A Tree For Boston: How The Halifax Explosion Led To An Annual Christmas Tradition

Mel Woods
·Associate Editor, HuffPost Canada
·5 min read

Every Christmas, a piece of Nova Scotia stands proudly in Boston’s centre square.

Nova Scotians send a Christmas tree to the city every year, as thanks for the support of Bostonians following the 1917 Halifax Explosion. Boston was one of the first jurisdictions to send aid, with the governor dispatching a train full of supplies and medical personnel within hours.

As a thank you, Nova Scotia sent the city a Christmas tree. And every year since 1971, they’ve continued to do so.

Even amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the tree made its annual journey this year from the Nova Scotia wilderness to Boston Common. This year’s tree carries the special weight of honouring health-care workers, both during the explosion’s aftermath and the pandemic.

Nova Scotians say they will never forget the kindness of the people of Boston.

Here’s the heartfelt history behind this holiday tradition.

The Halifax Explosion of 1917

On Dec. 6, 1917, two ships collided in the Halifax harbour, creating the largest man-made explosion in history at the time. Nearly 2,000 people died in the Halifax Explosion and hundreds more were severely injured. Parts of the city were completely levelled.

When word reached Boston, just 645 kilometres across the Atlantic Ocean, the governor immediately dispatched a train full of supplies and medical personnel without even waiting for Halifax’s answer to his offer of assistance.

In a letter to the Halifax mayor, Massachusetts Governor Samuel McCall said Boston had the “strongest affection” for the people there.

“We are anxious to do everything possible for their assistance at this time,” he wrote.

Bostonians raised millions of dollars to support Halifax, sending more supplies and more health-care workers following the initial train. Many stayed in Halifax for months and even years following the disaster to continue providing relief.

As a gesture of thanks for all of the support, Nova Scotia sent its first Christmas tree to Boston in 1917.

In 1971, Nova Scotia resident Joseph Slauenwhite once again donated a large Christmas tree to Boston to mark the occasion and express thanks. That kicked off the new annual tradition, which has seen trees donated every year since then. Slauenwhite donated the first two trees in 1971 and 1972, and after that, the trees were donated from across the province.

In 2017, Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh, Halifax Mayor Michael Savage, and Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil unveiled a plaque near where the tree stands to mark the 100th anniversary of the explosion.

Selecting the tree for Boston

The province’s official Christmas Tree Specialist Ross H. Penz — and yes, that’s a real title — has the responsibility for selecting the tree each year from the province’s lands. According to the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources, it must be a healthy, attractive and easily accessed balsam fir, white spruce or red spruce, 12 to 16 metres tall.

The selected tree often comes from private land, but Nova Scotians who own the selected tree are usually happy to donate it.

This year’s tree was donated by Heather and Tony Sampson of Richmond County, N.S.

Heather is a health-care worker in a long-term care facility in St. Peters, N.S. that’s been hit by the pandemic.

“Everybody has been working so hard, doing double the work,” she said. “It’s been a hard year. It’s been a hard year for everybody.”

The tree’s journey

The tree is cut down in mid-November, and then begins its 1,200-kilometre journey to Boston. First step: the official tree-cutting ceremony.

After that, it’s loaded onto a truck bound for the Port of Halifax, followed by a cargo ship to Boston Harbour, and then another truck to its final destination.

This year’s tree arrived at Boston Common on Nov. 20, where it will stand throughout the holiday season.

While the tree is usually lit as part of a large ceremony involving representatives from Nova Scotia and the tree’s donors, because of the COVID-19 pandemic it will be a virtual affair this year.

The virtual lighting of the tree will be broadcast on Boston’s local TV station WCVB-TV, as well as the tree’s various social media channels, on Thursday Dec. 3 at 8 p.m. AST / 7 p.m. EST if you want to tune in for some cross-border Christmas cheer.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost Canada and has been updated.

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  • New grant program funds initiatives combating gender-based violence

