Pieces of the munitions ship involved in the Halifax Explosion were discovered earlier this year when Irving Shipbuilding workers were dredging the harbour, and questions remain about where these shards of local history should go.
This month Halifax marked the 107th anniversary of the 1917 explosion, which was the largest man-made explosion at the time. The blast flattened everything within a radius of more than two kilometres, killed close to 1,800 people and injured more than 9,000 others.
It was caused when the SS Mont-Blanc, a French ship carrying ammunition, colliding with an empty ship, the Imo. The Mont-Blanc was torn asunder amid the explosion and its fragments scattered around the city.
Marilyn Davidson Elliott is the author of The Blind Mechanic, which details the story of her father who was blinded in the explosion. She told CBC Radio’s Information Morning Halifax that due to the fact that the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic cannot house ship pieces as large as what was discovered, Halifax should have its own museum of artifacts from the explosion.
“Perhaps Irving Shipbuilding could invest in such a museum and that would be a wonderful contribution to the community,” she said.
She said it could be similar to the Titanic museum in Belfast or the Vasa Museum in Sweden, which is solely dedicated to one warship that sank on its maiden voyage in 1628. More than 300 years later, the largely intact ship was raised from the bottom of the Stockholm harbour and became the centrepiece of the museum.
A lot of effort was put into creating a museum around the ship, but according to Fred Hocker, the director of research at the Vasa Museum, it was well worth it.
“We received over a million visitors a year, we’re the most-visited maritime museum in the world, we believe, and the most-visited tourist attraction or museum of any kind in Scandinavia,” Hocker told Information Morning.
“That was part of the reason, part of the motivation. It was seen as a good tourist draw.”
It’s this type of initiative that Elliott thinks the province should also take on in order to preserve pieces from a historical event so close to the city.
“Other places find ways to preserve their history. And I call on Nova Scotia to do the same,” said Elliott.
According to an environmental assessment registration document from Irving Shipbuilding, there is currently a permit for dredging operations that lists two possible spots for a temporary sorting facility for dredging materials in Dartmouth. It provides a permit to establish a temporary building at one of those two sorting facilities to sift through the sediment.
It is unknown whether or not the newly discovered pieces of the Mont-Blanc are inside the building.
Elliott said the province should also be more transparent about the discovery of pieces of the ship that directly impacted her family.
Marilyn Davidson Elliott’s father, Eric Davidson, was blinded in the Halifax Explosion and she wrote a book based on these events titled The Blind Mechanic. (Amy Smith/CBC)
“I can say the Mont-Blanc has been ever present in my life. My father was blinded and how I used to wish that the explosion never happened and that he could see,” said Elliott. “So this discovery relates directly to me, my children, grandchildren and thousands of descendants.
“And I would ask that the provincial … powers that be, think about us and consider us when they’re making whatever decisions they’re going to make.”
Both Irving Shipbuilding and the province turned down CBC News’s request for an interview
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