The Big Four-Oh. Nova Scotia's Boston Tree Shipping Up to Boston in 40th Year of Christmas Tradition

Truck driver Don MacLean posing w/the Boston Tree before it embarks on the ferry at Digby, NS on November 17th. MacLean works for Nova Scotia's Department of Transportation and has driven the Boston Tree each year since 1998. Jonathan Riley/Digby County Courier photo

A 44 foot spruce from the property of Ken and Donna Spinney of Argyle, NS has the honor of being Nova Scotia's annual Christmas tree to the city of Boston this year.


The tree was felled in a ceremony with schoolchildren and local officials present on the morning of November 15. The tradition goes back to the horrific 1917 explosion of a French munitions ship in Halifax Harbor that killed at least 2,000 people. A railway dispatcher named Vince Coleman was able to get word to the outside world of the impending catastrophe and stopping incoming trains short of the blast radius before he was killed in the massive explosion.

When word reached Boston, the Boston chapter of the Red Cross immediately began gathering doctors, nurses, shelters and medicine to put on board a special train from Boston to Halifax to relieve the doctors and rescue workers who had been toiling non-stop since the blast.

As a gesture of their appreciation, the province of Nova Scotia sent the city of Boston a giant Christmas tree the following year. While that apparently seemed like a one-time deal, the Lunenburg County Christmas Tree Producers Association decided to revive the tradition in 1971 as a means of promoting their product, and the city of Boston was more than happy to receive a tall tree for Boston Common.

Evan Richman/ Boston Globe Photo

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Boston Christmas tree revival. This year's tree travelled by ferry from Digby, NS across the Bay of Funday to New Brunswick and continued via highway from there.

This year's lighting ceremony is scheduled for Thursday, December 1st.

HAITI UPDATE: Aftershocks Rattle Port Au Prince; USNS Comfort Arrives; Chunky Venezuelan Conspiracy Theorist Rambles on; Cruise Ships Not Welcome?

(File photo; US Navy)

The US Navy Mercy class Hospital ship USNS Comfort arrived near Port Au Prince last Wednesday and took on it's first patients. The first two were flown in by helicopter from the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson and included a 6 year old boy and a 20 year old man. The 894-foot vessel can accommodate 1000 hospital beds and has a compliment of over 900 medical personnel.

ELSEWHERE: Aftershocks as strong as 5.9 on the Richter scale jolted Port Au Prince on Wednesday, sending survivors out into the street fearing a repeat of the devastating quake that struck 8 days prior. Reuters is reporting that looting and sporadic violence has subsided with the arrival of American Marines and soldiers to provide security and oversee distribution of aid. Both the Haitian government and United Nations peacekeepers suffered casualties in the initial earthquake.

*Actor George Clooney and singer Wyclef Jean organized a live telethon simulcast from Los Angeles, New York and Haiti that managed to raise $57 million in relief efforts towards Haiti.

*French and Greek rescuers pulled out a man from the ruins of a collapsed grocery store in Port Au Prince some 11 days after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake levelled the Haitian capital. Rescuers discovered 24 year old Wismond Exantus under the rubble the same day the Haitian government ordered search and rescue teams to call off their search.

*Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines [NYSE: RCL] has come under fire for their decision to dock at a resort in northern Haiti shortly after the quake. The company defended the docking of Navigator of the Seas at Labadee, which was largely unaffected by the quake, saying that the company employs hundreds of Hatians and the devestated island nation's economy could use the infusion of capital that tourism provides. The company also said it was forwarding rice, fresh water and beans to the disaster stricken island nation. Two other vessels from the Royal Caribbean Lines, including the worlds largest ocean liner- Oasis of the Seas, are scheduled to dock in Labadee later on this month.

