Before Hiroshima

Halifax, Nova Scotia, like almost all Canadian towns, has most of its homes built of wood

Halifax, Nova Scotia, like almost all Canadian towns, has most of its homes built of wood. And why wouldn't they be in a country with such an abundance of trees? But there is one part of Halifax, to the north of the city, where wooden houses have been replaced by breeze-block buildings, writes a young much-travelling friend who has just come back. This is the area where every house and every tree was flattened on December 6th, 1917, in the world's greatest explosion until the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. After Sydney, Australia, Halifax has the largest deep-sea harbour in the world, and therefore played a key role in both world wars. On that December morning in 1917, close to the city centre, the French munitions ship Mont Blanc collided with the Belgian relief ship, the Imo. In the resulting blast, which was heard 100 kilometres away in Truro, nearly 2,000 people were killed. As reported in a recent edition of Canada's Globe and Mail, the shop's cannon was found 5.5 kilometres away in one direction, and a half-tonne piece of the anchor landed 3 kilometres in the opposite direction.

Some people thought a German warship had started shelling the city. The evidence of that devastating blast is still to be seen. Apart from those breezeblocks, shipped out from Britain in a gesture of support, there is a noticeable absence of the majestic stands of trees so much in evidence elsewhere in Nova Scotia. The day after the explosion, the good people of Boston sent a train full of emergency supplies to help the Haligonians, as they are called. That immediate and generous act has never been forgotten. Each year, on the anniversary of the explosion - December 6th - the mayor of the city of Halifax takes a huge conifer to Boston where it is erected as the Christmas tree. What better way could there be to remember an act of generosity than with the gift of a tree? Especially when it is an annual gift kept up, so far, for nearly a century.