Curse of the Narrows: The Halifax Explosion, 1917

Richard Wilbur is the author of The Rise of French New Brunswick and
H.H. Stevens, 1878–1973 and co-author of Silver Harvest. His latest
book is Horse-Drawn Carriages and Sleighs: Elegant Vehicles from New
England and New Brunswick.

There have been many scholarly and popular books written about the
Halifax explosion. The impressively researched Curse of the Narrows is
the most definitive account to date. In the course of her research, the
author, a Dartmouth native, accompanied a local resident and amateur
historian in a tour of the area obliterated and later rebuilt to hide
any evidence of the disaster. Other conversations with local residents
“reminded me many times that everyone I was writing about was not a
fictional character, but my former neighbours.”

In 1917, in an effort to establish the cause of this monumental
disaster—which killed 1,932 people and injured over 6,000—the
Supreme Court of Nova Scotia held an investigation commonly known as the
1917 Wreck Commission. It found both ship captains to blame, a view
later upheld by the Supreme Court of Canada. Despite these judgments,
both captains eventually resumed their careers, as did the Halifax pilot
who was also severely censured by the official inquiry. Much of
MacDonald’s book details the emergency relief response, the most
effective and extensive of which came from Massachusetts.

The author sums up the tragedy as follows: “If one thing goes wrong,
an accident can usually be averted. It is the misalignment of three or
four factors that causes accidents. Halifax had plenty to spare.”