Dec 6, 1917, started like any other day in Halifax. But everything halted shortly before nine o’clock that morning, when two ships collided in Halifax Harbour. One of the boats was loaded with munitions for the soldiers fighting in Europe; the other was getting ready to collect medical items for the war’s victims.

The resulting devastation was the largest man-made explosion until the detonation of the atomic bomb in 1945. The blast flattened huge regions of Halifax and the town across the harbor, Dartmouth. It wiped out almost two thousand people. As though that wasn’t damaging plenty of, a blizzard strike the very next day, dumping greater than a feet of snow on the area and

slowing much-needed relief efforts.

This harrowing story of tragedy and recovery reveals the extraordinary strength and determination of a community in one of its darkest hours.