Halifax was devastated on December 6th. 1917 when two ships collided in the city’s harbour, one of them a munitions ship loaded with explosives bound for the battlefields of the First World War. What followed was one of the largest human-made explosions before the detonation of the first atomic bombs in 1945. The blast and subsequent tsunami wiped out the north end of Halifax. Nearly 2,000 people died, another 9,000 were maimed or blinded, and more than 25,000 were left without shelter.
We gathered on the Anniversary of the Halifax Explosion with special guests Donna Jones Alward and her new historical fiction novel, When The World Fell Silent, Jennie Marsland and her historical romance Shattered, and Katie Ingram and her nonfiction, Breaking Disaster: Newspaper Stories of the Halifax Explosion. We served NovelTea’s Cider House Rules inspired Apple Chai-der Herbal Tea and talked about the Halifax Explosion.
We began the evening by discussing Julie Lawson’s two historical fiction books; A Blinding Light and Out Of The Dark. The first, a finalist for the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction, is set before and during the Halifax Explosion. The latter is set immediately before the explosion and in the aftermath; the rebuilding, and then the Spanish Flu Pandemic. The passage of importance in Out Of The Dark speaks about the Protestant Orphanage on Veith Street. The Matron “ordered her staff and the children to go to the basement where they would be safe. Most were killed in the explosion, and the building was demolished. Only six little souls survived.” One of those souls, Annie May Murley later married Ronald Slade of Musquodoboit Harbour and they had a son named Ronald, who then had a daughter named Sue, the manager of Dartmouth Book Exchange.
Donna Jones Alward’s first historical fiction novel When The World Fell Silent, is now in its 17th week on the Canadian bestsellers lists. It follows two women who reside in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1917. War has been raging in Europe for 3 years and the busy port of Halifax with its deep, ice-free harbor and strategic location makes it the perfect location for military support operations for the war. Nora is a Lieutenant in the Canadian Army Nursing Corp, a Bluebird, named for their blue uniforms, and is working at the newly opened Camp Hill Hospital tending to injured soldiers. Charlotte is a mother and widow, having lost her husband in the trenches, and is living with her in-laws, who treat her like a domestic servant. At the time of the explosion, Nora was at work at Camp Hill Hospital which was partly protected from the blast by Citadel Hill, and Charlotte was out running errands with her daughter, Aileen.
At Camp Hill Hospital, which was sorely unequipped to handle this kind of mass-casualty event, Nora spends the long hours in the aftermath of the explosion cleaning wounds, removing splinters, and glass and even suturing, a skill that before the explosion she had never practiced on an actual human. Late in the afternoon, she meets Captain Neil McLeod, a Doctor from Aldershot, who has come to help. That evening she offers him lodging at her sister’s boarding house. The following day, Charlotte wakes up on a cot at Camp Hill Hospital without Aileen. She is in a lot of pain and cannot move her leg. She cannot remember the explosion. She had two large splinters removed from her leg and is suffering a concussion.
What follows is a well-written and well-researched story of the experiences of Nora and Charlotte in the aftermath of the explosion, and into the following year. Skillfully woven into the story are ongoing real events, such as Boston’s response to the explosion and the outbreak of the Spanish Flu. In the days and months that follow, we see through both ladies’ eyes the devastation, the widespread injuries, and the horrific details of the destruction. Nora and Charlotte hunt for family scanning the casualty lists, searching the hospitals first, and then the morgues. Taken from Sue Slade’s review of When The World Fell Silent, published in The Miramichi Reader on June 15th, 2024.
Shattered by Jennie Marsland. Liam Cochrane no longer belongs. He lost his youth and his brother on the battlefields of Europe. Now he’s home in Halifax, Nova Scotia, trying to dull his pain with liquor and the occasional willing woman. He’s become a stranger in the North End neighbourhood where he grew up. Alice O’Neill has never belonged. Able to read notes, but not words, she dreams of teaching music – and of Liam, who has held her heart for years and never known. But Liam has shadowy ties in England that he’s revealed to no one, and in that fall of 1917, Halifax is on a collision course with fate. On December 6, a horrific accident of war will devastate the city’s North End. What will be left for Liam and Alice when their world is shattered?
Shattered depicts an authentic image of Halifax and life in the city during the First World War. Marsland did her research and kept the story true to the time period, straddling the line between historical fiction and historical romance. With the story beginning in September 1917 and knowing that the world’s largest man-made explosion to that date was to occur in three months’ time, the tension of what was going to happen and how it was going to happen built fast. Both Alice and Liam’s characters, work to overcome life’s obstacles. Readers will enjoy walking or taking the tram around World War I Halifax and seeing the city in 1917 through Alice and Liam’s eyes. Taken from Sue Slade’s review of Shattered published on Goodreads on November 16th, 2024.
***It should be mentioned that we see Alice’s brother Carl in a bar in Donna Jones Alward’s book When the World Fell Silent and that Carl has his own story in Deliverance, Jennie’s follow-up to Shattered.
In Katie Ingram’s Breaking Disaster: Newspaper Stories of the Halifax Explosion she takes all the newspaper clippings from the first week after the explosion and pieces them together to form different readable narratives, many of which have faded into the larger story of the Halifax Explosion. It is a factual and interesting introduction to the Halifax Explosion.
Synopsis:
“The rumble got louder, the walls quaked as if in fear, and the classroom’s windows started to pulse and shake before they completely shattered, showering everyone inside with glass.”
On December 6, 1917, the face of Halifax changed forever when the Imo, a Belgian Relief ship, collided with the French ship, the Mont Blanc. Shortly after 9:00 a.m., the Mont Blanc, which was carrying a large cargo of explosives, blew up. It destroyed much of the city’s north end and neighbouring communities like Tuft’s Cove and Dartmouth. The effect was catastrophic.
Almost immediately, aid was rushed to Halifax as survivors and workers dug through rubble and ruins for friends and family. Over 2,000 people died and 9,000 were injured, while countless others were rendered homeless. As news broke about the explosion, newspapers from Toronto to Hawaii and France to Australia scrambled to provide readers with updated information.
These and other stories gave face to a disaster which, at the time, was a mix of ever-changing statistics, details, and questions about blame. Often the reports were exaggerated and erroneous. In Halifax, newspapers carried lists of the injured, dead, and missing alongside a collection of notices and ads. This strange juxtaposition showed just how quickly the explosion had happened as holiday-themed advertisements mixed with notices about relief and stories of survival and death. Together, they present the overarching image of Halifax at the time–survival and confusion–while separately they show just how much impact one event had.
It was a lovely and informative night. We had audience members coming from as far as Lunenburg to attend our event. Attendees had this to say:
- Another great Dbex event. The authors and many stories of the Explosion made for a special evening to mark this occasion.- Sylvia Mannette
- Had a great evening. Special thanks to the 3 authors- loved their reading/ discussions.- Debbie Marshall
- Learned so much and was taken back to that time reading “When The World Fell Silent”, excellent read!!!- Elaine Richards
- It was a wonderful night.- Darlene Vezina
- What a great gathering! Can’t wait to read the book.- Linda Lewis O’Brien