12/06/11 Exploring the Titanic History

It was a very emotional experience seeing the place where well over a hundred souls were laid to rest from HMS Titanic. Very sad stories.

Titanic Graves

A much sadder story today. We visited the Titanic graveyards in Nova Scotia…

Nova Scotia is wildly beautiful, diverse and haunted by a sad past. When we first spoke about the province we discovered its profound connection with the Titanic; and we knew we needed to find out more.

In case you didn’t know the exact location- the Titanic sank on her maiden voyage, just off the coast of Nova Scotia in 1912. It is also now the final resting place for many of the tragedy’s unclaimed victims. In fact three Halifax ships were tasked with recovering the bodies of many on the ship and bringing them back to the city’s cemeteries. Now rows of black gravestones lie in the three designated cemeteries, reminding everyone who visits of the past.

When the bodies were originally found they were separated mainly by faith, with Catholic victims in one, Jewish victims in the other, and separate Dominations in the third. With over 100 people to bury there was little time for anything apart from long monotonous digging on the days that followed the Titanic’s downfall.

We were lucky enough to get an expert on the history of Nova Scotia show us around the cemeteries, who filled us in on all the facts.

We found the cemeteries poignant, in that quite a few of the deceased did not have names, but just numbers to signify that they ever existed. Of course the task of finding out who every single victim was, would have been impossible back then. More wealthy victims had the chance to be brought back by boat to their family grave plots in other regions of Canada, America or the world, whilst some less wealthy travellers were brought back by land.

For the poor, and the crew members of the Titanic, however, there was not a chance to go home, and so they still lie in the graveyard to this day.

There are some stories of great courage that spring from the disaster, including the death of one of the crew members, a young man of twenty-four, who was trying to help families into the lifeboats when he died. He did his job until the end.

We found it interesting in the graveyard that most of the deceased were men, as women and children were rescued first, according to the traditions of the time. It’s hard to think of there being such a controlled system and polite system in disasters in these times.

One final story that really brought home the horror and gravity of the situation, was concerning a woman who went back to rescue her husband from the icy waters, once she had already escaped in a rescue boat. She took her four, young children with her. Sadly they all perished on the return journey.

Despite the sadness, Halifax was beautiful, and it felt great to pay our respects to these courageous people.

See you on the road….

http://youtu.be/EAdJwXZH_zs