Only 78 (2017) - full transcript
Only 78 is about a small coastal community under siege. Gabarus, Nova Scotia was once protected from the North Atlantic Ocean by a government built seawall. But the structure requires ...
It will inevitably fail,
we're just gonna repeat 1983.
It's gonna give, the
harbor's gonna be flooded,
the lower half of the village
is gonna be wiped out.
They want to
focus on cities where there's
lots of people and lots
of income being generated
but we're contributing
members of the society as well
and we have rights
and we pay taxes.
Whether you think
climate change is a result
of human activities or
not, it doesn't matter.
This is a young changing planet.
I think it's
disgraceful of the federal
and provincial government,
that they can't split the cost
of fixing that damn wall
50/50 and then work it out
between them later.
It's our home and we
will do what we can to preserve
what is here and if the
worst happens, what is left.
We feel that there is a
community that should be saved.
Here's the
first one under the G, 52.
- I'll take 59.
- I'll take 59 too.
Under the I, 21.
Concentrate, people,
concentrate.
That's a lot of cream
cheese everywhere.
Having lived in a small
community, well Tim did too.
I didn't have a big
preconception, truly.
The only thing that we
didn't know was the politics
of this particular town and
that was gonna influence
any number of
things, not just...
Our being gay but
my being black.
Going back 12, 15 years
where newcomers basically
weren't welcomed with open
arms, I mean, it was kind of,
I suppose, a closed, almost
like a closed gate community.
- I'll put some aces down.
- Hey.
- Oh, he's got aces.
- They really didn't just
accept everybody.
And I can remember my mother
in law telling me one day
that this man, a businessman
was in the village
and somebody invited
in him to dinner
and it was in a Protestant
home, he was invited
and when he sat down the
table and he crossed himself,
he was asked to leave the house.
- 45, N45.
- N45.
The last few years, it's
a very dramatic change.
Two years ago, Gloria and
I just did a quick survey
and we were surprised in
that basically 2/3 of Gabarus
are now, would be
considered newcomers,
which surprised, I think
basically it surprised all of us.
- Whoo, bingo!
- Bingo!
- Solidarity, baby.
- We haven't talked about that
That's not that hard.
What was more interesting was,
not that either he was
black or we were gay,
it was that we were
from the states.
- We were Americans.
- We were Americans.
That was the big deal.
It's a big hurdle when you
come here because Americans
don't have a very
great rep in Canada.
You look at the weather
in the United States,
isn't it amazing that the
weather map ceases to have
information at the Canadian
border as if no weather
comes from the United
States from Canada.
It has the lower 48 in the
map and Alaska floating up here
and Hawaii floating
out in the Pacific
but there's no connection,
there's no land connection
between Alaska and the
lower 48 in the weather maps
in the United States.
- And sometimes...
- So Canada is
not there.
And sometimes there's
not even an indication.
90% of Canadians live within
100 miles of the
stupid US border.
One of the firemen had come
up with a nickname for us
which was salt and pepper, I
thought that was kind of cute.
Hmm.
But when we met Mildred,
the elder of the town,
and she had heard about
it through the grapevine,
she told the person who said
that, you won't be calling
those boys that, she
thought it was an insult.
When I was growing
up in the summer,
we spent a lot of time playing
around the beach, swimming
and in boats and catching
fish with a stick,
with a string on it
and a common pin.
They called them skull pins,
I don't know how to spell it,
even.
Mildred Gray was born in
Gabarus, she married my father,
who was also from Gabarus
and he was a fisherman.
My mother, she was
a telegraph operator
and a telephone operator and
then she was very involved
in the community.
So yes, please, help yourself.
So... so you be sure
to eat that.
Help yourself, yeah,
I put bowls there too
- for your fruit if you want.
- You went on ahead.
Oh, you did, Gloria,
you didn't, Gloria, look,
there's a thing over there
that'll take that better.
- Here.
- Oh, okay.
- Oh, that's hot.
- There's lots of food.
So we met Rhodena
the next day and John.
