Page 14 - Stories from the Clyburn Valley

ISSUE : Issue 49

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1988/8/1

Maurice and Emma Donovan (You went out to the Clyburn in 1937.) Mau? rice Donovan; That's right. (Why did you go out there? Why the Clyburn?) Well, it was nice farmland there. And we need to farm to live. Emma Donovan; It was a big farm. (Were you just married?) No, we were mar? ried in '24. Maurice: Before (going out the Clyburn) I was in the preventive service-- federal government--chasing the rumrunners. (You were telling me that you took the house out to the Clyburn?) Emma: Yes. When Maurice decided to move to the Clyburn, he had to take the house down in sections. And he had to lower the roof down by a cable, was it? Something like that. He had to take it down in sections, and take it up onto a horse and wagon, and take it up the Clyburn Valley. Well, we didn't live up there that many years until our land was taken from us by the park. (What was your plan, though? Did you plan to make that your home?) Maurice and Emma; Oh, yes, yes, yes. Maurice; We tore our home down, and barn, and we moved every? thing out--a lot of hard work. Emma: That beautiful soil that was up there. You didn't need fertilizer or anything, every? thing grew. There were no weeds into it or anything. Beautiful, beautiful brook, stream running down that Clyburn. It was just nothing but beauty. Maurice: Then the government came in and took it over for the national park. Emma: For very little. Mau? rice: Supposedly expropriation. I told one of the fellows, I said, "You've got the wrong name on it." I said, "'Slavery' is the best way to put that there--this is not expropriation." (Was there any notion that there'd be a na? tional park when you went up there?) Oh, no. There was talk about, like--Casey Bald? win from Baddeck--he was a millionaire with Professor Bell. And when he was running for provincial member here, he spoke about a national park that he'd like to build; in the interior. Not out in the settlement--in the interior. He had very broad ideas, Mr. Baldwin. That's the first talk we ever heard about that, here, was from him. But, a few years after, the other politicians took it up, and they said, "We're going to build a park there." It was all done to get votes at that time. And I guess they're still doing it for to get votes. Emma; We didn't want a park at our proper? ty. And I don't think that anybody that lost their property wanted a park at their property. I know Maurice fought for his. He even went out and stood with a gun when they came up to come in on his property that morning--the head fellow that brought his crew and came up. And Maurice stood with a gun. He warned him, "Don't come one foot on my property." And I had been down below where the cattle were. I was down there. So...Mr. Stewart came up the road a piece and cut down...where the barren was. And he came down, he asked me, he said, "Emma, go on up," he said, "and talk to your husband. Tell him to go in and put 'the .'' We're MacLeod-Lorway Insurance 215 Charlotte St. P.O. Box 1354 Sydney, N.S. B1P6K3 539-4067 CALL US NOW and discover why more Cape Breton residents are insured through MacLeod-Lorway than any other independent agency. We represent more than half of Canada's leading insurance companies. Call or visit one of our 15 licensed agents for pre-purchase counselling. MacLeod-Lorway offers personal and commercial lines including home owners and tenants packages and mobile home, travel, auto, builder's risk, commercial fire, crime, commercial liability, marine, bonding, business interruption and boiler and machinery. 24 hour phone - call collect 539-6666

Cape Breton's Magazine