Another nice U.S. Canada response to world history - When the U.S. was fighting Gt. Britain for the second time -War of 1812 U.S. calls it, don't know if the English even remember it, the U.S. was having more luck than most with a certain wooden ship called The Constitution. The English weren't used to losing naval engagements, but the colonials had started a habit which lasts to this day, of spending a lot of money on military technology. The Constitution class of ships were heavily built, packed slightly less cannon power than a regular Man O'War, and were slightly faster. Well, we Yanks don't like to remember it much but a certain English captain liked to lay offshore of Boston and by his back-and-forth sailing actions outside the mouth of the Charles challenged the Constitution's sister ship, whose name I can't recall, it might be the Constellation. When that ship finally issued forth, The Englishman demolished it in 15 minutes and towed it off to Halifax.
Halifax and Boston were rival shipping points, and during our little spats with the Brits, each was port for Privateers, which were basically pirates (or in modern biz speak 'entrepreneurs') who were licensed by their side to prey off the other guys' shipping. So Yanks were attacking the English and dragging 'em back to Boston, and Brits were attacking the Americans and towing 'em into Halifax. With classic anglo understatement, the great Canadian raconteur/ poet/ songster Stan Rogers wrote Barrett's Privateers, where he has his side lose to the Americans! In history I don't think the Canadian / British side lost that much at sea.
Halifax has a lovely stone fortress which was not built to defend them from the French!
Anyhow, flash foreword to December 1917. A French munitions ship catches fire in Halifax Harbour (Yeah, I'll even spell it wrong when I'm covering a brit topic). It explodes and kills over 2,000 people and makes thousands more homeless.
Most of the aid came from Boston, Massachusetts and is commemorated to this day in the Halifax Maritime Museum.
To me it's a great lesson in rivalry that does not withstand compassion. I don't know if I'm putting this down right, but we couldn't have a better northern neighbor, excuse me, -bour. I don't know how they put up with us, except that here in Alaska, we have to put up with them when we try to drive south with twelve guns in the boot.