Halifax Explosion victims honoured in Braille scroll

Laurie Swim, an award-winning textileartist originally from Lockeport, N.S., is in the process of making a 12-meterBraille scroll to honour the victims of the Halifax Explosion.

"There were a lot of eye injuries and some people lost an eye or were blinded completely. I wanted to represent that as apiece," said Swim, who is aiming to have the project complete by 2017 the 100-year anniversary of the blast.

The explosion killed about 2,000 peopleso there many names to bead.

Swim enlistedvolunteers including the author of this article whosegreat uncle diedin the explosion to help stitch the tinyblack beads into each sheet containing the names and ages of the victims.

She says to her surprise, volunteers kept returning sheets and asking for more. The results, she says, are stunning.

"They work very beautifully because they're sparkly and they have some reference to the oil that came down over people after the blast." said Swim.

Coloured cloth to represent survivors scars

In addition to the scroll, Swim has also dyed cloth black and bluethat shows what Halifax looked like after the explosion.She used powdered pigments and snow to get the look.

Swim says the blue represents the colour of the survivors' scars. She says the snow represents the storm that followed the explosion andcomplicated relief efforts.

The HalifaxExplosion occurred on Dec. 6, 1917 whenthe French cargo shipMont-Blanc, fully loaded with explosives, collided with the Norwegian vessel Imo in The Narrows, a straitbetween Halifax and Dartmouth.

A fire on boardMont-Blancignited the explosives in the ship'shold, causing the largest man-made explosion the world hadever seen.

The blast was felt hundreds of kilometres away. Itlevelledmuchof the city and sent shards of glass and burning debris flying for kilometres.

About 1,500 people died immediately and the explosion wounded about 9,000 others.

Swim says she was inspired to do the memorial projectafter reading the 1989 bookShattered City: The Halifax Explosion and the Road to Recoveryby Halifax-based authorJanetKitz.