She knew that Gabarus
in order to survive
had to have new people
come in so she was glad
to have new people arriving
and it didn't matter to her
the category of new people
as long as they were people
who would love Gabarus.
Her collection of some 60
years worth of clippings
about the schools and
about the churches.
She was very protective
of all her material.
She wanted it done up
in a book and everything
and she talked to different
people but she would not trust
giving it to anybody for fear
that they were going to...
Plagiarize everything. Oh
really. So for her to come out
and hand it to you, is... is
really... really unique.
- Hi, Barry.
- Hey, Barry.
Come on in, bring a chair.
My wife and I moved here to
Gabarus about five years ago
and as you can see
it's breezy up here
and we call our little house
Which is Gaelic for
top of the wind.
We were here on the cruise
and we stopped here.
I fell in love with it
and I came out and
I bought this house
and then I told my wife
which itself was a
colorful experience.
Once she got here, the people
were so incredibly welcoming,
she fell in love
with the place too.
We moved here
about four years ago.
We had been looking for a
summer place and fell in love
with the village, I do international
project management here
We came here to
check out the place
and it was a sad little house.
My husband said that there's
no way we're buying it
but I bought it anyway and
when we looked out back
you can see in the bay
here, that's the reason
that we bought it.
I'm formerly from New
York and Philadelphia
and I have been in Gabarus
since I retired in 2006.
I was on a group tour in
Ireland and this gentleman
leans forward and says, you
can work on my boat anytime
and I thought that was the
best pickup line I ever heard
and I turned around and
met him and his wife.
They took me to Gabarus to
show me where they were going
to retire, and I
fell in love with it.
We're very happy
that we've moved here.
It was one of the best
decisions that we made.
Came here, our
grass was all cut.
We were welcomed
into their homes
and welcomed at their dinner
tables and into conversations,
it was a very exciting
thing coming from away
that we were welcomed
to that extent.
We thought, well, you know,
everybody here is like that,
we're gonna be in a
really good space.
♪ It's a little
piece of heaven ♪
♪ Nestled in the rocks
♪ Protected by the spirit
♪ Protected by the fog
♪ And the lighthouse
on the level ♪
♪ Will always lead us home
♪ Through stormy weather
♪ It's the calming of the
♪ Calming of the storm
♪ And when we'll be
♪ More than happy
There's four more
pieces of halibut
if anyone wants one.
♪ If we're
♪ Back on the bay
♪ I wanna be
♪ Back on the bay
♪ Where simple is the only way
In 1929, we had
a severe earthquake
and at that time it wasn't
a seawall as it was now.
It was, we always called
it the brush fence
and it was just
posts in the ground.
People were rowing boats
even up here where I lived
and then of course after that,
the government owned the...
the brush fence or the
seawall as it's called now,
it's the last section of
construction, I think was in 1946,
the federal government
owned, maintained it.
People in the village after
that storm got together
and bought planks and put
some more covering on it.
People often call
that the boardwalk
because hundreds of people
walked there in the summer,
tourists and people alike.
- Hey, Wayne.
- How you doing, Tim?
So I didn't time it
right, I didn't get here
when the work was all done.
No, that's what, you
gotta do that better.
I guess I shoulda waited
another half hour or so.
Well, yeah.
In 1983, the seawall
was breached during
a terrible storm and the
boats were upon the road
just over here.
There was just piles and
piles of wood, smashed buildings
and wharves and it
was a bad storm.
And after that people
talked about replacing
the boardwalk, but
that went nowhere.
2010, the storm we
had then was in January.
Seawall was breached and
the waves were coming
right over the top of it, this
back here where my wharf is
in the bay, we had the water
come over for the first time
and just threw it over
and it was just totally
just torn to pieces.
After 2010 a
terrible storm struck
and within 24 hours we
saw tremendous damage
and shifting of the seawall.
It became clear to us that
there was a history here,
that there was a terrible
chance for this community
to be damaged by another storm
of that strength or stronger.
I'm an engineer, human
structures don't last forever
and they have a
natural life cycle
and I could tell from looking
at it that it was beginning
to reach the end
of its useful age.
