Cape Breton's Magazine

Port Hawkesbury side--and that's where the pulp mill went. And the pulp mill saved this place. There's no question about that. There's absolutely no question about that. This place was absolutely dependent on the ferries. Absolutely. When the lights went out at Point Tupper (and the trains and cars crossed for the first time on the causeway at Port Hast? ings) --this was a ghost town. For the first year we didn't know where we'd get money to pay our schoolteachers, that's how bad it was here. People were moving as fast as they could, get a job. A lot of them went up (to work) on the ferry at Yarmouth. Land? You could have bought the whole damned town, I suppose, for a couple of thousand dollars. The causeway opened and Port Hailrkesbury was finished and Mulgrave was finished, and we didn't know what would happen. The only thing for emplo3rment was the Marine Railway. I"said the place would be a ghost town and it was--for a short time. And it was just luck, I would say, because other people were looking for that mill. Mulgrave and Pictou were looking for it. The pulp mill did it. Then the Gulf Oil next.... And with the jobs a lot of young people were coming back. See also Leonard O'Neil's "The Pulp Mill Comes to the Strait" in Issue 25 of Cape Breton's Magazine. Wishie Rose, Baddeck I had fishing vessels before that--I was skipper of fishing vessels--but I was scared I would lose men. And I didn't like to do that. I wasn't in a dory then. I was skipper of the schooner, part of two years. But I didn't like it, I didn't like it. We got a few fish all right. But I didn't like to fish the weather that I could see some of them were fishing--bad weather--and losing men, too. I didn't like to do that. 'Twasn't always the skip? per's fault, too, when you sink a dory. But he got the blame for it anyway. (I thought a dory wouldn't sink.) Well, they might as well sink. They'll float, but you can't hang onto her--a.breeze of wind, when it's rough, you'll wash off of them-- and you might as well be gone. I know one man in Grand Bank--damn good skipper, too; he got a lot of fish--he lost just a schooner's crew, during his years a skipper--that many men. But it wasn't always his fault. When a man goes out on gear and sinks his dory, he has greed. That's fish? ing high and low. If you get more fish you get more [ money. But in Lunenburg-- it's every share. One gets just as much as the other. That's the proper way to fish. And make everybody fish, you know. But the Newfoundland schooners--they fished on what you call "count." I've been down there ' J* KEEP V • ./??* * YOUR V . DREAMS ALIVE North Sydney Mall ~ With Over 26 Shops and Services ~ Chantelle's Starcade Peoples Store Schwartz Direct Film Guys & Gals Pipes & Things Jean Gallery Carlton Cards i/'orkout Fashions Super Touch Ts 794-8274 794-4900 794-3567 794-3440 794-4409 794-8305 794-8244 794-7151 794-4997 794-8330 Household Finance 794-4735 Island Fashion 794-4997 Nova Scotia Liquor Commission 794-4917 Co-operators Insurance 794-4788 Shoppers Drug Mart 794-7211 Cape Breton Video 794-7783 Sherry's Treats & Beverages Dining Room & Lounge 794-8245 Agnew 794-3429 Alteens 794-3513 Zellers 794-7206 Sears 794-3610 Sobeys 794-8O88 Maher 794-3953 Sports Den 794-8810 116 King St., North Sydney, N. S. B2A3R7 Phone: (902)794-4703 or 794-4704