While travelling through The Narrows in Halifax at 9 am on December 6th, the Mont-Blanc was rammed broadside by a Norwegian ship that was leaving empty from Bedford Basin, and the contents of the Mont-Blanc caught fire and erupted. If not, the authorities in Halifax could give Le Médec instructions on the safest routes across the Atlantic.” Perhaps one of them could accommodate the slow-moving Mont-Blanc. Larger convoys, arranged by Canada’s Royal Navy, departed from Halifax’s protected harbor. Recognizing that traveling with a convoy with give Mont-Blanc the best protection from German U-boats, harbor authorities advised (Captain) Le Médec to travel up the coast to Halifax, Nova Scotia. “The weight of the cargo, plus the weight of more than a million pounds of coal needed to power Mont-Blanc’s steam engine, slowed the ship’s speed so much that she would be unable to keep up with a convoy of ships crossing back to Europe from New York. The French ship Mont-Blanc was loaded in New York City in early December with nearly 3,000 tons of explosives headed for the war in Europe: picric acid, TNT, and gun cotton, as well as barrels of benzene stacked three deep on the decks. At its narrowest, the passage is less than 500 yards across. The Harbour and the Basin are connected by a slender strait known as The Narrows. It has a deep & generous harbour, and the added bonus of Bedford Basin, just north of the Harbour, fully protected by land. From Halifax, left troops and supplies that were delivered all over Europe. Let me start getting you acquainted: In December 1917, World War I had been raging for three years and Halifax, Nova Scotia was well established as the major port city on the North American side of the Atlantic. How did I grow up in central Canada without having been taught about this? Why is this tragedy-worse in many respects than the sinking of the Titanic five years earlier-virtually unknown and unremembered outside Atlantic Canada? Two thousand dead, more than six thousand wounded & blinded, and a fifth of the city left homeless. The largest man-made explosion up to the atomic bomb. How do I begin to convey the horror that was the Halifax Explosion of 1917?

Blizzard of Glass by Sally M. Walker