Cape Breton's Magazine

Icebreakers around Cape Breton Capt. Claude Green, aboard the Labrador: My name is Claude Green. I was born in Bur- geo, Newfoundland. Came to Halifax in 1945, in the summer of '45, and I've been in the Halifax-Dartmouth area ever since. I started out with Irving Oil, and then I went with Department of National Defence. I worked with them for 13 years, and then I moved over to Coast Guard in 1966. (At Coast Guard icebreakers, right along?) Well, yes, because we have various types. We have the small icebreakers, which is the Sir William Alexander. And then I came to the large ones. I took command of the Labrador here in 1980. .The Labrador is just exactly that--an ice? breaker. That's all she does. She's a nor? thern and Gulf icebreaker. The Sir William is a buoy and supply vessel, plus a light icebreaker. So she does a lot of harbour breakouts, and she does a lot of ship es? corting in the Gulf. She's very versatile. (Would the Sir William have served in search-and-rescue?) Very much so, yes. You remember the Kurdistan? Okay. I was on the Sir William right here where we're tied up now (Government Wharf, Sydney) on the night that that happened. We followed that right through, just about. (The Kurdistan) was a 30,000-ton oil tank? er that broke up out here just off Sydney (in 1979). The Gulf refinery was still op? erational in Port Hawkesbury at that time. We were working out of Sydney here. And we had gone out to help a vessel called the Merillia. She had come in and hit the ice edge, and she'd put a 17-foot gash in her (26)