Original subtitles

So when you tell the story of the Halifax explosion,

how do you describe it?

This is 1917.

The world is in the middle of a war.

Halifax was an integral port.

In fact, the main port.

We were collecting armaments.

We were sending troops, supplies,

for all of the Allies.

They were leaving Halifax here.

So this isn't a sleepy backwater.

This is the center of everything.

This is the center of everything.

December 6, 1917,

the Mont Blanc was coming into the harbor,

carrying munitions for the war effort.

So the big thing about the Mont Blanc

was that it was absolutely cram-packed with munitions.

She was a floating bomb.

As it's going into the Narrows,

a Norwegian ship called the Imo is coming out.

Unfortunately, they scraped,

and sparks happened on the Mont Blanc.

They had barrels and barrels of benzo,

which is highly flammable.

The sparks started a fire,

and then sadly, at around 9.05 in the morning,

the Mont Blanc basically disintegrated

in the largest man-made explosion

that was non-nuclear ever recorded.

So, massive explosion, first thing in the morning.

Can you describe what happens next?

Absolute devastation.

So, you can imagine the blast.

It literally tore down the entire north end of Halifax.

So, whole communities.

This area that we're standing in now is known as Richmond,

and that community was basically devastated.

The community across the harbor, Tufts Cove,

was a First Nations Mi'kmaq community.

That was destroyed completely.

The African Nova Scotian community of Africville

was decimated.

So, hundreds and hundreds of people,

in fact, close to 2,000 people were killed

in this Halifax explosion,

and around 9,000 people injured.

So, it's just down the bottom of this hill.

Literally is.

And the blast would have come up here, the water,

and then it all...

And then it goes back again.

Once the water rushes out, it's got to rush back in again,

and it created a tsunami.

Then, overnight, a terrible snowstorm happened,

and then this whole city was blanketed.

In fact, the rescue efforts were really hampered.

It looks like a battlefield.

Largest non-nuclear explosion, tsunami,

city-wide fires, and then a blizzard.

With all of this, it was the devastation.

It was the devastation of the land,

but the devastation of the people.

And that's the big issue in dealing with identifying

any bodies that they found.

Sometimes the survivors were so damaged

that they couldn't tell who they were.

Other times, there was nothing left to keep

but body parts and segments.

In the newspapers for months afterwards,

they kept publishing these lists,

and they'd say, female, perhaps 35 years old,

has a wristwatch, has a ring with an amethyst in it,

and maybe a ticket from the Capitol Theater.

There were lots of stories of people

who never found loved ones.

It's tragic, man.

They call it the town that died,

but is it a haunted city?

Oh, Halifax has probably more ghosts per capita

than any other city in Canada.

Ghost stories are just the concept,

if you believe in it, of psychic energy.

There's certainly enough stories that have survived

and are still told today about that kind of energy

as an aftermath of the Halifax explosion.

Perhaps the most interesting for a lot of people,

because it's still a building they go to today.

There's a very popular restaurant in downtown Halifax

called The Five Fishermen.

It was used as a morgue at the Halifax explosion.

And now, even today, workers at this restaurant

say that they feel chills, they feel a presence,

maybe somebody tapping them on the shoulder.

Yeah.

It's what energies are left in a place

after they are destroyed?