at windows to watch the fire. The frantic crew shouted from two lifeboats that their ship was about to explode, but their warnings were lost in the noise. As the lifeboats headed toward Dartmouth, the abandoned Mont-Blanc drifted and beached at Pier 6 near Richmond Street.
As the fire spread, the tug Stella Maris, towing two scows, moved quickly toward Pier 6 to fight the flames with its hose. Captain Horatio H. Brannen and his crew found the blaze too fierce for one line and pulled back from the burning Mont Blanc. A whaler from HMS Highflyer soon arrived, followed by a steam pinnace of HMCS Niobe. Brannen and Albert Mattison of Niobe decided to fasten a rope to the French ship’s stern to pull it away from the pier. They began with a five-inch hawser, but it was too thin, so they ordered a ten-inch line instead. That was when the explosion happened.
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At 9:04:35 am, a fire aboard the ship Mont-Blanc spiraled out of control, igniting her cargo of high explosives. The vessel erupted entirely, sending a violent blast wave outward at over 1,000 meters per second. At the heart of the detonation, temperatures soared to 5,000 degrees Celsius, with pressures reaching thousands of atmospheres. Debris and white-hot fragments of iron rained down on both Halifax and Dartmouth.
A cloud of white smoke rose at least three thousand six hundred meters into the air. The blast was felt two hundred seven kilometers away in Cape Breton and one hundred eighty kilometers in Prince Edward Island. An area of more than four hundred acres was completely destroyed, and the harbour floor was briefly exposed as water rushed in to fill the void left by the explosion. A massive tsunami formed, reaching eighteen meters above the high-water mark on Halifax's side. The ship Imo was carried onto Dartmouth shore by the wave. On the whaler, everyone died except one. The pinnace had no survivors. Of the twenty-six men aboard Stella Maris, only five lived. Captain Walter Brannen's son, First Mate Walter Brannen, survived after being thrown into the hold. Four others also lived. All but one of the Mont-Blanc crew survived.
The explosion killed over 1,600 people instantly and left 9,000 others injured, more than 300 of whom would die later. Every building within 2.6 kilometers was destroyed or severely damaged—more than 12,000 structures in all. Hundreds watching the fire from home were blinded as windows exploded from the blast wave. Fires broke out across Halifax, especially in the North End, where entire blocks burned and trapped residents inside. Firefighter Billy Wells, thrown from the blast and stripped of his clothes, described what survivors saw: “The sight was awful, with people hanging out of windows dead. Some with their heads missing, and some thrown onto the overhead telegraph wires.” He was the only one to live from the eight-man crew of the fire engine Patricia.
The blast leveled factories near Pier 6, like the Acadia Sugar Refinery, turning them into heaps of rubble and killing most of their workers. A Nova Scotia cotton mill, 1.5 kilometers from the explosion, was destroyed when fire and falling concrete floors collapsed its structure. The Royal Naval College of Canada building was badly damaged, with several cadets and instructors hurt. Nearby, the Richmond Railway Yards and station were completely wiped out, killing 55 railway workers and destroying or damaging more than 500 cars. The North Street Station, one of the busiest in Canada, also suffered severe damage.
Patrick Vincent (Vince) Coleman, an Intercolonial Railway dispatcher, made a crucial sacrifice during the Halifax explosion. Working at the railyard about 230 metres from Pier 6, where the blast happened, he and his coworker William Lovett were told by a sailor about the dangerous cargo aboard the burning Mont-Blanc. They began to flee, but Coleman remembered an incoming passenger train from Saint John was due any minute. He returned alone to his post and sent urgent telegraph messages to stop it. One version of his message said: “Hold up the train. Ammunition ship afire in harbor making for Pier 6 and will explode. Guess this will be my last message. Good-bye boys.” His warnings halted all incoming trains around Halifax, helping railway officials respond quickly. Whether his warning saved the lives of about 300 passengers on the Saint John train is uncertain, but it certainly sped up relief efforts. Coleman died at his post.
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The earliest rescue work was done by neighbors and coworkers pulling survivors from the wreckage. Soon, police, firefighters, and military members arrived, joined by anyone with a working vehicle—cars, trucks, wagons—used to transport the injured to hospitals already overwhelmed by the flood of victims. The new military hospital at Camp Hill admitted around 1,400 people on December 6. Halifax firefighters responded quickly, heading to Mont-Blanc to try to stop the fire before the explosion. Afterward, fire companies came not only from across Halifax but also from places like Amherst, Nova Scotia, and Moncton, New Brunswick, some arriving by relief train. West Street Station 2 of the Halifax Fire Department reached Pier 6 first, sending the crew of Patricia—the first motorized fire engine in Canada. In those final seconds before the blast, hoses were being laid out as flames spread toward the docks. Nine firefighters lost their lives that day.