    The Canadian Women’s Foundation has launched a new program, Safer + Stronger Grants, to provide financial support for organizations addressing and combating gender-based violence during the COVID-19 pandemic. “There’s a lot of research that shows that gender-based violence does increase in times of disaster and this is something that’s global and Canada of course is no exception to that rule,” said Andrea Gunraj, vice president of public engagement at Canadian Women’s Foundation. “We’ve been seeing that that increase in gender-based violence tends to be because folks might be more isolated, folks might have less access to services, maybe communities are struggling with the disaster response and therefore the response or the services available for gender-based violence are limited.” The Canadian Women’s Foundation launched the grant program back in December after receiving a $19.6 million investment from the Department of Women and Gender Equality (WAGE). The grant will provide organizations with funding for a number of activities and expenses such as crisis intervention, digital resources, staffing, operating cost and COVID-19 prevention. “It’s very open in terms of what organizations could say they need uniquely in their community and the whole idea is we want to make sure that organizations get what they need in this emergency period, to be able to meet those needs of their communities.” With the new grant Canadian Women’s Foundation said through that they will be particularly committed in advancing initiatives in rural, remote and Northern areas which can see increased risk with less available support. “Statistics Canada has found that women in rural areas really do experience the highest rates of violence of intimate partner abuse, and of course some groups within those rural areas experience higher rates as well,” said Gunraj. “We also see that there might be greater barriers for folks who are in rural and remote northern areas, which could be that the shelter is not available for them, if they want to find emergency shelter programs they may not be available in their areas, there may be issues with trying to get to the services because of the distance between and lack of affordable housing options, affordable transportation options,” explained Gunraj. “Resources may be scarce for them, there’s the isolation and the difficulty in leaving a violent situation is going to be more difficult in those areas.” During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic police calls for domestic disturbance increased through March and June. Women’s Shelter Canada reported that 52 percent of 266 shelters surveyed reported seeing clients experiencing more severe forms of violence. In a survey from Statistics Canada, released in April 2020, it showed that 1 in 10 women were very or extremely concerned about the possibility of violence in the home. Family Transition Place (FTP) a local organization that provides services for women and children back in July said at the peak of the first wave they initially saw a decrease in calls for help, but as restrictions lifted they saw numbers begin to rise again. With the second wave of COVID-19 and the subsequent lockdowns, Canadian Women’s Foundation says there is higher risk of intimate partner violence and that the emergency grant will help support stretched organizations. Deadlines to apply for the Safer + Stronger Grant are Feb. 1 and 15. For more information on the grant go to www.canadianwomen.org. Paula Brown, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Shelburne Free Press

  • Penville - A once thriving little town that faded into history

    You can pass through Penville and not real-ize the area was once a thriving village that was settled by early pioneers in the 1830s. The area has no real reminders of a village that would have had all the amenities needed to keep a small town viable at the time. It was located at what is now the 5th Line and 19th Sideroad of New Tecumseth. There are now several houses surrounding the site but almost all are of a relatively recent design. Penville was founded in the 1830s when the area was unpopulated and wild.With no real roads leading into the region, settlers would have had a tough life arriving, probably by ox cart, and building their fi rst home from the materials on the land. The Penfield, Ausman, and Dale families are recorded as being the first to arrive in the area and they began clearing the land for farming operations. They were all Scottish immigrants.Presumably, the Penfield family lent its name to create the village on a map. The village attracted more settlers to the area.So many arrived that a Town Hall was built in 1858 at a cost of $450.00 with the fi rst Reeve being recorded as Robert Cross. Black’s Methodist Church was built in 1850 and a cemetery established in 1858. There is no record of a tavern in the area, however almost every new town in Ontario had at least one local watering hole, and some had several, so most likely some enterprising entrepreneur set up some kind of hotel or tavern in the town. By 1871, the town had grown to a thriving village of 130 souls. By early Ontario standards, that was a sizable population for a pio-neer settlement. Most likely the town would have had a blacksmith, cabinet maker, and a saw mill, which were pretty much standard business in pioneer towns at the time. Like many small towns in Central Ontario, Penville reached its peak in the late 1800s. Over time, residents began to leave to search for more opportunities in other places. By the time the twentieth century arrived, the village was all but abandoned. The church was still standing as late as the mid 1950s, but by that time hadn’t had servic-es in decades and was being used as a granary. The church was demolished sometime in the 50s although the cemetery remains.There are 18 recorded interments in the cemetery, with the last person buried in 1933. After the demolition of the church, the remaining headstones were grouped together in a cairn in the middle of the property. It has been suggested that many of the graves in the cemetery were moved to other cemeteries in the area in the late part of the 19th century, however there is no offi cial record of that. Penville had a good start; however, like many small early settlements, it faded into history as residents moved on to fi nd their fortunes elsewhere. Brian Lockhart, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, New Tecumseth Times

  • Don't downplay mRNA: Experts say new technology could change the vaccine landscape

