Page 14 - Chiasson from Cheticamp: Working on Coastal Vessels

ISSUE : Issue 65

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1994/1/1

He had the Reo. Then they bought another one. They were all ex-rumrunners. Jose? phine K. She was a rumrunner. And the oth? er one was the (sounds like) Mannaham. Bourgeois was his name. He's dead now. (And he owned all of these?) Between him and his agent in Halifax, Bourque, had I think some shares into it. But at the end they split. The agent kept the Mannaham and Bourgeois kept the Reo. And they set? tled all the bills, and they sold the wharf in Halifax. (What was Bourgeois's first name?) Calais. They were all seafar? ing men. And Phil. And Cyril. There was a boat called the Kinburn (owned by the BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT CENTRE Senator's Place, Third Floor, 70 Main Street GLACE BAY, NS BIA 4X9 Telephone 849'544 • Fax 849-0549 Glace Bay • New Waterford • Dominion • surrounding & J. R. RAHEY'S FURNITURE AND APPLIANCES SYDNEY RIVER 562-2500 • SYDNEY MINES 736-9442 Smiths in Port Hood, Port Hood Island)--it used to run from the Strait of Canso to Cheticamp. In fact, he lost her. Really, she was lost behind Cheticamp Island. The captain on board that time, he made a bad mistake. Of course, again, there was no radar. He was in dense fog, and he was coming for Cheticamp. With a low glass-- you know, the wind is going to change from the west. As a rule--westerly winds, it clears up. In the Gulf it's nor'west, westerly, it's always a clear wind--there is no fog. And the captain thought that he would make Cheticamp. And instead of mak? ing the harbour, he put her right in be? hind the island. (Do you mean that she was driven there by wind?) Well, no. The cap? tain thought he was coming into Cheticamp. He was way off course. First thing that he knew, he was aground. See, he never ran his distance. Those days they used to go by the clock. Time. So from the time that he had got his last position, whether it was from the Strait or what, he ran so many hours and minutes. And he figured that it was time for him to haul in. But it would have been a lot better for him to have stayed out and say, "I'm going to wait to see if it's going to clear off." Because we know right there, Cheticamp is not an easy place to come in. So she was lost behind Cheti? camp Island. Oh, those days, boy, every? thing used to come by boats. You take in Cheti? camp at the (gypsum) mine, they were using an awful lot of gasoline. That was all coming by boat. There was no such a thing as tanker trucks those days. Every trip, we had 100 drums of gasoline. Every? thing used to come by boat. (And was there something to go out as well?) Not full cargoes, but there was al? ways something. Like the empty drums. All the cod that was being dried up. We used to pick up a lot. The lobster season--we used to bring a lot of canned lob? sters back to Halifax. And one trip especially we brought some gypsum samples on that boat--(samples that were) going over to Eng? land, when the gypsum com? pany was trying to get some contracts in England. They had put these pieces of gypsum in two crates. Geez, they must have weighed about half a ton. Like I il

Cape Breton's Magazine