Discover the Halifax Harbour

The First European Explorers

Samuel de Champlain arrived at the coast of Acadie (Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) in 1604. Although he did not stay at Chebucto (Halifax), he referred to it as "une baie fort saine", or "a good safe bay". A French fishing station was established at Chebucto by 1698, on McNab's Island in the middle of the great harbour. At this time, French missionary Father Peter Thury was at Halifax preaching to the Mi'kmaq. He is the first recorded missionary in this area. He celebrated Easter with the Mi'kmaq to coincide with their ancient spring festival. French botanist Diereville arrived in 1699 to obtain plants for the royal gardens. At his arrival at Chebucto on the ship La Royale Paix, three Mi'kmaq chiefs greeted him in canoes, declared themselves Christians and showed him Father Thury's grave.

In 1701, Brouillan, the French governor, put in to Halifax on his way to Port Royal (on Nova Scotia's Bay of Fundy shore) and was wind-bound. Brouillan wrote that port of Chebucto was "one of the finest that Nature could form". Later, one of his officers, Bonaventure, reported that this port could not be settled unless it was fortified. In 1711, de Labat, a French engineer, arrived to survey the harbour and make a plan for a fortress. He took soundings and drew a map, which survives.

In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht gave the entire Nova Scotia mainland to Britain, leaving the French with Isle Royale, later to be called Cape Breton Island. Thus, the French abandoned their plans for a fortress at Chebucto, and instead commenced the construction of the great fortress at Louisburg on Cape Breton's eastern shore which would command the entrance to the St. Lawrence River and the heart of North America.

Running along the western side of the peninsula of Halifax, separating it from the mainland, the Northwest Arm is a popular boating area in summer.

Early maps of the area refer to the Northwest Arm as "Sandwich River", however the Mi'kmaq knew better, of course. They called it Waegwoltichk ("it runs down to an end"). Today, the Waegwoltic Club lies on the Northwest Arm, a sailing, boating, swimming and tennis club.

Duc D’Anville

In the spring of 1746, an armada of 71 ships and 10,000 men sailed from Brest under the command of the Duc D’Anville to shake up the New World. The objective for the armada was to gather at the harbour at Chebuctoque and rendezvous with a French squadron from the West Indies under Admiral Conflans, then sail up the coast to the French fortress at Louisbourg which had been taken by a force of New Englanders. Following this action, the force would travel back down the coast and around to take the British base at Fort Anne near Annapolis Royal on Nova Scotia’s Bay of Fundy shore. Then, the armada would move down upon New England like an avenging tide to teach those New Englanders a thing or two by destroying Boston.

The armada’s advance ships, L’Aurore and Castor, left Brest in April, and arrived at Chebuctoque in early summer. Under its commander, Du Vignan, the two frigates raided English shipping along the coast in the summer and waited. But D’Anville did not seem to be coming and Du Vignan sailed for France on August 12. Admiral Conflans arrived with his squadron in early September, learned from the Mi’kmaq that D’Anville had not arrived and that Du Vignan had departed, and himself set sail for France.

Duc D'Anville's ill-fated expedition saw its bad luck hit early on in the journey, as it was both hit by viscious storms and becalmed during its voyage across the Atlantic. Scurvy and typhus hit the crews of the ships as they spent a long summer on the Atlantic. In September, the hobbled fleet arrived near Sable Island off of Nova Scotia’s eastern coast. This tiny spit of sand, which year after year crawls along in its movement along the Scotian Shelf, reached up like a claw from the deep during the equinoctial storms and destroyed many of D’Anville’s ships. Some went down with all hands. Others, battered and beaten, either turned back to France or headed south to the West Indies. Roughly half of the fleet that sailed from Brest continued on to the harbour at Chebuctoque.

D’Anville finally arrived on September 10. As his fleet’s diseased ships arrived, D’Anville himself died. His officers said of apoplexy, others said of poison. He was buried without ceremony on George’s Island in Halifax Harbour and later interred at the Fortress of Louisbourg that he had come to conquer. Today, Duc D’Anville School is in Clayton Park, on a high hill overlooking the shores where D’Anville spent his final days.

The Founding of Halifax

In 1748, two years after D’Anville’s tragic expedition, the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle returned the Fortress of Louisbourg to France. To counter this power position at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River and the gateway to the continent, the British decided to establish both a military base at the harbour of Chebucto and a civil government in Nova Scotia.

On May 14, 1749, Nova Scotia’s new governor, Edward Cornwallis, sailed from England in the sloop-of-war Sphinx, arriving off Chebucto by June 14. In the company of the Sphinx were the hospital ship Sarah, the smaller stores ship Union, and 13 transport ships carrying the new town’s 2,576 initial European settlers. The transports were Alexander, Baltimore, Beaufort, Brotherhood, Cannon, Charlton, Everly, Fair Lady, London, Merry Jacks, Rockhampton, Wilmington, and Winchelsea.

