Halifax Explosion in popular culture

The Halifax Explosion has frequently been the subject of works of popular culture.

The canonical novel Barometer Rising (1941) by the Canadian writer Hugh MacLennan is set in Halifax at the time of the explosion and includes a carefully researched description of its impact on the city. Following in MacLennan's footsteps, journalist Robert MacNeil penned Burden of Desire (1992) and used the explosion as a metaphor for the social and cultural changes of the day. MacLennan and MacNeil exploit the romance genre to fictionalize the explosion, similar to the first attempt by Lieutenant-Colonel Frank McKelvey Bell, a medical officer who penned a short novella on the Halifax explosion shortly after the catastrophic event. His romance was A Romance of the Halifax Disaster (1918), a melodramatic piece that follows the love affair of a young woman and an injured soldier. There is also a young adult fictional story in the Dear Canada series, named No Safe Harbour, whose narrator tries to find the other members of her family after the blast.

The World War II-era spy movie, Yellow Canary (1943), also uses the Halifax Explosion as a plot device. In the movie, the character Sally Maitland assumes a public persona as a Nazi sympathizer but she is really an undercover spy for British intelligence. Insinuating herself into a Nazi spy ring in Halifax, she discovers a German plot to destroy the port, inspired by the actual events of 1917.

More recently, the novel Black Snow (2009) by Halifax journalist Jon Tattrie followed an explosion victim's search for his wife in the ruined city,[1] and A Wedding in December (2005) by Anita Shreve has a story-within-the-story set in Halifax at the time of the explosion. The explosion is also referred to in some detail in John Irving's novel Until I Find You (2005) as well as Ami McKay's The Birth House (2006) in which protagonist Dora Rare travels to Halifax to offer her midwifery skills to mothers who go into labour after the explosion. In 2011, Halifax writer Jennie Marsland published her historical romance Shattered, which is set before the explosion and in its aftermath. An award-winning play entitled "Shatter"[2] by Trina Davies is set in the explosion and explores the racial profiling of German-speaking citizens after the event.

Keith Ross Leckie scripted a miniseries entitled Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion (2003), which took the title but has no relationship to Janet Kitz's acclaimed non-fiction book Shattered City: The Halifax Explosion and the Road to Recovery (1989). The miniseries follows soldier Charlie Collins through a romantic affair and his recovery from posttraumatic stress disorder. The movie exploited computer technology in order to achieve impressive special effects on a budget. However, the film was panned by critics and criticized by historians for distortions and inaccuracies. Aspects criticized were the representation of German spies in the city and countless other distortions of historical fact. Jim Lotz's The Sixth of December (1981) also toys with the fictional idea that Halifax was home to a network of enemy spies during the war.

The Heritage Minute episode on the Halifax Explosion tied for the most popular in a 2012 Ipsos Reid poll.[3] The event was also featured in an episode of Ghostly Encounters.

The Longest Johns' (sea shanty band) has a song titled "Fire & Flame" (on their album "Cures What Ails Ya", published in 2020) that talks about the event.

References
  1. "Jon Tattrie". Pottersfield Press. Archived from the original on 2011-07-15. Retrieved 2009-12-06.
  2. Davies, Trina, Shatter, Playwrights Canada Press
  3. "New heritage minutes boosted by old favorites" (PDF). Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 2012-06-10. Retrieved 2013-10-07.
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