THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 6, 1996 TAG: 9610040255
SECTION: CHESAPEAKE CLIPPER PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: RANDOM RAMBLES
SOURCE: Tony Stein
LENGTH: 78 lines
I'm back from a bus tour of Nova Scotia, where the scenery is magnificent but you can't throw a made-in-Korea souvenir ashtray without hitting a tourist-oriented gift shop.
On the serious side, I got lessons in history and civics from our Canadian cousins. They're worth passing on, history first.
If I say ``Titanic, 1912,'' 95 percent of you will click in with ``Hit an iceberg and sank. Lots of people drowned.'' (The official count was 1,502.) If I say ``Halifax, 1917,'' 95 percent of you will click in with ``Huh?'' Yet on Dec. 6, 1917, a munitions ship in the harbor of Halifax, Nova Scotia, blew up and created the largest man-made explosion in history until the atom bomb. The official toll was 1,200 killed and 8,000 injured, but some sources say more like 2,000 were killed.
We heard about the explosion from a tour guide named Mark. He told us how, on Dec. 6, 1917, a munitions ship named the Mont Blanc arrived at Halifax. It was loaded from keel to deck with TNT and other war materials. Its eventual destination was the European front. Somehow, someone on the Mont Blanc forgot to raise the red flag that marked a dangerous cargo.
So when the ship collided with another vessel and caught fire, only the crew of the Mont Blanc realized that the clock was ticking toward disaster. A Halifax fire brigade rushed to the harbor. A British warship sent a fire-control party. People gathered on the shore to watch the sudden show. At a few minutes after 9 a.m., time ran out. The Mont Blanc exploded.
The air blast it caused was somewhere around 2,100 miles an hour. People on the ship and on the shore were vaporized. Every firefighter in Halifax was killed. Every fire engine was destroyed. Of the 550 schoolchildren in the area, seven survived. A tidal wave caused by the explosion tossed ships like toys. A half-ton anchor was blown two miles away and the blast was felt up to 125 miles away. Of the 8,000 injuries, hundreds suffered eye lacerations from a blizzard of broken glass hurled in vicious slivers.
But if Halifax has its own grim tale to tell, it is also part of the Titanic story. Our guide took us to one of the cemeteries in Halifax where victims of the Titanic sinking are buried. Many of them were never identified. Their tombstones list only the order in which their bodies were recovered, Like ``No. 121, died April 15, 1912.''
There is a touching story about one of the stones. It marks the grave of a baby who was not identified when he was buried. But the crew of one of the rescue ships donated the money for a proper headstone after his name became known.
That was the history lesson. Our guide talked, too, about the differences between Americans and Canadians. His perception was that Canadians are more willing to consider the good of the community as opposed to emphasizing individual rights. Canadians, he said, believe in peace, order and good government.
As evidence, he noted that the 1995 murder count for the province of Nova Scotia, population about 900,000, was 11. That would be a quiet month in Tidewater. Could strict Canadian gun-control laws have something to do with it? And, hey, I know about the Second Amendment, but I'm darned if I think it means everybody's entitled to a private arsenal. Worthwhile freedom has sensible limits. I've made a living off the freedom of speech guarantee in the First Amendment, but if I libel somebody, they can haul me to court.
We were in downtown Halifax at 11 at night and people were casually strolling in an atmosphere of dependable safety. Our guide suggested that it might be a legacy of the way Canada was settled. Policemen went first to new territory and established the law. Settlers followed. Our pioneers eventually got around to pinning a badge on a sheriff, but it was in no way a first priority.
On a lesser level of law-abiding, I'll say this: In hundreds of miles of traveling through Nova Scotia, I saw less roadside trash than I see on any off-ramp of Interstate 64. My civic lessons from this guide and another one included their view that the Canadian system of socialized medicine, taken as a whole, works just great. They said that what they got in medical care and pension benefits was a very fair trade-off for whatever burden was posed by a 17 percent sales tax.
That may or may not be true, but I do think there are lessons in civility and citizenship it wouldn't hurt for us to consider.
So that was Canada and I will have to agree with the old saying that travel is broadening. After 12 days of big meals and no exercise, I have had to consider letting out the seat of my recliner. by CNB