A phoenix of a coastal port

The sky reflected in a glass block from the boardwalk
at Halifax, Nova Scotia

An interesting feature of some of the North American east coast ports we called at, I learned from the excellent series of port lectures we enjoyed on Arcadia as we crossed the Atlantic. It was the incidence of devastating fires, which had swept through the ports and left the inhabitants bereaved and homeless. Our next port of call, Halifax, had suffered the worst of these. In fact there were two events in which this Nova Scotia port played a major part. Our Atlantic crossing had been calm and relaxing and there was little about it to remind us that just over 100 years earlier, there had been the major passenger shipping disaster, the sinking of the Titanic, with the loss of so many lives. Halifax was the nearest port to the disaster and it was there the few survivors and the rescued remains of those who perished were brought. Five years later, the town was to suffer what could only be described as a holocaust. The year was 1917, three years into World War l. Canadian troops were fighting alongside British and French soldiers in northern France and Belgium. There was a huge demand for ammunition for the war. The French cargo ship SS Mont Blanc was loaded with explosives and munitions destined for Europe on 6th December when it collided with the Norwegian ship, the SS Imo. The resulting explosion had all the force of an Atom bomb. It devastated two square kilometres of Halifax, killed more than two thousand of the town's inhabitants and injured more than 9,000. It created a tsunami which demolished wooden homes and uprooted plants and trees. It seemed unlikely we would find many buildings near the port of Halifax which pre-dated 1917, but clearly, it would prove an interesting town to explore.