Page 29 - Lakeboats on the Bras d'Or

ISSUE : Issue 15

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1976/12/1

Honey MacNeil, lona; irancis Xavier Syl? vester MacNeil • F.X.S. were his initials • he was my grandfather. I was brought up at my grandparents and since I remember he hauled all the freight and the baggage and express that came on the trains and went on the boat to Baddeck. And the boat ran twice a day. It came into lona about half past 8 in the morning and the train came at about 9 o'clock. Then the boat would leave at about half past 9 and come back again in the evening about 4 o'clock. And the train would go down here about twenty to 5 • the express • and the boat would leave here about twenty past 5. My grandfather died in 1939 and he was doing that work all that time. He and his boys • he had 5 of them. They all took their turn going to the boat and tending the boat and hauling freight and the carloads of feed and flour used to come in to the station. That's why they had a track ran out onto the wharf. There's a track still on the vdiarf, on the inner part. So they'd shunt the cars in and unload them on the Baddeck boat. They used to unload from the time the boat came in in the morning and maybe the train would have to wait half an hour- there'd be that much freight. But see. there was no pavement to Baddeck, no Treuis-Canada • no big tandems. There were trucks but the roads were all bad. I used to run away from home to be with them. Indeed I did. I guess I'd be in their way. They used to tell me • they'd make me promise • "Now you stay at home." And of course I wouldn't pretend I heard them very much, but I'd stay home when they were leaving with the team of horses to go to haul the mail from the station down to the boat. And they'd have to take the mail from the tx>ats to the train; Twice a day. We had twice a day mail, twice a day in lona here and in Baddeck too. But I'd leave home and I'd run down the track, run down to the boat. And when I'd get down in front,of the captain • I knew old Capt. Noel and Danny MacDonald and old Dan Morrison, Alex Taylor and a bunch that worked on the boat. The Blue Hill was before and it was mostly the Lutherian I used to do all this. When I'd get down to the boat they wouldn't say anything to me. My uncle would never send me home, or papa wouldn't. They'd just take me on the truck wagon with them. I'd drive the horse with them and I'd have a great time. Honey and F.X,MacNeil; Centre, F,S,X,MacNeil; Mary Roddy MacNeil • all residents of lona. Mary Roddy MacNeil, lona; We were to Baddeck to a show. What was it, the 9th of April. Of course it was a grand day and the priest here was putting this play on in Baddeck. Baddeck was part of this parish at that time. And the priest. Father Roberts, he asked the people to go • the more that went the more money they made. And indeed there was quite a crowd • over 60 on the boat that night going down. And it was grand, grand. But during the night it started to rain. And remember it was April. And we thought it was mostly rain but when we came out of the Masonic Hall after the show • we found out it was silver thaw. And it was quite a scramble to keep on your feet. But we scattered here and there. The crowd was cut up in bunches. And in the morning, the sun was shining nicely • and we got on the boat to come to lona. As we got out, away from Baddeck, we found out that there was wind on. Quite a storm. Aw, it was wicked, rough. Everybody was getting sick. And the ice was in the lake and they couldn't land at lona. Ice was floating here and there in the harbour and along the edges of the shore. Well, we couldn't get in here anyway. And tried the bridge. Tried to come throtigh to Grand Narrows, because if we got to Grand Narrows the folks to lona Cape Breton's Magagine/29

Cape Breton's Magazine