Page 30 - Making Bricks at George's River

ISSUE : Issue 18

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1977/12/1

building up, building up • till you'd have a fire coming out about a foot high from the top • the whole thing would be red • the whole block. We'd start away with small fires • what you'd call steaming them out. And the steam would come off them like a locomotive for maybe a day or so. Then the steam would all die out. Then that's your time for to start to fire, keep getting it higher, big? ger fires on all the time, from both ends. Keep putting more hardwood on • I think it was every three hours you renewed the fires. All day and all night. My shift was at nighttime. Build up the fires and just sit down and rest. My brother was with me a lot of the time. We were the night firemen. Start *to steam them on a Saturday and they wouldn't be ready till on a Tuesday a week. Work over Sunday. Then just leave the fire die out. Let it cool off. Then the big prob? lem was to get them on the market, when they're cold. We loaded a couple of cars on the siding • the railroad siding was handy there • and shipped them into North Sydney. Two dealers in there used to buy them. There was one man, his name was Beaton. And Dan Fergusson was the other, if I remember right. A lot of our bricks were used for chimneys • all the way up to Baddeck and way down to Point Aconi. I can remember a lot of them piled up • we used to haul them in the win? tertime • they'd come up for them in boats. Traded them once to a man in Baddeck for a brand new boat. We got clear of them all right. wouldn't be a cent apiece. They were 6 and 8. There was what they called "soft brick" • they wouldn't stand outside work • they were 6 dollars a thousand. Oh, we sold a lot of them, put a lot of them on the market • it never paid. Oh, wouldn't have been so bad • but cutting wood all winter long • that was the big hard problem. We cut wood all win? ter. We didn't bother the clay till the fall of the year. The clay was no trouble • there was all kinds of it--quite close. Hauled it around with horse and cart. Used a round- mouth shovel. (You'd dig the clay?) Right. (Put it in the dump cart?) That's right. Take it to the vat. The vat would hold about 10 loads. But it was only the summer months you could make bricks • June, July • we'd have to quit and be at the hay in August • we did pretty good in September. Seems to me it wasn't as bitter then as it is now. We'd get lots of hot sun. The best season we had we had two kilns a- bout 40-45,000 each • made about 80-85,000 bricks that year. There wasn't much in it. About 650 dollars. That was small for the crowd we had on. And a winter's work. No? thing. Bricks were always low. Quite a brickyard over in Mira and the price was low. And my Uncle Charles had a lot of money tied up into it and lost it all. That's where this old MacDonald • fine old fellow • came from. Another one off of River Denys • they turned out a million a year • and that failed out. We got about 8 dollars a thousand. That (When did you stoj> making bricks?) Well, MAKE THE BEST OF WINTER SKI CAPE SMOKY Keltic Inn now offers special rates on ski and winter sports holiday packages. See your travel agent or write KELTIC INN, INGONISH BEACH INVERNESS COUNTY NOVA SCOTIA

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