Royal Navy cruisers quickly organized rescue efforts, with HMS Highflyer sending boats ashore along with medical personnel, while the US Coast Guard cutter USRC Morrill also sent a rescue team. At sea, the American cruiser USS Tacoma and the armed merchant cruiser USS Von Steuben, both passing Halifax, responded to the blast. Tacoma arrived at 2 pm, and Von Steuben followed thirty minutes later. The American steamship Old Colony, docked for repairs, became a hospital ship staffed by navy personnel from both nations. Survivors initially believed the explosion was caused by a German bomb, prompting troops to prepare for defense, but soon shifted to rescue work as the source was identified. All available forces were mobilized from fortifications and barracks to assist in the North End, including transporting wounded to the city’s army hospitals.
The chaos deepened when fears arose of a second explosion. A cloud of steam shot from ventilators at the ammunition magazine at Wellington Barracks as naval personnel fought a fire nearby. Though the fire was quickly extinguished, the sight sparked rumors across the city that another blast was coming. Uniformed officers ordered people away, and many families fled their homes, halting rescue efforts for over two hours. By noon, the fears were dispelled. Still, many rescuers ignored the evacuation, and naval teams worked steadily at the harbour. Surviving railway workers in the railyards also joined the effort, pulling victims from the water and debris. The overnight train from Saint John was approaching Halifax when hit by the blast but only slightly damaged. It continued to Richmond until blocked by wreckage. Passengers and soldiers used emergency tools to dig people out of homes and bandaged the wounded with sheets from sleeping cars. The train loaded with injured left at 1:30 with a doctor aboard, heading for Truro.
Led by Lieutenant Governor MacCallum Grant, prominent citizens established the Halifax Relief Commission around noon, taking charge of medical aid for both Halifax and Dartmouth, as well as organizing transportation, food, and shelter for survivors. The commission also covered medical and funeral expenses for victims and continued operating until 1976, assisting with recovery efforts and later issuing pensions to those affected. Volunteers included men and women working as hospital aides and shelter staff, while children helped by delivering messages between sites. Community centers such as the Young Men's Christian Association were quickly turned into emergency hospitals, staffed by medical students. Rescue trains departed from towns across Atlantic Canada and the northeastern United States; the first left Truro around 10 a.m., reached Halifax by noon, and returned by 3 p.m. with injured and displaced people. Because the track became blocked beyond Rockingham, rescuers had to walk through the destroyed city until military crews began clearing streets. By nightfall, about a dozen trains had arrived from places like Truro, Kentville, Amherst, Stellarton, Pictou, and Sydney in Nova Scotia, as well as Sackville, Moncton, and Saint John in New Brunswick.
The rescue efforts following the Halifax explosion were severely hindered the next day by a blizzard that covered the city in 16 inches of heavy snow. Trains traveling from other parts of Canada and from the United States became stuck in snowdrifts, and the telegraph lines, which had been quickly repaired after the blast, were once again destroyed by the storm.
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The blast killed as many as 1,600 people instantly, with the final body not recovered until summer 1919. The Halifax Explosion Remembrance Book catalogued 1,782 victims. Nine thousand others were injured, and the explosion destroyed 1,630 homes while another 12,000 were damaged. Around 6,000 people lost their homes, and 25,000 had no adequate shelter. The city’s industrial sector was devastated, with the dockyard heavily damaged and many workers among the dead.
After the explosion, Alderman R. B. Coldwell led a mortuary committee formed at Halifax City Hall, and the Chebucto Road School was chosen as the central morgue. A company of the Royal Canadian Engineers converted its basement into a morgue and used the classrooms as offices for the Halifax coroner. Trucks and wagons soon arrived with bodies. Arthur S. Barnstead took over from Coldwell and introduced a system based on one his father, John Henry Barnstead, had created after the Titanic disaster in 1912. Many of the injuries were permanently disabling, especially those caused by flying glass or the flash of the explosion. Thousands had gathered to watch the ship burn in the harbour, many inside buildings, placing them directly in the path of shattered windows. Ophthalmologists responding to the disaster performed 249 enucleations; 16 people had both eyes removed.
The explosion caused about CA$35 million in damage, which would be around CA$727 million today. To help with recovery, about $30 million in financial aid was gathered from different places. The federal government contributed $18 million, the British government gave over $4 million, and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts donated $750,000.
