I don't always blog about my "quality quilty time" As I warned you before, and you quilters all know this, quilting is sometimes a mindless, repetitive activity and my mind wanders off in all directions.
Being an avid student of social history, and in particullar local history and having spent the first 25 years of my life in Halifax,Nova Scotia,I am thinking today of the 90th anniversary of the 1917 Halifax Explosion. On Dec 6, 1917 at 9:04AM, 2000 people lost their lives, a thriving square mile neighbourhood of north-end halifax was wiped off the map and many people lost homes, livelihood, loved ones and way of life in an instant. Many were blinded by flying glass and many more were scarred and disfigured by the chemicals in the over 2 million kgs of explosives with which the Mount Blanc was overloaded when it collided with the Belgian relief ship Imo at the narrows of the Harbour. When I was a small child, only 25 years later, I remember seeing people who bore the scars as they went about their lives, and being told by my mother not to stare. I feel I must remember this and at shortly after nine this morning, my thoughts went back 90 years.
If you wish to learn more about this disaster, there are extensive archives online - I am including a before and after picture of the Acadia Sugar Refinery in the dock/railway/industrial complex in the northend as being typical of the more widespread devestation experienced.
quilts