Boston Mayor Michelle Wu is visiting Nova Scotia this week to highlight a continuing partnership with the Canadian province that began after an explosion that took place there in 1917 in Halifax Harbor, killing roughly 2,000 people.
Nova Scotia provides the city with its Boston Common Christmas tree each year as a thank-you for sending medical aid and relief supplies following the explosion. Wu will become the first Boston mayor to attend and participate in the Boston tree-cutting ceremony in the Canadian province, the mayor’s office said.
Wu, fresh off her reelection last week, will visit Nova Scotia from Sunday to Wednesday with her family. The mayor will return to Boston on Wednesday.
Her trip will include a visit to the Port Innovation, Engagement and Research with leadership from the Halifax Port Authority, a tour of the Health Innovation Hub, and a meeting and exchanging of gifts with Halifax Mayor Andy Filmore.
“For well over a century, Boston and Nova Scotia have shared a special bond of neighborly care and friendship,” Wu said in a statement. “I’m honored this year to visit our neighbors to the north for the first time and deliver a personal thank you on behalf of the people of Boston for continuing this partnership and connection that transcends boundaries and generations.”
The city’s official 2025 Christmas tree — a 45-foot-tall white spruce from Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia — will arrive at Boston Common by flatbed truck at 11 a.m. Tuesday.
Frank Baker’s City Council bid on ice, but may not be dead
U.S. Rep. Ayanna Pressley’s potential challenge for Ed Markey’s Senate seat could provide a pathway for former Councilor Frank Baker to return to the Boston City Council, a possibility that was created by his fifth-place finish in the election.
City Council President Ruthzee Louijeune topped the ticket for a second straight election last week, leading to further political chatter about whether she plans to make a run for Congress, should Pressley’s House seat open up with a Senate bid.
Louijeune, like Pressley, is a popular progressive Democrat, and gave a lengthy speech on election night — at a party she co-hosted with Mayor Michelle Wu in the Seaport — that more closely resembled a campaign pitch than celebratory remarks.
The mid-term election is next November. Louijeune, an at-large councilor, did not respond to a Herald inquiry on the matter.
As for Baker, the city charter dictates that whenever there’s a councilor-at-large vacancy, the fifth-place finisher would be elevated to the Council, if that defeated candidate is “eligible and willing to serve.”
Wu worked for months to get Councilor-at-Large Henry Santana, her ally and former employee, reelected to the City Council, and therefore block a comeback bid from Baker, a conservative Wu critic supported by former Mayor Marty Walsh.
The mayor was unsuccessful, however, in keeping Baker from finishing lower in the race, which would have prevented that immediate pathway to the Council for him, should any of the four at-large councilors choose to leave mid-term.
Along with Louijeune and Santana, Wu supported Alexandra Valdez, a City Hall employee who finished sixth in last week’s election.
The Boston Common Christmas Tree for 2023. (Matt Stone/Boston Herald)
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