And finally, might I suggest tHugo Chavez help himself to a nice big, steaming cup of shut the fuck up? Particularly when Los Angeles County is sending more aid to Haiti then the oil-rich tropical paradise that he seems intent on pile-driving into the ground called Venezuela. This time, the Venezuelan dictator is claiming the devastation wrought in Haiti was a byproduct of a sooper-seekrit 'tectonic weapon' deployed by the US Navy and that it was used on the island nation of Haiti so we could help ourselves to the country's vast oil reserves? Wait....scratch that. It was clearly so the gringo yanqui imperialists could help themselves to Haiti's nearly limitless mineral wealth, with all those gold, platinum, copper and palladium mines- wait, that's not it either. I got it! It's all those skilled baseball players.....oh no- that's the other half of the island.

This kind of begs the question.....if the US military had such a weapon at their disposal, why not use it against Caracas, since....by using their logic, they already know too much and have all those precious energy and mineral deposits that a rapacious imperialistic war machine just can't get enough of. If such technology exists, I beseech the United States Military to deploy it only when Danny Glover and tHugo Chavez are meeting together.

And yes, I'm well aware of what Pat Robertson said shortly after the quake...and frankly, I thought the comments themselves were sanctimonious, self-righteous crap, but would also serve as a convenient and intellectually lazy way for people who disdain religon in general to harp on Christians as being intolerant and self-righteous. Patricularly disengenuous when you consider how many Christian charities and aid groups were active in Haiti before the earthquake. I mean...seriously- what kind of piece of crap would go out of their way to defend Danny Glover's statements?

The Haiti Earthquake and Surprisingly Simple Things you Can Do To Help

I planned on putting in a plug for goodsearch in at some point, but the situation in Haiti has made it rather timely.

If you head on over to the Goodsearch homepage, you'll see a grey bar towards the bottom of the page marked 'Who do you goodsearch for?'. You can type in a phrase in the bottom search area and it will come up with a list of charities, shelters, museums, aid groups, schools and charities with that phrase that will show up in a drop bar.

For a timely example, if you type in the phrase 'Haiti' into the 'Who do you goodsearch for?' function, more than 50 organizations that were active in Haiti before the earthquake- including Wyclef Jean's Yele Haiti- will show up on the drop bar. Simply select an organization- let's say Haiti Lumiere from the drop bar and begin searching via goodsearch. Goodsearch will then donate $.01 per search you use through them. Now, sometimes this blogger is intentionally vague in his search terms, which means that goodsearch will automatically suggest other, more specific phrases to search with.....which means you bump up the total raised while searching.

Also, people enrolled in American Airlines AAdvantage programs can earn bonus frequent-flyer miles when donating to the Red Cross' Haiti relief through a link on the airline's website.

Magnitude 7.0 Earthquake Levels Capital of Country That Wasn't In Great Shape To Begin With

Port-au-Prince, Haiti was rocked by a magnitude 7.0 earthquake that was followed by magnitude 5.9 and 5.5 aftershocks yesterday afternoon. Casualties are feared to be in the thousands, according to most relief agencies in the impoverished nation.

Already the FBI is warning about opportunistic scams masquerading as charities to play on the public's concern over the scope of the disaster.

Concerned readers can find out more about donating through relief organizations like the Red Cross or Catholic Relief Services.

The Great War, A Terrible Pillar of Fire, The Narrows, Cities in Ruins, A Blizzard and A White Spruce- The Story Behind Boston's Christmas Tree

(Boston Globe- file photo)

The story of the Christmas tree that shows up annually on Boston Common begins nearly 92 years ago and several hundred miles northeast of the city with a collision between two vessels in Halifax Harbor on a wintry December 6, 1917. In a last-second attempt at evasive maneuvers, both the Norweigan freighter SS Imo and the loaded French munitions ship SS Mont Blanc- its cargo destined for the front lines of France in WWI- ended up colliding with each other at approximately 8:45AM that morning after the Imo had cleared the mouth of Halifax Harbor (known locally as the Narrows). The collision sparked a small fire on the Mont Blanc that quickly spread out of control. Within 10 minutes, the Mont Blanc's captain gave the order to abandon ship. The French-speaking crew landed safely on the Dartmouth side of the harbor in a pair of rowboats, but the crew's frantic warnings shouted in French weren't understood by the inhabitants of the English-speaking city. As other ships came to the aid of the burning Mont Blanc, a crowd of onlookers gathered along the shores of the harbor.

