Wartime conditions and the economic boom they created brought people to Halifax from all over the world. Residents in the adjacent communities of Richmond and Africville—an historic African-Nova Scotian community, founded in the early 19th century—depended on the railway, the factories, the waterfront.
On the morning of Dec. 7, 1917, snow began to fall on the ruins of Halifax. Their city in ruins, survivors of the Halifax Explosion considered a big question as Christmas approached in 1917: Should they celebrate the holiday at all? Faced with a choice to run for safety or risk his life to save people bound for Halifax, the dispatcher put others first. Arthur Moxon had no idea until after his father's death in 1953 that he'd lost a wife, four children, his parents and a sister-in-law in the Dec. 6, 1917, Halifax Explosion. Known as the "Grand Old Lady" of Halifax harbour, the Acadia served in both world wars and survived the Halifax Explosion. https://www.halifax.ca/recreation/arts-culture-heritage/halifax-explosion Content last modified March 10 2020. Thursday marks 101 years since the Halifax explosion took place in which more than 2,000 people died. Vaporized fuel and chemical by-products of the explosion fell as rain, coating people and wreckage with a dark, oily film. The Halifax Explosion devastated the north end of the city, killing nearly 2,000 and injuring 9,000.

Halifax became Canada’s primary military embarkation port, as hundreds of thousands of service personnel departed from its Deepwater Terminals for the battlefields of Europe.

The explosion’s discharged gasses forced enormous heat and pressure outwards in all directions. Halifax explosion of 1917, disaster in Halifax Harbour, Nova Scotia, Canada, in which a munitions ship exploded, killing nearly 2,000 people. Her grandfather bought it in the new year following the explosion and there are still dents along the side of it where thousands of glass shards pierced it. When barrels of petrochemical bursting on deck triggered the blast, explosives below underwent a sudden, violent chemical reaction.

African-Nova Scotians are questioning why a Halifax Explosion exhibit at the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax lacks stories about black victims. At least 9000 were injured and many more were made homeless. Marilyn Elliott's father, Eric Davidson, was blinded when he was two years old from the blast that rocked Halifax on Dec. 6 1917. Recognizing the significance of the 1917 Halifax Harbour Explosion as part of Nova Scotian history, the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic developed a temporary exhibit in 1987 entitled "A Moment in Time". Potential COVID-19 exposure on Toronto to Halifax flight Nova Scotia Health advises of a potential exposure to the virus on an Oct. 15 flight Oct 18, 2020 11:37 AM Read more > Ruins of the school at Turtle Grove CREDIT: “30 Views of Dartmouth Disaster”. The municipality's emergency services are here to protect and inform citizens. Some students at a Bedford, N.S., high school are using glass shards as a way of commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion. After decades of hard economic times, the city was a hub of Canada's war effort. Find out about streets, sidewalks, winter operations, senior snow removal program. A roiling cloud of hot gas rose high above the site. Halifax is mainland North America’s closest large port to Europe.

Dec. 6 is the anniversary of the Halifax Explosion, 101 years ago. Thousands more were injured and left homeless. The Halifax Explosion levelled much of the city, but it also publicized the need for new tools so that those with vision loss could read and communicate through writing. The reach of harbour where the ship Imo struck Mont-Blanc was referred to by Mi’kmaw people as Kepe'kek, “at the Narrows.” In 1749, British military and settlers occupied a small portion of Mi’kma’ki and named it Halifax. CBC reporter Carolyn Ray has always known her family lost everything in the Halifax Explosion, but it wasn't until she started researching it that she realized how dramatically it changed her family's future.
The display received such an overwhelming public response that in 1994, the museum took on the major project of creating “Halifax Wrecked”, a permanent exhibit devoted to the Explosion. Growing up, the Halifax Explosion was a popular topic of conversation for Christopher Borgal and his extended family at Christmastime, including the recollection that German POWs helped tarp a section of the family home damaged by the deadly 1917 disaster.

As news of the Halifax Harbour Explosion spread, people all over the world acted to relieve the mass suffering it had caused. A newsprint version was distributed last week to homes around Nova Scotia, but as the CBC's Colleen Jones reports, they're now being made into posters. Drenching rain was not enough to keep hundreds of people from gathering in the Halifax's north end this morning to mark the 100th anniversary of the Halifax Explosion. When Imo crossed The Narrows to strike Mont-Blanc’s bow, worlds collided. As news of the Halifax Harbour Explosion spread, people all over the world acted to relieve the mass suffering it had caused.

Closed Captioning and Described Video is available for many CBC shows offered on CBC Gem. CBC News has produced a 360° interactive experience capturing the events leading up to the devastating 1917 blast — and what happened right after. Come for an hour or stay for the day.

But corrosion, leaky decks and marine growth on its hull are eroding it. Many were sojourners here: British, Scandinavian, and South Asian seamen in port for a few days; Italian and Ukrainian railway navvies; itinerant dock workers remitting wages to families in faraway homelands. 2, Halifax CREDIT: Nova Scotia Archives, Helen Creighton, Album 11 No. More than 500 train cars were damaged or destroyed, including most of the city’s military hospital cars. Many first responders were soldiers and sailors from damaged barracks and Canadian, British, and United States’ ships in port. Well before December 6th, 1917, Halifax was as fully engaged in the war as any North American city could be. A fresh generation of children's books is finding the grace in Halifax's worst moment — a massive explosion that levelled much of the city 100 years ago but inspired acts of kindness that still resonate. But one marine geologist believes it was sunk in the Halifax Explosion. Fort Needham Memorial Bell Tower CREDIT: Christian Laforce. In homes, schools, and factories lining the adjacent shores, residents started a new day in a busy wartime port.

... News of the disaster spread quickly, and aid soon arrived from within Canada as well as from the United States. Richmond Railway Yards after the Explosion CREDIT: MP207.1.184/47, Charles A. Vaughan Collection. Laurie Swim, originally from Lockeport, N.S., says volunteers hand stitched beads for each known person killed in the 1917 blast. Sixty-one train crew were killed. Information on Halifax Water, animal services, property taxes, solid waste collection and more. About 300 people gathered at the Halifax's blustery Grand Parade square on Friday for an annual tradition: the official send-off for a huge Christmas tree destined for Boston. The following year, on appeal, both ships were judged equally at fault. The day after the explosion, a major snowstorm dumped about 40 centimetres of snow on the levelled city. About 2,000 people were killed as a result of the Dec. 6, 1917, blast that flattened parts of the city. Imo aground on the Dartmouth shore CREDIT: MP 207.1.184/270. A memorial service was held Sunday to remember young victims of the the Halifax Explosion who lived at the Protestant Orphanage at the time of the blast.