Cape Breton's Magazine

with iron back and forth--and that's what we used. We took rear ends out of four trucks, and made four sets of wheels, dual wheels. I cut the rear ends out, and we made a pit, and we welded that edge beam to them and welded another one on top of that--inch and a quarter bolts. And we could move those wheels wherever we wanted, without the house on. If it was a small house, we just used one set on each side. If it was a big house, we used two sets. (Would people come to watch you do this?) No, I don't think. Just the people that came to help. (Was there a lot of interest in it?) No. I wouldn't say. The only thing I ever saw interest in was that time we took the house across the Mira River, It was on the watershed in at Sydney there, at the Mira Road watershed. And they had to take all the buildings out. This fellow bought it. And he came to see me about mov? ing it. So I went in to see the building, and I looked over to where he wanted to put it. At Mira Ferry, you know where the church is--there's lots of water there-- it's only narrow. And all we had to do was go to see the board of managers of the church and get permission to level off the approach coming off at the church there. Get permission from them, and put it back the way we found it. The fellow who owned the building wouldn't hear of that. He wanted it up at another place, "Well," I said, "if that's the case, we'll put her in the water for you, and you take her a- cross and take her out of the water," So, he agreed to that. We put her in the water. We pushed her out in the water. We had a 4- wheel drive, and she was on 4 wheels-- there were wheels on the front and wheels on the back. It was 37 feet long, and it was two storeys and a half high. (What made her float?) There were 100 emp? ty barrels under her. We put the barrels there first. We were after moving her a- bout 6 or 7 miles or more. We took her right to the edge of the water. Then we set up the trailer the way it would have to be to go across. Then we put this 100 barrels under her and we tied them--metal, oil drums. And then we pushed her out. (How did you know 100 would keep that house afloat? You're tapping your head. But how did you know?) Well, I figured the amount of air, the amount of things a bar? rel would hold up. And then, the building was wood--you know, that would hold up so much, I said it would go down to the bot? tom of the windows, but I missed out on that. It didn't. The water was a foot be? low the windows. (Were you seeking business?) It came to me. At the last of it, the last two or three years we were moving buildings, we could just pick out the easy ones, the ones we figured we'd make more money on. There were all kinds of them. We moved all our own camps back here in '50, We were just 10 years to the day away from here. And when the mines started down here in 1950, we moved a lot of buildings in, you know, not very big ones, for peo- NOVA SCOTIA DELIVERS. We have programs and services to assist established businesses as well as viable new enterprises. For complete information about these opportunities contact our regional offices • In Sydney LHC Building 295 Charlotte Street 539-4768 • In Port Hawkesbury Professional Building Church Street 625-3200 • In Antigonish Antigonish IVIunicipal Building 42 West Street 863-5707 Nova Scotia Department of Development Honourable R.J. Thornhill, MInisI 5151 George Street, Halifax Nova Scotia, Canada B3J 2R7 902/424'920 Telex: 019 22548 _ CampGill ' Lighthouse Cape Breton Shopping Plaza Sydney River, Nova Scotia We Have the Answer to AIT Your Lighting Needs! P.O. Box 1644 Sydport Industrial Park Sydney, Nova Scotia Canada BIP 6T7 Phone: (902) 564-5461 Telex: 019-35296 Contact: JOHN J. CAMPBELL Cape Breton Offshore Fabricators Limited Steel fabricating plant. - Automatic "MIG" welding machines - Photo-cell profile burner - Overhead cranes - A large variety of machine shop equipment We do all types of light and heavy duty fabrication. Looking forward to doing work for offshore related industries. (14)