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Dartmouth wasn’t as crowded as Halifax, and it was separated from the explosion by the width of the harbour, but it still took heavy damage. Around a hundred people died there. Windows were blown out, and many buildings were either damaged or destroyed—among them the Oland Brewery and parts of the Starr Manufacturing Company. The Nova Scotia Hospital was the only hospital in Dartmouth, and that’s where many of the victims were treated.
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There were small Mi'kmaq communities in Bedford Basin, including Turtle Grove in Tufts Cove directly across from Pier 9 in Halifax. The Department of Indian Affairs had been pushing the Mi'kmaq to give up their land and move to a reserve, but by the time of the explosion, that hadn’t happened. Turtle Grove was in the path of the blast and tsunami, and its structures were destroyed. A precise death toll isn’t known because records were incomplete, though nine bodies were recovered from the area and eleven survivors were identified. The Halifax Remembrance Book lists 16 Tufts Cove Community members as dead, though not all were Indigenous. The settlement was never rebuilt, and survivors were housed in poor, racially segregated conditions before being scattered across Nova Scotia.
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The Black community of Africville lived on the southern edge of Bedford Basin, near the Halifax Peninsula. Though they were spared the full force of the explosion, their homes still suffered heavy damage. Families lost four residents. Because of racism and plans to clear the area for industry, Africville received no police or fire help. The people paid city taxes but had no water or sewer service. They got little of the relief money that went to other parts of the city, and none of the rebuilding efforts after the blast.
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Many people in Halifax first thought the explosion was a German attack. The Halifax Herald kept spreading that idea, even reporting that Germans had mocked the victims. John Johansen, the Norwegian helmsman of the Imo, was treated for injuries after the blast. He was then arrested by military police for acting suspiciously. He was suspected of being a German spy when a letter was found on him, said to be in German. It turned out to be written in Norwegian. Soon after, German survivors in Halifax were rounded up and imprisoned. The fear passed as the truth about what caused the explosion became clear, though rumors of German involvement lingered.
A judicial inquiry, the Wreck Commissioner's Inquiry, formed on 13 December 1917 in Halifax Court House led by Justice Arthur Drysdale, found Captain Aimé Le Médec of the Mont-Blanc, pilot Francis Mackey, and Commander F. Evan Wyatt responsible for the collision. Drysdale sided with Dominion Wreck Commissioner L. A. Demers, who said the Mont-Blanc had to avoid the collision at all costs due to its cargo. Local anti-French sentiment and arguments from Imo lawyer Charles Burchell may have influenced this. Crown counsel W. A. Henry noted most people were surprised the blame fell on the Mont-Blanc, not the Imo, which was on the wrong side of the channel. All three men were charged with manslaughter and criminal negligence at a hearing before Stipendiary Magistrate Richard A. McLeod, but were bound over for trial. Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Benjamin Russell found no evidence to support the charges. Mackey was freed by habeas corpus and the charges dropped. Le Médec's charges were dismissed too, since he was arrested on the same warrant. Only Commander Wyatt, who faced a separate charge, was indicted. He was acquitted in a trial that lasted less than a day on 17 April 1918.
Drysdale oversaw the first civil trial, where the owners of the two ships sued each other for damages. His ruling on 27 April 1918 placed all blame on the Mont-Blanc. But appeals went up to the Supreme Court of Canada on 19 May 1919, and then to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London on 22 March 1920. That final decision said both ships were equally at fault for navigation mistakes that caused the crash. No one was ever criminally convicted or successfully sued for their role in the disaster.
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Just after the explosion, workers began clearing away the rubble and trying to fix what they could. By late January 1918, about five thousand people were still living without homes. A man named Colonel Robert Low led a reconstruction committee, and they built eight hundred thirty-two new housing units. The Massachusetts-Halifax Relief Fund provided furniture for these new homes.
Service on the rails resumed partially on 7 December from a temporary terminal in the city's South End. The full schedule returned two days later, on 9 December, after the North Street Station reopened and the lines were cleared. The Canadian Government Railways set up a special team to handle the work of clearing and restoring the railway yards, along with rebuilding the piers and the Naval Dockyard. Most of the piers were operational again by late December, and by January, they had been fully restored.
After the explosion, the Halifax Relief Commission viewed the destruction of Richmond, the North End neighbourhood that had borne the brunt of the blast, as a chance to rebuild and improve the area. In 1917, Richmond was a working-class district with few paved roads. The commission recruited Thomas Adams, an English town planner, and the Montreal architectural firm Ross and Macdonald to design new housing for the neighborhood. Inspired by the Victorian garden city movement, Adams aimed to create a low-rise, low-density community that offered public access to green spaces and served multiple functions.
