Page 42 - How We Got the Canso Causeway

ISSUE : Issue 25

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1980/6/1

they'd have had a new ferry and new docks there. And you might still have ferries running in the Strait of Canso. (You're glad you did the work?) Sure. (And you'd do it again?) If there's anything required. Next I could go to work on the causeway to Prince Edward Island. But I'm getting too old for that foolishness. Do you know how old I am? I'll be 93 in Au? gust. (The meeting in Ottawa was in 1947. It was still to be years before the idea of a bridge was set aside and the Canso Cause? way decided upon and work begun in 1952.) Dr, Harold Devereaux, Sydney: There was tremendous support. See, once the Canso Crossing Association was set up, there was a small group within it, and I was chair? man of publicity of that group, I was cho? sen for the simple reason that, of the group, I was neutral as far as "business and unions, labour and management, was concerned. (And politics?) I was neutral then. They knew I was Conservative, but I took no active part in politics. And at no time did that ever enter into it. It's rare that you see a body of community- leader types where they didn't, but they all devoted themselves to the Association regardless of politics. We had numerous meetings and we went and preached the gospel to all the service clubs, churches, every club imaginable where we' could get a group--saying the Causeway was absolutely necessary. The e- conomy was the big thing, And you never drove from Antigonish on the old road, go- Harold Devereaux ing like all hell, trying to catch a boat, particularly the last one over--it's a wonder more people weren't killed. Stall around, then, "Oh my god, only got half an hour to make the ferry," Then when the weather was bad it'd be blocked off. Break? downs , But you always had a wait at either side--even the best of conditions. You see, th' Canso Crossing Association was a way of taking it out of the hands of the Board of Trade, because the Board of Trade wasn't received too veil when they went to the public. At the end of it, it was this non-political Canso Crossing As? sociation. The Board of Trade were the Grandfather' (jape Breton clive doucet "Would that we alt had been so blessed in grandfathers." Books in Canada "Doucet's book is a superb one, both hilarious and deadly serious. It comes as a welcome change." Windsor Star "Doucet achieves a feeling of timelessness, of age-old grandparent-grandson and father-son relationships." Ottawa Citizen Available at your local bookstore $12,95 A McGraw-Hill Ryerson Book A New Record of Traditional & Original Songs Dennis & Lori Cox THE WELCOME TABLE $5.00 plus 500 postage Write Cox. Capstick. Victoria Cty, N.S. • All Rooms Overlook Sydney Harbour Vista Motel King's Road, Sydney, N,S, RESERVATION NUMBER: 5 39-6550 Zenith Number: 07940, Anywhere in N.S. Miners'Village Restaurant We are fully licensed and we feature a complete menu from' sandwiches to full-course meals In the setting of a turn-of-the-centur' mining community adjacent to the Miners' Museum Complex 11 AM to 9 PM, Phone: 849-1788 QUARRY POINT, GLACE BAY

Cape Breton's Magazine