Nova Scotia sent Boston a Christmas tree as a gesture of thanks in 1918 — a gift repeated in 1971 and every year since.
About 40 miles outside Halifax, Nova Scotia, on the Gourley family’s fifth-generation dairy farm, a tree stands so tall it still holds the lights that were strung some 20 Christmases past. The lights remain on the tree because it outgrew the family’s highest ladder long ago. Bette Gourley, the matriarch of the family, told CBS News‘ Nancy Chen that the white spruce has been growing alongside her family for nearly four decades now. But, as a Christmas tree-in-waiting, it’s still a few feet short of reaching the height it needs to be before it is sent more than 600 miles away to Boston, Massachusetts. „It’s been five or eight years since they said they might consider us,“ said Chester Gourley. „So it’s something we’ve been waiting for. And it’s a big honor.“ It is a tradition dozens of Nova Scotian families have performed before them. The spruce the province sends each year becomes Boston’s official Christmas tree. It’s a gesture of appreciation more than 100 years after Boston lent a hand following the Halifax explosion — a disaster that was the largest man-made explosion until Hiroshima. New Glasgow’s town crier James Stewart recounted the story: During World War I, Halifax ported ships that were getting ready to convoy across the Atlantic. On December 6,1917, the day of the explosion, the S.S. Mont Blanc was on its way to France when it collided with the S.S. Imo. The Mont Blanc was loaded with explosives.