The problem I think
could be with others coming
'cause this community
is actually growing
so we're getting people here
from, really interesting people
from all over the world
and certainly the site
of the disaster when it
happens, the horrific pictures
of the boats overturned and
houses flooded and smashed
is going to have a terrible
impact on our capacity
to grow this community
and in fact on Cape Breton
and its reputation worldwide
as a tourist center
and... and Canada.
Coastal communities are
affected by climate change
in two ways, one is the
increasing severity of storms
and therefore the increase of
the... in the height of the storm surge
and secondly on by sea level
rise, in the case of Gabarus,
they are sitting actually
in one of the hot spots
for land sinking in Nova Scotia.
We expect about 30
centimeters of sinking
in the next 100 years
plus 70 centimeters
of sea level rise so
they're looking at probably
a forecast of one meter
of local sea level rise.
We're gathering here
today to help people get
a better understanding
of what this seawall
means to this community.
It's been breached
in several storms now
and it's at the point now where
really, it's done its job.
You can see where the
wall has been breached.
There's a separation here,
it's not gonna take much more
for this to be completely gone
and then once this
is opened, it's just,
the rest of it will go.
Have a look at this, the
wall is leaning down this way
and if you look further down
it's becoming impossible
for people to walk on it.
This used to be on the
upper part, a boardwalk
for people to walk,
it's a seawall.
Some folks here from
Gabarus have decided
to take matters into
their own hands.
The wall is leaning so
far that we thought maybe
we could hold it up if
nobody else wants to help us.
You'll notice some folks
have life jackets on.
They're future planners because
if the wall isn't repaired
we're gonna need life jackets.
I'd say that it's
not a matter of if,
it's a matter of when
the seawall breaks,
if there isn't some urgent
action and some attention to it.
And should that happen, it
could close off our harbor
and make it unavailable
as a fishing harbor
and it could do tremendous
damage to all the fishing
infrastructure, even if
the harbor remained open.
The fishing day starts at
2:30 when the alarm goes off.
Pack my lunch, board a
boat roughly by 3:30,
we spend roughly 12
hours out in the water
hauling pier, checking traps
and moving 'em, baiting 'em,
getting lobsters and back home
by 12, back to the wharf by 12
and then we get our baits and
all that ready for tomorrow
and I'm home by two o'clock,
shower and relax for the day.
It's been estimated there
are at least 30 local jobs
and maybe as many as 70
that are indirectly tied
to the fishery here in Gabarus.
Not all of the fishermen
who are here would continue
in fishing if the harbor
failed because they live here.
There's no other nearby
harbor that could accommodate
their boats and they
would then have to move
and many people are at
a stage in their life
where they're not
prepared to do that.
I got people calling
me up all the time
asking me what's going on and
stuff on Facebook all the time
and I send them pictures
and everyone's worried,
just not the 78 that live here.
I was always aware of the
seawall, I was concerned
about the seawall because
I'm fourth house up
which means if the
seawall breaks,
I'm gonna be swimming and all
we need is a good hurricane
and that seawall will go.
We feel like the history
here and the people
and the economy are all worth
investing in because the money
that's been derived from
taxation that goes out of here
each year from the landed
catch which might be
$3 to $5 million a year
worth of catch, lobster, crab,
scallops, halibut,
mackerel, about 52% of that,
52 cents of every dollar goes
to one or another
taxing authority
but very few of those dollars
and cents come back here.
We'd like to see the cents
come back into the government
and some of the dollars
to come back here.
And so we thought, well,
we'll fight for this.
This was a federal structure.
There shouldn't be a huge
problem getting the federal
government to live up
to it's obligations.
All we have to do is, you know,
make some noise,
show our concern
and the government
would respond.
So we thought.
♪ Back on the bay
♪ We can walk around
Roses Island ♪
♪ Carve our dreams in the sand
♪ Watch our daughter grow up
♪ Strong and free
♪ Ground into this land
♪ And if we hold on tight
♪ We'll make it through
♪ But this sea is killing me
♪ We gotta get out
♪ Of this place
♪ Please
I live here on Gull
Cove Road in Gabarus.
