Maritime Museum of the Atlantic - Titanic and Halifax Explosion Graveyard/Memorial Halifax, Nova Scotia - Emotional Day

Alexander Keith's Brewery

We leave our VRBO with our luggage in tote as we'll head to our rig later today. Thankfully the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic has agreed for us to store our luggage there for the day so we won't be hindered. The walk along Lower Water Street to the museum passes 'The Alexander Keith's Nova Scotia Brewery'. Founded in 1820 by Scottish immigrant Alexander Keith,it is one of the oldest working breweries in North America. Darn, would have been a cool tour. 

Nova Scotian Crystal Mural

Maritime Museum of the Atlantic

War Memorial 

The Maritime Museum of the Atlantic far exceeds anything we expected. Canada's oldest and largest maritime museum with a collection of over 30,000 artifacts highlighting Nova Scotia's marine history and the World Wars. 

Model ships aplenty

SS Franconia

There is a 'Days of Sail' gallery with all sorts of model ships and even a sail loft display. 

Sail loft

Blue - SS IMO  Red - SS Mont-Blanc

Just recently we learned of the 1917 Halifax Explosion disaster. The First World War turned Nova Scotia's port of Halifax into a boom town. The ice free harbour was the perfect departure point for ships carrying troops to Europe and the wounded back home. 

On the morning of December 6, 1917, in the Narrows - the strait connecting Bedford Basin to Halifax Harbour,  the Norwegian vessel SS Imo, (outbound for New York to pick up cargo), and the French munitions ship SS Mont-Blanc, (inbound to join a convoy headed for Europe), collided. The collision set off an explosion unrivalled until the atomic bomb. Thousands of people were killed, an entire neighbourhood was destroyed and thousands more left homeless. 

SS Mont-Blanc was a floating bomb

Mont-Blanc's holds were stuffed with explosive TNT - the ship was a floating bomb. When the ships collided, Mont-Blanc's hold was pierced and fire started quickly. The fire super-heated the hull and at 9:04 am a massive explosion all but wiped out Richmond and heavily damaged the surrounding areas.

Back when we were in PEI, a guy we met talked about the windows of grandma's house blown out that day. The blast killed more than 1,600 people instantly and the devastation was immeasurable. The city was in chaos and to make things worse it snowed 40 cms overnight. 

40 cms of snow overnight after the explosion

CNIB created

The first 10 days of rescue and recovery were apparently super-human. It is clear the scars remain as the city is peppered with monuments to the victims. 

Sadly the explosion caused the largest mass-blinding in Canadian history, shattering thousands of windows into people's faces as they looked out at the unfolding events of that day. The catastrophic surge in sudden blindness directly inspired the founding of the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) in 1918. 

Model of Titanic

There is also a permanent RMS Titanic collection and Halifax's role in the recovery efforts. The massive, luxury British ocean liner said to be 'unsinkable' sank in the Atlantic Ocean during its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York City. 

Enjoying the deck chairs on the Titanic - she's unsinkable :)

The Titanic's Grand Staircase

The Titanic sinks

The ship hit an iceberg around 11:40 pm on April 14th that tore open six of its watertight compartments. The ship could only stay afloat with four flooded so April 15th, 1912 at 2:20 am the Titanic officially went down. It did not have enough lifeboats for everyone on board so about 1500 people lost their lives, many from freezing.  

Shockingly many of the lifeboats held very few people as passengers initially refused to leave the seemingly safe, warm liner to get into small, wooden boats hanging high above the dark freezing water. What a shame. In the rescue efforts, the dead were transported to Halifax and the living went to New York. 

Dead to Halifax  Alive to New York

It's all very overwhelming. This truly is one of the best museums we have seen in our travels. 

Marigold Kitchen

We stop for a quick meal at 'The Marigold Kitchen' as it gets 5 star reviews all around. Wow, what a meal and we are treated so kindly by the dad and son team working there. We are genuinely interested in their story and our kindness is rewarded as along with our donairs, they give us free soup samples and complimentary drinks. If ever in Halifax...look them up.

Sam - dad at Marigold Kitchen

Fairview Lawn Cemetery

To end our sombre day, we make a trip to the Fairview Lawn Cemetery, which houses both RMS Titanic vicitims (121 individuals, arranged in the shape of a ship's hull) and a mass grave containing unidentified victims of the 1917 Halifax Explosion

Titanic victims

Down with the ship bravery

Halifax explosion memorial

Mass grave

Memorial Bell Tower

Finally we stop by the 'Halifax Explosion Memorial Bell Tower'. Completed in 1985, it is a 60-foot-tall concrete structure in Fort Needham Memorial Park, which overlooks the harbour of the fateful explosion. It is meant to honour the nearly 2000 people killed and 9000 injured in the December 6th, 1917 ship collision in Halifax Harbour. 

What a day of remembering and reflecting as to why we are doing this trip. Live each day like it's your last as you never know what will happen tomorrow :)