Halifax, NS – The Titanic Museum

We decided to forego any excursion trips in Halifax and opted to visit the city by foot. As with most city seaports, Halifax has built an attractive waterfront boardwalk with many shops, museums and restaurants.

We left the ship and walked along this modern but yet quaint waterfront filled with history. Halifax is one of the oldest ports in North America. In December, 1917, Halifax, Nova Scotia, was the hub of the Dominion of Canada. World War I had brought activity and prosperity to the port.

At 7.30 a.m. on December 6, the French ship Mont-Blanc left her anchorage outside the mouth of the harbor to join a convoy gathering in Bedford Basin. She was loaded with 2,300 tons of wet and dry picric acid, 200 tons of TNT, 10 tons of gun cotton and 35 tons of benzol: a highly explosive mixture. At the same time the Norwegian vessel Imo, in ballast, set off from the Basin bound for New York to pick up a cargo of relief supplies for Belgium. At the entrance to the Narrows, after a series of ill-judged maneuvers, the Imo struck the Mont-Blanc on the bow. Although the collision was not severe, fire immediately broke out on board the Mont-Blanc.

Just before 9.05 a.m., the Mont-Blanc exploded. Not one piece of her remained beside the dock where she had finished her voyage. Fragments rained on the surrounding area, crashing through buildings with enough force to embed them where they landed.

1,630 homes were completely destroyed, many by fires that quickly spread following the explosion; 12,000 houses were damaged; 6,000 people were left without shelter. Hardly a pane of glass in Halifax was left intact. The death toll rose to just over 1,900.

At 9 a.m. on December 6, every year, a service is held there in memory of the victims of the Explosion. The bells ring out and can be heard across the Narrows in north Dartmouth, all around Fort Needham, and in the areas devastated by the Halifax Explosion of 1917.

 

We went to the Halifax Maritime Museum which has a tribute Halifax Explosion of 1917 as well as the Titanic.  Halifax was the largest and closest port to the spot where Titanic went down on April 14-15, 1912. It had a profound effect on the people of Halifax. Almost 200 victims are buried there, many of them unidentified. The saddest was the body of a 2 year old boy, one of the first victims found.

The entire museum was nice with displays concerning the ship, St. Louis, which was carrying Jewish refugees looking for a safe place to stay in 1939 as they fled from Nazi Germany. They were turned down by Cuba, the USA and Canada and eventually returned to Germany where many if not all died in concentration camps.

It was very interesting.