Page 79 - Mary Sarah MacNeil Remembers Long Island

ISSUE : Issue 39

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1985/6/1

they'd come around, he'd spear them. They'd sell the fish. Or anything at all that they could sell, they'd sell. They'd butcher a cow for the winter, for their own beef--and they'd sell the hide. You'd have to spread the hide out and put salt on it, keep it fresh till they'd get it sold. And then when they were ready to sell it, they'd have to open it out, shake all, clean all the salt off it, fold it up nice, and take it into town. Anything at all that we could get money out of, (How did the farm animals get on the is? land?) Oh well, we raised our own. But if we'd buy a cow, or something like that, or sell a cow, or buy a horse or something like that--they'd swim across. At one time they used to go over on a scow. But in the later years, the scow was demolished. Well, they used to tell me, in the olden times, my grandfather used to go to town--he used to have a wagon house on the mainland. And he'd get up in the morning and he'd swim the horse across, and he'd swim himself. Put his clothes on the horse's head. Cross over to the wagon house, and then he'd put the harness on the horse, and get dressed there, take the wagon from there and go in? to town. When he'd come back, he'd do the same thing. He'd go over with the horse, and then come back with the towboat and get his groceries and go over. But we nev? er had to go that far--we always had our own boat. We had two boats--one for the outside of the island, one for the channel. Although, we had a ferry there, a ferr5mian. And the county paid him. He lived on the mainland--MacKinnon. And he used to run the ferry across to the island. Now, if you'd go there, he could charge you. But the county was paying for us. But it was very seldom we bothered the ferryman. We were using our own boat. (And in the wintertime, would the_ ice form between the island and the mainland?) Oh yes, yes. Then, we used to skate, and even take the bicycle. And go around the island, go up to Barachois, go wherever you want to on the bicycle. And if the ice was very slippery--my brothers made two iceboat's. And they were identical. But one would on? ly go backwards, and the other one would go forward. I never knew what was the cause of it, but they were travelling, any? way. And we used to have a little hand sleigh they made--bigger than the sleighs you buy today. We had a box on it, and you'd put a sail to that. You could go to Bras d'Or, could go an3rwheres with it. And the boys used to make a sail from flour bags. Now, they had a stick going up, and you have the sail on rings, to the stick, and you had a boom going out here at the bottom. And when you were going to stop, just put the boom up against the mast. And that would--you had no sail. And QUALITY SOFT DRINKS SINCE 1905 AT THE PRICE THAT REFRESHES Pop Factory I Ron BRecx) McKinlay& Sons Ltd. A COMPLETE UNE OF PARTY suppuEs 262 BROOKS IDE 849-6644 GLACE BAY J. R. RAUEV AND STAFF. Wish a Happy 200th Birthday to the Island of Cape Breton and Celebrate with Cheticamp 200 Years North Sydney 100 Years SYE5VEY 200 1785-1985 Sydney 200 Years JAMES R. RAHEY STORES LTD. Sydney River ?? Sydney Mines

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