Halifax Harbour

It starts now.

Jimmy, this series of this canal system connected Halifax Harbor to the Bay of Fundy.

What was it called? Pass.

How many basic human senses are there? Five.

Christian Bale, Michael Keaton, and Adam West all played this role.

Batman.

The movie character Austin Powers, what is his middle name? What local brewery takes its name from the number of blocks? Okay, a canal system connecting Halifax Harbor to the Bay of Fundy.

What country do the Azores belong to?

Worse still, if picric acid came into contact with metal, such as the inner walls of artillery shells, the resulting chemical reaction gradually produced metal picric compounds that were far more sensitive and powerful than the original explosives, creating a massive safety hazard.

Indeed, the extreme danger posed by raw picric acid was tragically demonstrated on December 6, 1917, when French cargo ship SS Mont Blanc, carrying 62 tons of gun cotton, 250 tons of TNT, 246 tons of benzol, and 2,366 tons of picric acid, collided with the Norwegian freighter SS Imo in Halifax Harbor, Nova Scotia.

The resulting blaze touched off a massive detonation known as the Halifax Explosion, equivalent to 2.9 kilotons of TNT, flattening structures out to a radius of nearly a kilometer or a half a mile, killing nearly 2,000 people and injuring more than 9,000 more.

The latter problem was addressed by coating the inner walls of shells with lacquer or wax, and the former by mixing picric acid with various stabilizers like gun cotton and hexanitro-diphenylamine to produce various compositions.

The visible scene is a freighter entering a crowded harbor, warning flags, sealed cargo holds, and a city beginning an ordinary winter morning.

Behind it are the French ship Mont Blanc, wartime explosives, benzol barrels, Halifax Harbor, convoy traffic, secrecy, and catastrophic risk.

On December 6, 1917, the French munitions carrier Mont Blanc and the Norwegian vessel Imo collided in Halifax Harbor.

The resulting fire and explosion killed nearly 2,000 people, injured about 9,000, and devastated the north end and parts of Dartmouth.

Think of it as placing the destructive force of a battlefield inside a merchant ship moving past homes and rail yards.

The visible scene is troop trains, naval patrols, merchant ships, dock workers, warehouses, and families living above the narrows.

Behind it are First World War logistics, Atlantic convoys, Bedford Basin, troop movement, cargo inspection, submarines, and port pressure.

On December 6, 1917, the French munitions carrier Mont Blanc and the Norwegian vessel Imo collided in Halifax Harbor.

Closed in 1860-61 for 13 days.

Then he began to be aware that his back was broken, and that the writing of any more notes about the ice in Halifax Harbour was for the present out of the question.

I think it best to let you know immediately that she has accepted him.

These were the words which he read the oftenest.

Land was to the left, through a clearing in the fog.

It was Halifax Harbor, halfway to Trepassy, the Atlantic takeoff point, and halfway up the Nova Scotia coastline.

Bill circled the harbor twice and slipped expertly down to a landing.

The natives swarmed to the shore, and some of them climbed into dories to form a welcoming party.

At 6.45 p.m.

I was close under Chubucto Head Light near Halifax Harbour.

I set my flag and squared away, taking my departure from George's Island before dark to sail east of Sable Island.

There are many beacon lights along the coast.

She's no stranger to crossing milestones, but this one came with an unwavering resolve and a spectacular view.

Two cruise ships arrived in the Halifax Harbour today, notable because of all of the American tourists coming to visit this country at a sensitive time in Canada-U.S. relations.

CTV's Paul Hollingsworth asked some visitors how they feel about their northern neighbours.

Two massive cruise ships, thousands of American visitors.

And within days, ships from Halifax were dispatched to the icy waters to recover bodies and debris and personal belongings from the wreckage of the Titanic.

Now, Halifax Harbor quickly became a center with the task of handling the recovered victims.

More than 330 bodies were retrieved from the Titanic, and of those, over 150 were brought to Halifax, where temporary morgues were set up in the city to identify the deceased.

It was very hard work, of course, involving local officials, medical examiners, and volunteers as they attempted to match bodies with passenger lists and personal effects.

the whole Titanic history.

But if you go there, if you're interested in the history of the Titanic, it's a place that people do go and they check out the, I think there's a small, I think there's a museum or at least the graveyard with things that you can read up on the role that Halifax played in recovering the bodies and recovering wreckage and things from the Titanic disaster back in 1912.

Difficult time, 1912, so that happened, and then years later, in 1917, just five years later, there was the terrible Halifax explosion, which I've talked about before on the radio, where two ships collided in Halifax Harbor and created a huge explosion, the largest non-nuclear, apparently the largest non-nuclear explosion in history.

and completely leveled part of the downtown of Halifax and killed many, many people.

Sabrina Fabian reports.

[ship horn blows] The cruise ship, the Norwegian Jewel, slowly makes its way out of the Halifax Harbor with hundreds of American tourists on board.

With local souvenirs tucked in their luggage and warm lobster in their bellies, they're among the millions of Americans who travel to Canada every year, people like Kristi Kenney Nautican.

Yeah, we, we love Canada.