    When drug companies like Pfizer and Moderna learned to successfully incorporate messenger RNA technology into a COVID-19 vaccine, experts say they likely opened the door to a significant shift in the future of immunization.The milestone in vaccine development was met with enthusiasm from most, but the seemingly swift pace and novel approach is causing hesitancy in others. Experts say the new technique shouldn't dissuade people from getting the vaccine. While the mRNA method is new to inoculations, the actual technology has been around for decades. The difference now, they say, is scientists have ironed out the kinks to make a useful product."It sounds fancy, mRNA, but there's nothing outlandish about it," said Dr. Earl Brown, a virology and microbiology specialist with the University of Ottawa. "This is the way our cells operate — we live by mRNA."Vaccines from Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna were the first inoculations approved for humans to use mRNA, which provides our cells with instructions to make proteins. In the case of COVID vaccines, the injected material shows cells how to make a harmless piece of the coronavirus spike protein, which then teaches our immune system to recognize the virus and fight off a future infection.Scientists made the vaccine by programming genetic material from the spike protein into mRNA, a process that theoretically could work for other viruses."As long as you know how to create those instructions — that genetic code you need to convince your body to create that target — you can design an mRNA vaccine against any antigen," said Nicole Basta, an associate professor of epidemiology at McGill."But the question is whether it will be effective, and whether it will be safe."The development of future mRNA vaccines might be quick, Basta says, but they would need to go through the usual evaluation process and clinical trials to ensure safety and efficacy. So vaccines for other viruses won't be popping up overnight.Still, Basta adds, there's potential for using mRNA to either improve upon existing vaccines or to develop new ones against other pathogens.Dr. Scott Halperin, a professor at Dalhousie University and the director of the Canadian Centre for Vaccinology, sees mRNA vaccines as "evolutionary rather than revolutionary."Part of the reason COVID vaccines came together so quickly was the technology had been developing for years, Halperin said. The global pandemic offered scientists a pressing opportunity — and unprecedented funding and collaboration — to try again for a viable injection.Previous research had been done on creating mRNA vaccines against Zika and other viruses, Halperin added, and there were earlier efforts focused on cancer treatments. Coronavirus-specific research was further sped up by spike protein analysis from SARS and MERS.While the mRNA technology itself is impressive, Halperin says improvements need to be made to create a more temperature-stable product before these types of vaccines and treatments "truly take over.""The logistics of delivering mRNA vaccines right now, we wouldn't want to have to do that for every vaccine we produce," he said, referencing the ultra-cold storage temperature that's currently needed. "But I do think it's an important milestone."Scientists are expected to continue advancing the technology, just as they did recently in solving two confounding problems with mRNA — its fragility and instability.Brown says fragility was resolved by packaging the mRNA in a fat coating, giving it something to help bind onto cells so it wouldn't disintegrate upon injection. The instability was conquered by modifying the uracil component of RNA, one of the four units of its genetic code."The technology application is new, but the science is mature," Brown said. "We've just reached the point at which we can apply it." Traditional vaccines typically contain a killed or weakened virus, Brown said. Those methods are still being used in COVID vaccine development, including by AstraZeneca-Oxford, whose product has not yet been approved in Canada.A benefit to using mRNA is the speed at which a vaccine can be developed or updated once scientists know what to target, Brown says. While experts believe current vaccines will work against recent variants of the COVID virus — including one originating in the U.K. that's more transmissible — Brown says mRNA's adaptability could theoretically come in handy if new strains emerged that necessitated an update. "In six weeks they could produce something," he said. "It would still have to go through Phase 3 trials, but it does give you more flexibility and a big leg up."This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 21, 2021. Melissa Couto Zuber, The Canadian Press

  • Alexei Navalny: Russia orders social media network to restrict online calls for protest

    Russia has ordered TikTok and other social networks to restrict online calls for nationwide protests in support of detained Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny.View on euronews

  • Harm has been done: Birth alerts a stain left on First Nation women’s health files

