Hundreds gather to watch Halifax send off its annual Tree for Boston

Hundreds of people gathered at Halifax’s Grand Parade on Friday to say bon voyage to a tree.

The 16-metre white spruce is Nova Scotia’s Tree for Boston – the province’s annual Christmas gift to the New England city as a thank-you for help after the 1917 Halifax Explosion.

It was sent off on a flatbed truck over the noon hour by Deputy Premier Karen Casey and Mayor Mike Savage.

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Also on hand outside Halifax City Hall were Kelly Craft, the new United States ambassador to Canada, and Boston parks and recreation commissioner Christopher Cook.

The 45-year-old tree had been cut down in a ceremony Wednesday in Blues Mills, about 38 kilometres from Baddeck in Cape Breton.

It will receive a Halifax police escort to the U.S. border, and will also stop in Augusta, Maine., en route to Boston.

“It’s been an honour and a privilege to return to Nova Scotia on behalf of the people of Boston for this wonderful tree departure celebration,” Cook said in a statement. “What began as tragedy a century ago has grown into a celebration of the human spirit and the lengths to which we will go to help one another in times of need.”

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Boston’s mayor will be joined by members of the RCMP on Nov. 30 for a tree-lighting ceremony on the Boston Commons, in which an estimated 20,000 people watch as 7,000 lights are turned on. It will be broadcast live on a local ABC affiliate.

Boston sent a trainload of volunteers and supplies to assist thousands of injured and homeless citizens in the city devastated by the Dec. 6, 1917, blast.

The explosion, the result of a collision between a relief vessel and a munitions ship in Halifax harbour, was the largest human-made blast on record before the first atomic bomb.