Halifax — Citadel & Waterfront
Maritime Museum and the Halifax Explosion
Listen at the stop, then read the transcript and follow the sources behind the story.
Listen
Transcript
On the morning of 6 December 1917, the French munitions ship Mont-Blanc collided with the Norwegian vessel Imo in the Narrows of Halifax Harbour. Fire broke out on Mont-Blanc, and about twenty minutes later its explosive cargo detonated.
The blast devastated large parts of Halifax and Dartmouth, killed roughly two thousand people and injured thousands more. It was one of the largest human-made explosions before the atomic age.
The disaster produced extraordinary rescue efforts and long-term changes in emergency medicine and urban planning.
One persistent myth claimed Africville escaped the blast entirely because the peninsula shielded it. Halifax archival research shows that Africville suffered deaths and serious damage.
Correcting that myth matters because it prevents Black residents from disappearing from the disaster narrative.