    A regional chief from the Assembly of First Nations says the practice of birth alerts may result in court action. “I have not out-ruled bringing forward a class action for all birth alerts that have been put in place, for the atrocities and the separation between mothers and children unnecessarily in the past,” said Manitoba Regional Chief Kevin Hart. Hart was speaking at the AFN’S virtual gathering Jan. 19 to discuss An Act respecting First Nations, Inuit and Métis children, youth and families. That Act came into law Jan. 1, 2020. Section 14 of the Act ends the practise of birth alerts. It states, in part, “To the extent that providing a prenatal service that promotes preventive care is consistent with what will likely be in the best interests of an Indigenous child after he or she is born, the provision of that service is to be given priority over other services in order to prevent the apprehension of the child at the time of the child’s birth.” Birth alerts, according to the Manitoba Department of Children and Families, “are used as a mechanism to notify hospitals and other child and family services (CFS) agencies of the need for further assessment before a newborn is discharged to the care of a parent who has been assessed as ‘high risk’. Under this practice, a CFS agency issues the birth alert and Manitoba Families is responsible for the distribution of the alert.” Manitoba stopped issuing birth alerts as of July 1, 2020, six months after the federal Act came into force, announcing the practise would be “replaced with preventative and community-based supports for families.” For Ontario, the call came even later. The Ontario Ministry of Children and Women’s Issues made the announcement on July 14, 2020 that it would eliminate the birth alerts effective Oct. 15, 2020. “It has been reported the practice of birth alerts disproportionately affects racialized and marginalized mothers and families,” the Ontario government said in a news release. Ending the use of birth alerts was a recommendation from both the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which investigated the legacy of Indian residential schools, and the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. “The birth alerts, in my respectful view as a law professor and someone who has worked in this field for a long time as a lawyer, they have never been legal in terms of taking your private information and pasting it into an entire healthcare system,” said Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, who also spoke at the AFN virtual conference. She called birth alerts “one of the most traumatic, toxic, harmful experiences” a mother could have with her newborn baby ripped away from her. Turpel-Lafond pointed out that that experience with the healthcare system followed the mother, who often times was reluctant to seek health care and when she did she experienced discrimination because the birth alert was on her file. “I do see for … Indigenous women, even by the time they’re grandparents, their kids have (been) brought up, they still feel they cannot access needed health care and they are treated disrespectfully in the health care system. That is discrimination, the stain of discrimination,” she said. Turpel-Lafond said she is aware of some provinces and territories claiming they are phasing out birth alerts, but have not as of yet, which she called “unconscionable.” Indiginews reported on Jan. 15 that British Columbia, Alberta and the Yukon officially cancelled the practice of birth alerts in 2019, but Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Saskatchewan and Quebec continue the practice of birth alerts. Neither Hart nor Turpel-Lafond offered any suggestions for remedies should a class action go ahead. However, Turpel-Lafond said there has to be consequences “because harm has been done.” Windspeaker.com By Shari Narine, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Windspeaker.com, Windspeaker.com

  • Farmers urge feds to reconsider pre-departure COVID tests for migrant workers

    Farmers who employ migrant workers are urging the federal government to waive the negative COVID-19 test result required before the employees can fly to Canada, saying the cost of the tests in certain countries are proving to be a barrier for some. The Ontario Federation of Agriculture, which represents thousands of farmers across the province, said it has been working with Ottawa to find ways to accommodate migrant workers travelling to Canada for jobs in the agriculture sector. Keith Currie, director of the group and a farmer in Collingwood, Ont., said farmers have recently been discussing the pre-departure tests, which can cost hundreds of dollars in some countries and may also be hard to access. "(The travel requirements) put in place, we understand this is for the right reasons, for health reasons, but how can we alleviate some of these issues, are there different measures we can take," said Currie. The past year has seen a shortage of workers on farms because of the pandemic, Currie said, noting that employers are eager to help their workers get on the job. Employers of migrant workers have suggested to Ottawa that the workers simply be tested in Canada, where they have to complete a mandatory 14-day quarantine period upon landing, said Currie. "We're continuing to work with various government officials to see how we can alleviate this situation so that it's not too disruptive to the flow of the workforce that we desperately need to come into the country," he said. In addition to looking to the federal government for support, Currie said farmers are also considering shouldering the costs of the tests for their migrant workers. "Not having the labour to run your operation certainly is a lot worse than having to bear the extra costs of testing," he said. The pre-departure testing requirement kicked in earlier this month. All air travellers coming in to Canada must now get a negative COVID-19 PCR test result 72 hours prior to their scheduled departure. Those tests, however, can be expensive. In Mexico, they can cost up to $350, said migrant rights advocate Chris Ramsaroop. "We're indebting (migrant workers) further, prior to them even arriving in Canada," said Ramsaroop, president of Justice for Migrant Workers. He said employers and the Canadian government should be responsible for ensuring that migrant workers have access to testing, instead of the onus being on the individual worker. Anton, a migrant worker from Trinidad who asked that his full name not be used for fear of losing his job, said the extra cost of a COVID-19 test could be used to pay for his family's groceries back home instead. "You have to pay for your COVID test back home, which is unfair," said Anton, who has been working in southwestern Ontario for the last eight years. He plans to go home to Trinidad in a few weeks and then return to work in Ontario in the summer. "We come over here to make our living and make money for our family," he said. "The amount of money you have to come up with (for a test), if you don't have it, you cannot come." In an email statement, Employment and Social Development Canada said temporary foreign workers are subject to the same requirements as all travellers to Canada. It said it is working closely with other departments to ensure safe and timely entry of temporary foreign workers in order to maintain Canada’s food supply chain, and that the government is monitoring the situation. This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 21, 2021. This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship. Denise Paglinawan, The Canadian Press