With my wife, Jacklyn
Holmes and our friend
Katherine Harris, we own
Rising Tide Expeditions.
A sea kayaking tourism
and instruction company.
We've always enjoyed
rural living.
We enjoy being outside in
the woods and on the ocean,
kind of making and doing
on our own for ourselves
and Gabarus is just a
beautiful quiet place.
My husband at the
time was not my husband
and he had planned
a six day trip.
During that trip, he
proposed, which I didn't,
I wasn't expecting and so
that was pretty exciting,
and so our first time
in Gabarus was camping
on the very kind of outer
ridge of Gabarus Harbor
at a place called
Gul Cove Village.
The next day when we
woke up we paddled in
and took a look at
Gabarus and went wow,
what a cool, beautiful place.
- I feel bad for that lobster.
- Why?
There's more lobsters in there.
Do you want to pick one up?
Reach in.
There we go.
- Good job.
- Oh, what is she doing?
- Whoa!
- What's your sister doing?
- Helping.
- Yes, she is helping.
Keep going.
Oh goodness, I wouldn't
have thought, because when
I first looked at it I
thought it was Albert.
- No, it's mine.
- Yeah.
Would've been...
That's their three children.
Auntie Waynes, when
they were little.
Y'all know who this is?
- I don't.
- No.
Have you got a magnifying glass?
I do.
1983 was when the
seawall came apart.
Yes, yes.
Mildred and Duncan
and what is it? A Wedding?
- 40th anniversary.
- We were so sick and tired
- of washing dishes up there.
- A dishwasher.
For their 40th anniversary.
I should become a
traditional Gabarus.
- We all three of us gave that
- That's Maureen there.
- Is that our Sandra?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Oh my goodness.
We had another huge storm
and it did a lot of damage
to the village and to the
boats and the wharves.
And how we started
out of course was with
a general consensus of
talking to one another
and said we have to do something
or you know, our
village is in jeopardy.
The people decided
they would have a meeting
to see what could be done.
Our seawall has protected
not only the fishermen
but the homes located
around the harbor too.
I think of the situation
now with the seawall
on shaky ground.
I was there in 1983, the
last time the seawall broke
and I saw the destruction
that can happen.
I saw the seawall then and now,
and it's in far worse shape now
and much easier to break
through with higher tides
that experts and our
fisherman are telling us.
Out of that meeting,
they formed a committee
called Friends of Gabarus.
Who actively got involved
and we went to Province House
first up in Halifax
and from there,
it just kept on snowballing
because we kept on
getting one referral
after another
and one party after another
saying, it's not our problem,
it's not our problem.
Since everybody's
here, for the question,
who owns the structure?
I've been at this for years
and I have yet to come up
with an answer.
This is an information
session, but we can assure you
we know who owns the
wall, who owns the harbor.
We also know that
ownership is not equated
to responsibility.
Who cares who owns it?
We need to have responsible
people step forward and say
that this isn't right.
We need to have it fixed.
We're one wave away and we,
in the past, before yesterday,
we're speaking about, wow,
if we get a big storm,
it's gonna be gone, well,
no, the study comes back
and says, if we get a
high moon and a high tide,
that wall could
collapse at any time
so time is of the essence.
The Atlantic Ocean doesn't
give two hoots about us,
but our elected representatives
really should care
because that's why
we put them there.
The mounds of
emails and papers and so on
that they've sent back and
forth would surely fill
half a room of a
normal bedroom size
and they just would not stop.
Well, the seawall issue
has been an ongoing item
for a number of years
in community of Gabarus.
I had a number of meetings
with local fishermen
who were concerned about
some of the aspects
of what might happen if the
sea wall were ever to give up
and then we moved along
and talked to try to get
some activity, but as
you can understand,
there's many, many files
that we are working on.
When the seawall really became
a work in motion, I guess,
is what I'd like to
call it is really when
the community got involved.
So this is how I start,
I start with a little bit
of water and a little bit of...
Sky.
So that would be my
light for the lighthouse
and then I'd glue all this
on, wing of the seagull there.