The new town got its name from the title of the chief Lord of Trade and Plantations. As the late Halifax historian Thomas Raddall rightly said: "For various points in the province, as well as for certain Halifax streets, the pioneers chose the family names of English noblemen. Haligonians should be thankful that for the name of their city the title was chosen instead. The name of the Earl of Halifax was George Dunk."

Royal Visitors

Nova Scotia’s first royal guest arrived in 1786. Prince William arrived aboard his frigate Pegasus. The raffish Prince Billy had a great time in the grog shops of Halifax, made some great friends and made it a point to return from his post in the West Indies each year for the next three years. He reportedly also made friends with many of the prostitutes of Barrack (now Brunswick) Street; not to mention the lovely Mrs. John Wentworth, wife of one of Halifax’s prominent citizens and soon-to-be Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia.

By the spring of 1794, the tide of war had once again come to Halifax and its harbour. Mad King George III’s soldier son, Prince Edward, future father of Queen Victoria, arrived aboard the frigate Blanche to take his place as Commander in Chief of His Majesty’s forces in Nova Scotia. Prince Edward began immediately to strengthen the defences of the harbour, including the fortifications at Citadel Hill, Point Pleasant, McNab’s Island and York Redoubt on the western entrance to the harbour.

American Civil War

In 1864, during the American Civil War, the Confederate cruiser "Tallahassee" made its daring and successful dash for freedom through the Eastern Passage, to the east of McNabb's Island in Halifax Harbour. The Tallahassee had slipped out of Wilmington, North Carolina, harried shipping into New York Harbor and sank 50 northern merchant vessels along the coast. She was chased into Halifax Harbour by the Union cruisers Huron and Nansemond. Under British neutrality laws, the Tallahassee had but 48 hours to take on coal and repair any damage before departing.

The lighted Union warships guarded the mouth of Halifax Harbour, waiting for the Tallahassee to attempt an escape. The Tallahassee's captain, John Taylor Wood, risked his darkened ship through the narrow, winding and shallow Eastern Passage under the guidance of a local pilot, Jock Fleming. British Admiral Sir James Hope must have been relieved to see his new friend Wood escape destruction by the two Union ships sitting easily within reach of his fleet and fortress guns.

After the Civil War's end in 1865, a number of Confederate officers, the "un-Reconstructed Rebels", settled in Halifax. Among them were John Taylor Wood and Commodore Josiah "Blood Is Thicker Than Water" Tatnall. John Taylor Wood, by the way, was the grandson of 12th U.S. President, Zachary Taylor, and a nephew of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy. Wood's son Charles graduated from Canada's Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, and was the first Canadian officer to fall in South Africa during the Boer War. Charles' own son, S.T. Wood, became one of the most notable commissioners of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

December 6, 1917 – The Halifax Explosion

With the coming of each war, the people of Halifax knew they would see both adversity and prosperity. During the First World War, Halifax’s prominent role as a naval port invited the attention of German submarines. That threat of attack was real, however, no one suspected for a moment the scale of the disaster that was coming. And it came not by the hand of the enemy.

Early in the morning of December 6, 1917, the French munitions ship Mont Blanc was travelling into the Harbour to join up with a convoy assembling in Bedford Basin. The Mont Blanc had been heavily loaded with munitions at New York, and had 35 tons of highly flammable liquid benzol held in thin steel drums strapped to its deck for good measure. As the Mont Blanc moved into the Narrows of the Harbour, she collided with the Belgian relief steamer Imo. A fire broke out aboard the Mont Blanc. Efforts by many to douse the flames were in vain, and, at 9:05 am there came the greatest man-made explosion prior to the detonation of the first atomic bomb. Indeed, Oppenheimer would one day study its effects.

Much of Halifax was wrecked in the Explosion. 2,000 people were killed in the blast, and almost 2,000 seriously injured, with over 12,000 total injuries. 6,000 were made homeless. A huge plume carried up into the air, creating a large mushroom cloud miles into the sky. The bottom of Halifax Harbour, one of the world’s deepest, cracked. A cannon from the Mont Blanc flew to the east into one of Dartmouth’s lakes and the Mont Blanc's anchor was carried 2.3 miles to the west, landing on the other side of the Northwest Arm. The blast was felt in Truro, Nova Scotia, some 60 miles to the north. This webmaster’s grandfather heard the blast from his home in Antigonish Harbour Center on Nova Scotia’s northeastern shore, over 125 miles away.

Most deaths occurred in the Richmond district of Halifax’s working class north end, which was flattened, and where many fires raged throughout the day. Many citizens, among them school children who had just finished their morning hymns, were caught gazing out the windows at the fire ship in the Harbour, only to have the blast blow the glass in on their faces without any chance of turning away. Thousands were blinded or otherwise bore the scars of the shattered glass projectiles throughout their lives. That night, the snow began to fall, making the rescue efforts and cleanup in the aftermath of the explosion all the more difficult.