The planners built 326 large homes facing tree-lined boulevards, using a new fireproof material called Hydrostone. The first home was occupied by March 1919, just months before Prince Edward, Prince of Wales, visited on 17 August. He toured many of the houses and listened to stories about the disaster and the kindness of those who helped. Once complete, the neighborhood included homes, businesses, and parks, forming a new community in Halifax’s North End. It later became an upscale area and shopping district. Meanwhile, Africville, equally poor and undeveloped, was left out of the reconstruction efforts.
After the explosion, the Halifax dockyard and HMCS Niobe were among the sites that needed rebuilding, as were the docks themselves. The Royal Canadian Navy's minesweepers and patrol boats had escaped damage. Prime Minister Robert Borden, who also served as Halifax’s MP, said the government would support the city’s recovery fully, calling the port’s restoration essential to the Empire. Captain Symington of the USS Tacoma thought it would be months before the harbor could resume operations. Still, a convoy left on 11 December, and by Christmas dockyard work had restarted.
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The Halifax Explosion stands as one of the largest accidental blasts before the atomic age. In 1994, historian Jay White compared 130 major explosions and found that it remained unmatched when considering five key factors: casualties, blast force, devastation radius, explosive quantity, and property damage value. For years after, it served as the benchmark for measuring large-scale detonations. Time magazine, in its report on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, noted that the Little Boy bomb had seven times the explosive power of Halifax.
The Halifax Explosion left behind more than just destruction—it sparked important changes in medical care. The many eye injuries from the blast led to a better understanding of how to treat damaged eyes. Halifax became known internationally as a center for caring for the blind, thanks to the Canadian National Institute for the Blind and support from the Perkins School. A surgeon from Boston, William Ladd, who came to help during the recovery, observed the lack of pediatric care in the disaster. His insights are credited with inspiring him to pioneer pediatric surgery in North America. The explosion also inspired health reforms, especially around public sanitation and maternity care.
The Halifax Explosion left deep trauma across the city, so memories of it were largely kept quiet. For decades after, the community did not officially mark the anniversary. It wasn’t until 1967 — the 50th year — that the city held a second commemoration, though those events would stop again. In 1964, construction began on the Halifax North Memorial Library, meant to honor the victims. The library’s entrance included the Halifax Explosion Memorial Sculpture, made by artist Jordi Bonet. That monument was later taken down by the Halifax Regional Municipality in 2004.
The Halifax Explosion Memorial Bells were erected in 1985 on Fort Needham Hill, where bells from a nearby church ring from a large concrete sculpture facing the blast center. Every 6 December, a civic ceremony is held at the Bell Tower. A memorial at Halifax Fire Station No. 4 pays tribute to firefighters who lost their lives responding to the disaster. Fragments of the Mont-Blanc are displayed as neighborhood monuments in Dartmouth, including at Albro Lake Road and Regatta Point. Simple markers honor victims buried in mass graves at Fairview Lawn Cemetery and Bayers Road Cemetery. A Memorial Book listing all known victims is kept at the Halifax North Memorial Library and at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, which also has a large permanent exhibit about the explosion. Harold Gilman created a painting memorializing the event, though art historian Helena Bonett notes that Halifax Harbour at Sunset "tells very little about the recent devastation, as the viewpoint is set back so that the harbour appears undisturbed."
Hugh MacLennan's novel Barometer Rising, set in Halifax during the explosion, gives a detailed account of the disaster’s impact on the city. Journalist Robert MacNeil later used the event as a metaphor in his 1992 work Burden of Desire. The romance genre was already being used to fictionalize the tragedy by Lieutenant-Colonel Frank McKelvey Bell in his 1918 novella A Romance of the Halifax Disaster, which follows a love story between a young woman and an injured soldier. Keith Ross Leckie adapted the event into a 2003 miniseries titled Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion, though it had no connection to Janet Kitz’s non-fiction book with the same title. The film was later criticized for its inaccuracies.
After the explosion, Halifax’s gratitude to Boston led to a lasting bond between the cities. In 1918, Halifax sent a Christmas tree to Boston in thanks for help from the Boston Red Cross and the Massachusetts Public Safety Committee. That gesture was renewed in 1971 when the Lunenburg County Christmas Tree Producers Association started giving a large tree each year to honor Boston’s support and boost exports. The Nova Scotia government later assumed responsibility for the gift, continuing the tradition to foster goodwill, trade, and tourism. The tree becomes Boston’s official Christmas tree, lit on Boston Common during the holidays. The Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources sets strict guidelines for its selection and assigns someone to oversee that process.
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