It's tedious work
but I love doing it.
This is how I would finish
this, I put it in a shadow box.
Oh, I put some sand down
here and some seashells to
depict a beach.
This was the original
road to Gul Cove
and this is where the
forefathers of Gabarus lived,
was out in Gul Cove and
it's about four miles
from the cemetery, so
that's what we're doing
is trying to make sure
for our 300th anniversary,
that we have a good
path going out there
so that people can go
out and visit the sites
of where their
forefathers lived.
That far point out there?
We call that North
Shore over there.
Around that point, the town
of Louisburg, the fortress.
The pivotal part of
the French Indian wars
and the battle for our continent
also played itself out
right here in this bay.
Louisburg which was next to
Quebec the mightiest fortress
in North America was built at
such great expense that... that...
Louis often said he expected
to look out his window
at Versailles and see
this thing rising up out
of the Atlantic.
The history of Canada in
terms of European settlement
began here, largely and Gabarus
played an important role
and particularly Gabarus
Bay in the battles between
the British and the
French over domination
of North America.
This area was first
settled by Basque fisherman
and whalers that came
here in the 1500s,
that Gabarus Bay and the village
of Gabarus are named after
a Basque fishing
captain from that time.
Following that were
the French that settled
the French fortress of
Louisburg, settled this area.
But the fall of Louisburg
meant the doom of New France
because the following
year, the English fleet
were able to get up to St.
Lawrence, bypass the fort
which was guarding the river
and lay siege to Quebec.
And when that was settled,
at least in this area
and eventually across Canada
and the United States,
it changed the
future of this area.
We've got all these
little things up the treads
on the stairs, the old
part of the fireplace
was down the basement,
half buried in mud
when we moved in
and so we put that back in
but I never knew what to do
with the mantelpiece,
so I decided a picture,
a little sketch of
the village would work
so that's the harbor and
that's the way it was
when we first moved down.
This little piece of
driftwood from the beach,
it spoke to me.
My husband Peter and
I are from Toronto.
We came to the east coast
and thought this is the place
that we'd like to
build a retirement home
somewhere in Cape Breton,
went to a real estate agent
who sent us off with
directions to find a half built
log cabin that she thought we
might be interested in buying.
We followed the directions
and never found the log cabin
and when we came
back out to the road,
we thought Sydney was to the
left instead of the right.
Turned left and got
to the end of the road
which happened to be in Gabarus.
And then she went to
do a presentation in Paris
about the letters,
so I wrote to her.
- Was she alone?
- There's actually three
separate ones.
In 2012, the Federal
Department of Fisheries and Oceans
decided that most of the
lighthouses in Canada
would be declared surplus,
which means they are not
gonna be maintained and
if the government is able
to get rid of them,
they will pass them off
to local communities,
if no one's interested
in taking them over, the
lighthouses will be torn down
and replaced by a metal
pole with a red light
and a little solar
box on the top.
Find someone who can actually
pick it up and move it.
And they are gonna
have to get underneath.
Well, that's why I
wondered how rotten it was.
I don't think
it's really rotten.
Some of the corner pieces
are a little bit rotten
but underneath seems
to be fairly solid.
If you go inside, it's like
the inside of an old ship.
The effects of sea level
rise on local communities
are obviously that
we need to strengthen
existing infrastructure
like seawalls or,
if the sea level rise
is drastic enough
we may actually have to
relocate existing infrastructure
like lighthouses,
that's the actual impact
that it's gonna
have on a community.
The connection with Gabarus
is through our undergraduate
students who have been
involved over a few years
in different capacities
with helping to get the
Gabarus Lighthouse
Project off the ground.
Maritime markers like
lighthouses and navigational aids
are something that people
identify with their own culture
and to eradicate
that I think would be
a really sad thing for all of us
and we lose out on an
opportunity to educate
and celebrate the cultural
aspects of maritime life.
When we shared that with
the Department of
Fisheries and Oceans,
the response came back
no, we've studied this,
there's no danger.
As a community, we
have applied to take over
ownership of the lighthouse.
