Ceremony honours Mi'kmaw community lost in the Halifax Explosion

Every year on Dec. 6, filmmaker Catherine Martin holds a gathering on the Dartmouth shore of Halifax Harbour to honour her ancestors on land that was once the Mi'kmaw community of Kepe'kek, or the Narrows, also called Turtle Grove. 

Standing on land connected to her family history, Martin, a member of Millbrook First Nation, reflects on the Mi'kmaw lives lost during the Halifax Explosion.

On the morning of Dec. 6, 1917, a cargo ship carrying ammunition for war collided with another ship in the harbour, resulting in an explosion that claimed nearly 2,000 lives. 

Kepe'kek, a small Mi'kmaw community just under two kilometres from the epicentre of the blast, was devastated. 

"You can imagine this is like ground zero," said Martin.

An oral history transcript lists the deaths of 29 Mi'kmaq from Kepe'kek and surrounding villages. At the gathering Martin holds on the anniversary of the explosion their names are read in remembrance and water offerings, blueberry offerings, and tobacco ties are given in ceremony.

Martin has spent years combing through oral histories from her family and other descendants and has written a play about her family's experience inspired by records from her great-aunt Rachel Cope who survived the explosion. 

"They were making baskets on the shoreline in the summer and they were living in wigwams, in birchbark wigwams ... so the explosion just flattened it," said Martin.

"My great-grandma's wigwam was on fire with the kids in it."

Prior to the explosion, the community was a point of contention for settlers who considered it private property. The federal government planned to move the Mi'kmaq. 

"This is where our people lived, they lived here for thousands of years and on either side they were being forced to leave because they were unsightly," said Martin. 

She says she feels a calling to search for the remains of her family and community members and hopes to find them and honour them with proper burial markers and ceremony.

"It's feels like I'm being guided by those souls whose lives were cut so short, so fast, without knowing, and some of them had to suffer forever."

Reclaiming Kepe'kek

Lloyd Johnson, a retired economic development officer and former councillor with Millbrook First Nation, said about 25 years ago Millbrook began the efforts to have the land returned to the community.

Millbrook now owns about four hectares of land where the settlement used to stand, which has yet to be re-developed.

"Getting the land back took 100 years, you know," said Johnson. 

"We got nine acres back. It probably should have been 30."

Johnson says that one month before the ships collided, land near Albro Lake in Dartmouth was intended to be designated for the Mi'kmaq in Kepe'kek. After the explosion, Kepe'kek wasn't rebuilt and the Albro Lake deal never happened.

"City Hall wanted to get rid of the reserve and when the explosion happened, that was their opportunity," said Johnson.

"Not to be negative ... it was an eviction."