Page 12 - "Who do You Think You Are? Johnny Abbass"?

ISSUE : Issue 58

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1991/8/1

the Queen is going to sign the guest book." "Well, we'll turn the other way." They wouldn't say that, but I'd get the impression that, look, if I did it with decorum, without rushing up to take the picture--like, sort of position myself properly and just take the picture, and discreetly move in and out. See, they wouldn't say anything. The odd time, the person that was with the tour would come up and tap me on the shoulder and say, "You're getting too close...." There was a big accident up there at Grand Narrows, I think--up around Boisdale. Now, it didn't happen till 6 o'clock or 7 o'clock at night in the fall. I got up there. And all the trains are off the track. And I had this electronic flash. So what I did, I set my camera up in a field, I opened the shutter, and I went around from car to car, flashing a bulb. I was painting with light. When that picture came out the next day, it almost looked like daylight. There'd be maybe 50 cars in that wreck. You could see the numbers on the car. Dominion Atlantic Railway. Mis? sissippi Railway. Missouri Railway. All these boxcars were tipped over. Or the train--the locomotive would be there. I have photographs of every public build? ing in Sydney, every public building in industrial Cape Breton, every school, eve? ry hospital. I have thousands of pictures of the steel plant, you know. I have pictures of that steel plant when the original owners-- DOSCO--were really working that steel plant, and it was a paying proposition. When they spent millions of dollars putting in an open hearth and a blast furnace and a machine shop. So, you know, when people talk about "that old steel plant"--that old steel plant was a really vibrant operation. That coke ovens. It wasn't the people that really operate the steel plant that de? stroyed it. It was the people who allowed the steel plant to be bought by other peo? ple, to come into this area and sort of rape the industry--just exploit it. And when they found, "Well, listen, it's not an easy operation. We'd better get out of here." And they left. See, and the people of indus? trial Cape Breton suffered for that. I know, because I was very actively in? volved in taking photographs of every.... Johnny Abbass Continues on Page 88 Fresh . Potted Plants YOUQ PQE6T1GE rLODIn Daily illOp.m. :>pei Till Off ARTMtNT STOM S Parking The Crossroads of Cape BretonV w?ntyOf Sobeys & Shopper's Drug Mart Highways 4 and s FfM

Cape Breton's Magazine