At 9:04 AM, a blast equivalent to 3 kilotons of TNT instantly destroyed the Mont Blanc in a fireball that rose well over a mile into the sky. A tsunami estimated to be 60ft high was also generated by the massive explosion, and those that weren't killed by the blast, debris or hot shards of metal raining down on the city were swept out to sea or crushed by vessels and heavy debris being swept onto the shore. The blast could be heard from as far away as Prince Edward Island.

The death toll from the Halifax explosion was estimated to be at 2,000. News spread to the rest of Canada and the world due to a message sent by Intercolonial Railway of Canada dispatcher Vince Coleman. Coleman initially fled when naval officers came ashore and warned railway personnel of the impending danger, but returned to the station's telegraph office- located only a few hundred feet from the Mont Blanc- to send out a message in Morse Code:

Stop trains. Munition ship on fire. Making for Pier 6. Goodbye.

The railways heeded Coleman's warning and all inbound trains for Halifax and Dartmouth were stopped. Coleman was killed in the blast, but credited with saving scores of lives for raising the alarm.

Unfortunately, Hailfax's suffering did not end with the Mont Blanc raining hot shrapnel and black soot on the area. Since it was Nova Scotia in the wintertime, that meant several homes and businesses had furnaces, stoves or lamps that tipped over or spilled from the force of the blast, starting small structure fires that would quickly grow out of control since most of the firefighters in Halifax were killed in the blast.

Mother Nature also had something in store for the Halifax/Dartmouth area as well. Hardly even a day after the Mont Blanc explosion, as thousands of injured, maimed and homeless survivors of the blast were awaiting shelter and medical care, a blizzard moved into the area and dumped sixteen inches of snow on the area. Although this prevented the smaller, ancillary fires from spreading through what was left of Halifax, this also hampered search efforts and some survivors died from exposure.

'Now where does Boston and Christmas trees fit into all of this?' you might be asking yourself if you've read this far. I know...hang on.

Upon receiving news of the calamity and massive loss of life in Halifax, the Boston chapter of the Red Cross began mustering doctors, nurses, volunteers, makeshift shelters and supplies in Boston. A special train with the supplies and personnel left Boston at 10PM on the day of the blast and made it's way through the blizzard and onto the Canadian Maritime provinces, arriving in the early morning hours of December 8th to provide relief to the aid workers and medical staff already on site, most of whom had been working non-stop since the day of the blast. Much needed food, medicine and water was immediately offloaded from the train.

One of the legacies of the blast was Boston surgeon William Ladd noting the lack of coordinated pediatric care in the region. Ladd would later be considered the pioneer of pediatric surgery in North America thanks to some of the insights gained while serving in Halifax.

Another legacy was that in December 1918, the city of Halifax sent Boston a Christmas Tree as a token of their appreciation for Beantown's quick response in providing aid to Halifax. Curiously, this did not become an annual tradition until 1971 as a promotion by the Lunenburg County Christmas Tree Producers Association. The province of Nova Scotia has set up a criteria for suitable trees to be shipped off to Boston that can be seen here.

(Boston Christmas Tree on the hoof, Clementsvale NS- Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources photo)

This year's official Christmas tree for Boston- a 46ft tall white spruce- was lit in Boston Common on December 3rd. The tree was a gift from the property of Folyd and Elaine Shatford of Fox Point, NS and was removed on November 17th. If you're interested in learning more about the 1917 Halifax explosion, you can read a more detailed account in Laura M. Mac Donald's Curse of the Narrows.

(Shippin' Up to Boston- ChesterNS.ca)