NOVA SCOTIA STRONG HAS LONG HISTORY

History will recognize Premier Stephen Mcneil and chief medical officer Dr. Robert Strang for their leadership that helped us embrace the four Cs of COVID: concern, caution, care and compliance.

Their tough calls and balanced approach are signature career moments that have kept our per capita COVID rate low — making us the envy of North America. We should gain strength from “our glass half full.”

Why then — apart from Allan Marble’s exceptional work — do Nova Scotia history books not recognize the 1918 Spanish flu, which claimed 2,200 lives when our population was twice as small as today’s? Beck’s History of Nova Scotia Politics, as well as Warden of the North, and Halifax — The First 250 Years do not mention the pandemic in text or index.

The answer is that in 1918, Halifax was overwhelmed with other preoccupations of the day, while lacking the benefits of modern science, electronic communication and transportation. Its medical capacity had already been stretched to its limits.

1918 Halifax was still in disarray 10 months after the largest man-made explosion in history that killed 1,782 people (two per cent of the city’s population) — largely women and children — while husbands were overseas defending them. About 9,000 more were injured; many had been blinded.

Emergency hospitals still cared for the most severely injured. Rural doctors were few, as many had gone to the war with the fervent backing of home communities. Support agencies were overextended, responding to the needs of newcomers who populated reconstruction workcamps and the thousands of soldiers returning from Europe — many carrying the virus to their homes in the west.

“Nova Scotia Strong” was as evident in 1918 as it is today — so, on Sunday, Dec. 6, as the Halifax Citadel gun booms at 9:04 a.m. to mark the Explosion, and ships’ sirens sound and church bells ring, we should give extra special thought and thanks for our rich heritage of strength and resilience.

Fred Honsberger, Halifax