A Halifax scuba diver has found something that could shed a little new light on one aspect of a dark chapter in Nova Scotian history.

Bob Chaulk has explored Halifax harbour from the Bedford Basin to Chebucto Head with hundreds of scuba dives over the last 30 years. But this spring, a routine dive in a small cove in the Narrows between Halifax's two bridges led him to a big find.

Amid the usual assortment of scuttling crabs, polished bottles and bits of plastic trash, he came upon a huge, heavy object in Tufts Cove.

"When I first saw the anchor, I thought, OK, there's a wreck here, some old derelict came in here. But there's no way a ship that size could have gotten in here," he said. 

He explored until his air just about ran out. He estimated the anchor was about two metres long and weighed 135 kilograms. A ship that needed an anchor that size could not have sailed into shallow, rocky Tufts Cove, he thought. 

So how did the old anchor get there?

He looked across the Narrows and found himself staring right at ground zero for the Halifax Explosion, which killed nearly 2,000 people. On Dec. 6, 1917, the vessel Imo and the Mont Blanc, a ship carrying explosive cargo, collided. The Mont Blanc caught fire and drifted into Pier 6, a space occupied today by the giant Halifax Shipyard building. The St. Bernard, a lumber schooner, was also at the dock.

"So now you have two ships side by side with a dock in between them. Here's the Mont Blanc, here's the Imo," Chaulk said, showing the ships' positions with his hands. "This one blows up, destroys this one, and I contend the anchor [of the St. Bernard] went through the air and landed right here."

The St. Bernard was blasted to pieces and never seen again. While the wood from the ship would have splintered and been destroyed, its heavy metal parts would have survived. If he's right, Chaulk has found a remnant of the schooner.