Residents, young and old, gathered to remember Halifax Explosion victims and survivors at Fort Needham Memorial Park on Thursday morning.
At 9:04 a.m. on Dec. 6, 1917, an explosion occurred after the Mont Blanc and the Imo collided in the Halifax Harbour. More than 2,000 people were killed and 9,000 injured in the blast, which destroyed almost all of north-end Halifax and significantly damaged the rest of Halifax and Dartmouth.
“The Halifax Explosion is the story of many things: tragedy, heroism, of relationships and of resilience,” said Halifax Mayor Mike Savage at the memorial service.
On the steps of the bell tower memorial, Savage recited train dispatcher Vincent Coleman’s Morse code message to an incoming passenger train.
“It’s an act of remarkable bravery by a man who did not wake up that morning expecting to be a hero,” the mayor said of Coleman.
“They were not extraordinary people, they were ordinary people who did extraordinary things and did not intend to be heroes,” said Savage.
Lt.-Gov. Arthur LeBlanc, Deputy premier Karen Casey, Coun. Lindell Smith, Halifax Regional police and fire services and the Windsor Park Girl Guides participated in the laying of the wreaths.
A moment of silence, smudging ceremony and reading by George Elliott Clarke, Parliamentary Poet Laureate, of an excerpt from Achieving Disaster, Dreaming Resurrection also took place.
Margaret Hanlon wiped a tear after the memorial service as she told The Chronicle Herald her great-grandmother’s and grandmother’s story.
“My grandmother was only a girl of 16 at the time,” said the 75-year-old Halifax resident. “Her mom came home early in the morning, went to bed and woke up with devastation, covered in glass.”
Hanlon said she’s been attending memorial services for the explosion for as long as she can remember.
“We have to come to remember. If we don’t remember and pass it along to others, it will be lost,” she said.
Hanlon, who has a home in the north end, said she walks around the neighbourhood when she can.
“The memories are still here. They are ingrained in you,” she said.
“It’s really difficult sometimes to come and remember,” an emotional Hanlon said, “but we must do it.”