In a wonderful act of humanity, Halifax’s New England neighbours immediately organized aid which was sent on trains from Boston to Halifax. Food, blankets, medical supplies and doctors all were sent. Each year, in appreciation for the timely and tremendous response from the people of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, the people of Halifax send the finest Christmas Tree that can be found to the people of Boston.

Hitler’s War

Thomas Raddall: "By the summer of 1940 Britain like a diver in deep waters was dependent for life upon a slender and fragile line stretching across the sea, and that line began at Halifax." The majority of the Allied ‘fast convoys’ assembled at and departed from Halifax. The Harbour's entrance was protected by the city's defences and by submarine nets stretched across the Harbour mouth. There was ample room for more than 100 ships to assemble in the large inner part of the Harbour, Bedford Basin.

"The most unsordid act in the history of any nation." This is how Winston Churchill referred to the United States of America’s agreement to trade naval vessels, arms and supplies in exchange for use of British naval bases, and for payment at a later date. With the lifeline of supplies from North America seriously threatened, the 50 famous old First World War destroyers arrived at Halifax in October of 1940. Two hours after the last American departed his destroyer and hopped aboard the waiting trains, British sailors took possession of the ships. Immediately, the anti-magnetic mine degaussing work was begun by the specially trained technicians of the Nova Scotia Light & Power Company.

Among the first ships to be degaussed at Halifax, with literally miles of wire slung in bound coils about the bulwarks, were the battleship Ramillies and the cruiser Emerald. The large liners were also degaussed. Each degaussed ship would receive a framed quotation from Homer: "This magic circle round thy bosom bind, Live on – and cast thy terrors to the wind." The dockyard was active in ship repair throughout the war; Halifax Harbour became known as ‘Cripple Creek’, as over 7,000 vessels received repairs here between 1939 and 1945.

Halifax became part-time home to the huge liners Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, and Aquitania, and such famous smaller liners as Empress of Britain, Empress of Australia, Monarch of Bermuda and Duchess of York, the Polish ships Pilsudski, Batory, and Chrobry, the French Pasteur, and the Dutch Nieuw Amsterdam. And, there were those heroic ships involved in the Bismarck chase – the battle cruiser Renown, the battleships Warspite, Malaya, Rodney, Ramillies, Revenge, Barham, Queen Elizabeth and King George V ("K.G. Five"). The aircraft carrier Furious was a visitor, as well.

Before the fall of France in the summer of 1940, units of the French fleet took part in North Atlantic escort work and frequently visited Halifax for fuel and supplies. The battleships Jeanne D’Arc and Dunkerque were familiar visitors. When France fell, the aircraft carrier Bearn lay at Halifax with brand-new American planes. Ordered to a friendly port, this caused great anxiety at Halifax, Bearn was eventually permitted to sail for Martinique where she lay at anchor for the remainder of the war. Memorable was the huge French submarine Surcouf, which was seized by the Royal Navy at an English port when France fell. Later, she was taken over by Free French forces and served in escort duty on the Atlantic, operating chiefly out of Halifax. A hostel maintained by a group of Halifax citizens for French personnel was named Maison Surcouf in her honour.

In his classic history of Halifax, "Warden of the North" (McLelland and Stewart, 1971, Toronto), the late Thomas Raddall discussed German u-boats harrassing the entrance to Halifax harbour.

A happier and much more welcome visitor was Winston Churchill, on his way back from the Washington Conference in 1943. He spent several hours moving about the city, strolled through the Public Gardens, and inspected the port from the top of Citadel Hill. The great man was in a jovial mood (Italy had surrendered a few days before) and when he was recognised and cheered by groups of townsmen and servicemen he stopped and shook hands with many of them, made his famous V sign, playfully pinched a little boy, and told Mayor Lloyd, "Now, sir, we know your city is something more than a shed on a wharf." He sailed from Halifax in a battleship on September 14.

A year later he was back again, this time with a large staff and accompanied by Mrs. Churchill, entering the harbour aboard the Queen Mary on September 10 en route to the Quebec Conference. Hundreds of servicemen and citizens recognized the Prime Minister and his inevitable cigar. They gathered at a respectful distance about the train; and again "Winnie" rose to the occasion, asking the guards to stand aside, making a little speech from the platform of his car, and finally leading the crowd in a sing-song - "When the Lights Go On Again", "Tipperary", "O Canada" and "God Save the King". Once before this a British Prime Minister had made a speech in Halifax (Stanley Baldwin, with his memorable reference to "this old British city on which the flag was never lowered") but Churchill's informal chat from the train, and his "something more than a shed on a wharf", pleased the Haligonians more.