It's portrait time.
I thought it would be fitting to paint Captain Smith,
the Captain of the Titanic.
100 years ago at this time,
the Titanic was on its way to New York from Southampton,
with more than 2000 passengers onboard.
We all know the rest of the story.
But not everyone knows what happened after the sinking of the ship.
It's those stories i find interesting.
The recovery of the frozen bodies
once the Titanic had sunk,
and how the CS Mackay-Bennett,
a Halifax based cable ship,
was called for the grisly task,
of bringing the bodies back to shore.
And how, in Halifax, Nova Scotia,
on Citadel Hill,
people stood watch
and when the Mackay Bennett,
carrying over 200 dead bodies,
came into sight in the Halifax Port,
the bell rang to signal its arrival,
and within minutes,
surrounding church bells
began ringing
until it became a chorus of sadness
in the Halifax skies.
The bodies were taken to the Mayflower Curling Club,
because it was the only space large enough
and cold enough
to preserve so many bodies
until identification was made
and families were contacted.
But the story that saddens me the most
is how the White Star Line didn't cover the expense
of having the bodies sent back to their families.
Families would need to pay
to have their loved ones sent back home.
Needless to say, most of them were too poor to do so.
So most of the bodies remained in Halifax,
and are buried there,
in the Fairview Cemetery.
Some identified, others not.
