Ken's Journal Pictou, NS |
While on the way to a couple Nova Scotia museums, I had some time to kill and stopped at a Provincial road-side park. This one was a beach on the shore of the Northumberland Strait. Here on the way out to the beach, is a tidal pond. |
This boardwalk takes you out to the beach over a tidal saltwater
marsh. |
And here's the beach. Not much to look at but there are people in the water and people lounging on blankets. Amazing - the air temp is in the 60s and the wind is blowing. I dipped my foot in the water and it was freezing!! |
This is the Sutherland Steam Mill - part of the Nova Scotia Museum system. It was built in the 1890s and was powered by steam. No longer was a stream or river needed as a power source. Now, mills could be built close to those they served. Steam power had arrived! Bought by the Sutherlands in 1894, it ran for 70 years producing carriages, sleds, windows and fancy gingerbread trim for local homes. The mill would also custom-cut lumber for local farmers who would bring their own logs to the mill. |
From the side of the building you can see the innovative fire protection system - barrels on the roof full of water. As water was pumped into the barrels, it overflowed and wet the roof. Because the power was steam generated by a wood fired boiler, sparks from the chimney sometimes landed on the shake roof -- fire prevention was mandatory! |
This was a woodworking mill. Logs entered on one end and finished product left on the other. Here's the saw that cut the logs into rough-cut lumber. |
The next step in the process trimmed the bark and gave the rough-cut straight edges square to the flat faces. |
This is the steam powered motor that powered the whole mill - 60 HP. |
A table saw - built from scratch by Alexander Sutherland. |
A sample of the tools in the shop - A tenoning machine on the right, a bandsaw in the middle and a moulder/planer on the right. |
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| The mill hasn't run under steam power in a while - one inspection of the boiler by the Canadian safety thugs shut it down permanently. A couple of the machines have been converted to run with electric motors and are used for special demonstrations. |
"Just get on any major highway, and eventually it will dead-end in a Disney parking area large enough to have its own climate, populated by large nomadic families who have been trying to find their cars since the Carter administration." -- Dave Barry |
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