Page 8 - The Wreck of the First "Aspy"

ISSUE : Issue 13

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1976/6/1

and down the corridors and, you know, no? body to stop them and went in the engine room and down to the bottom. The calf drowned • she was tied too short • but the cow, she was tied loose, she was alive. It was still dark when we got ashore. And I went behind a big rock to get shelter, soaked to the skin. I was in my sock feet. I had had a big pair of boots on. I threw them overboard. Daylight came. And the first job I got • see, the insurance does this • you put what's left of the passenger's lug? gage in a circle. And you sit down inside there. So nobody??d steal it. And the insu? rance called for this too; There was a man came down three times a day from Neil's Harbour • he was appointed by Lloyd's insu? rance I think • used to bring us down a plug of tobacco. And he made tea and he brought us three meals a day. And we had a tent rigged up then. She was there damn near a week and a half before she broke up. Took an awful pounding to break her up. The wa? ter's so deep there. But no one was lost • only that calf and the sheep. It was about two years till the new Aspy came. They had to build her. But she wasn't as good as the first one. iVhen she'd roll, you'd look under the stanchions there on deck • she was loose and she was making like this sawdust when she rolled. But the old Aspy wouldn't do that. No. Pretty much the same design, only the wheelhouse was a lit? tle longer. And she was a little bigger, a few feet longer than the old Aspy. But that first Aspy, she used to carry a lot of freight and passengers. Flour and hay and groceries. Sometimes the mail. Would take it from Smokey down to Ingonish. Stopped at Wreck Cove down there • Alex Morrison's • no Our thanks for help and photographs for wharf. They came out with a boat. There was a fellow used to get paid to meet the boat off of here • Eel Cove they used to call it. River Bennett they call it now. They used to stop at Plaster. Used to stop at Breton Cove. William MacLeod down here had a big store and a wharf at Eel Cove. Englishtown • there was a wharf there. *Vharf at Jersey Cove, not there now. Another wharf at South Gut. Wharf at Murray. North River ami one at North Gut. They were stopping at all these places. When Murray was working out there she'd be loaded every trip. I saw us come over here on a Sunday with a whole carload of canned milk to go out to the lumber woods. And her top deck would be full of hay, going out to the woods for the horses. And I've seen a whole Dingwall landing for A.D. MacDonaJLd • Neil Angus they called him • and the As'y would be loaded for him • nobody else • just him. Walter LeFriend; On Monday we'd do St. Ann's. Then back to North Sydney, Sydney and get ready for down north. Take the freight that was there. Leave 7 o'clock Tuesday morning. Pick up frieght in North Sydney • then first stop was at Ingonish Ferry. Then over to Ingonish Beach • a wharf there too. North Ingonish. Neil's Harbour. i'ite Point. Then we'd go to Dingwall • they would come out in a boat. Then Bay St. Law? rence • and they came out there in a boat. Then we'd stay at White Point that night and leave Wednesday morning back to Sydney. Called in Neil's Harbour, Ingonish, Ingonish Ferry and Ingonish Beach • see if there were passengers • then come out and go for North Sydney. Thursday we'd get ready for English- town again. Same places. Then Friday we'd come down north again. Part One of this story to Mary and Sandy Kenny Morrison, Mr, and Mrs, vVilliam Dunphy, Capt, and Lida Smith, Janie MacLeod and >Valter LeFriend, Part Two, Remembering the 'Aspy," in issue 14 CHICKEN CHALET fmA 'm:'. 4 outlets to serve'you- Blowers SL, North Sydney Sydney Shopping Centre, Prince SL Sterling Road, Glace Bay CB. Shopping Plaza, Sydney River 794-3534 564-6322 849-6689 564-6646 Qualified Dispensers Always in Attendance OWL DRUG STORE D. I. MacDonald, Prop. Your Northside DOROTHY GRAY DISTRIBUTOR Convalescent and Sick Room Supplies Sales & Rental Drug Sundries and Cosmetics P.O.Box 125 794-3611 North Sydney ALWAYS'T'YOUR SERVICE

Cape Breton's Magazine