We are going to work
incredibly hard.
We're gonna do everything we
can to save that lighthouse
and we is the village.
As a... you know young
mother in my nursing career,
I didn't have much
time until our daughter
grew up and went
away to university.
I sold my first
painting in 1972.
And it was probably one of
the happiest times in my life
to think that somebody
liked my art well enough
that they bought a painting.
I mixed up a nice dark
color so I used blue.
Burnt sienna.
It's my favorite
way of doing a rock
and all of a sudden
it looks like a rock
and then I have rocks
in through here,
big wave coming over.
We've seen repeatedly
over the past few years
some terribly punishing storms
and with that we're at risk
of losing part of the wall
or as the province said in
their coastal hazard assessment,
and engineers later
confirmed, it can fail
in several places, not just one.
Little doubt about the fact
that the federal government
in particular and the Department
of Fisheries and Oceans
specifically has been
absolutely resistant
even though there's ample
evidence, the seawall is owned
by them and in fact is in
documents showing them owning it.
There have been a couple
of levels of government
that have been responsive
and that would be first
the municipal government
committed some resources,
$100,000 from
sustainability funds derived
from federal funding to
help repair the seawall
but it was contingent on
provincial participation
as well as federal.
This is a letter
that was written
on behalf of the community
by our member of
Parliament, Rodger Cuzner
which pointed out quite clearly,
Department of
Fisheries and Oceans
had a continuing obligation
to maintain the seawall
and that in fact they
were not doing so.
There's been material
sent to us that have sender,
recipient, date, signature.
That's it, everything
else has been redacted.
Oh, come on, come on.
What's interesting is,
you know where the seawall is?
This was built 1955, '56
and it is a creosoted timber
cribwork just like the seawall
and it was 90 meters long.
And it's almost gone.
It's almost gone away.
Now to
another part of Nova Scotia
that's experiencing the
effects of storm surge,
the community of Gabarus
is concerned about
its protective seawall.
As the storm rages on
today in Cape Breton,
people in Gabarus are
calling it a near miss
that further proves
the decades old wall
needs to be replaced.
This video taken
just before yesterday's
high tide shows huge
storm waves threatening
dangerously close to
Gabarus's decrepit seawall.
Tim White says the surge
nearly broke through.
The waves were breaking
up to 12 to 14 feet tall,
a couple hundred
meters offshore.
The waves are still fierce today
as the seawall,
leaning and buckling
after decades of
service, fends them off.
But Tim Menk of the community
group Friends of Gabarus
says this storm shows just
how close the village is
to experiencing
serious flooding.
It would take just the right
or say just the wrong wave
and combination of high
tide, full moon, storm surge.
In January of last year,
the Cape Breton regional
municipality promised
$100,000 to fix the seawall
if the provincial and
federal governments
would put up the rest.
Fast forward more
than a year later
and the rest of that funding
still hasn't been secured.
This fall Fisheries and
Oceans told Friends of Gabarus
it would not pay to replace
the wall because although
Ottawa built it,
the structure sits on
provincially owned land.
Now Menk says his group plans
to file negligence complaints
against DFO.
I believe that the government
needs to pay attention
to this because we live here
and they want to focus on cities
where there's lots of
people and lots of income
being generated, but
we're contributing members
of the society as well
and we have rights
and we pay taxes.
An engineer came out and
did a study and he presented
his results including the
fact that if the seawall
really were breached in a
bad storm, the water could
come all the way up to my house.
I'm still glad I came here.
The cost to
rehabilitate the village
after it's been
destroyed by a wave
is gonna be tenfold what it
would cost to fix that wall.
I am very optimistic,
that first of all that
nothing will happen
and secondly that
it will get fixed.
However, if it did come up
and damage or destroy my house
then I probably
would not stay here.
I think we would want to stay.
I don't think there's
anything that would impel me
to leave this community
at this point.
I think Gene feels the same way.
It's our home and we will
do what we can to preserve
what is here and if the
worst happens, what is left.
Probably at 1/3 of
the lower of part
of our historic
village will be gone.
I'm not afraid of
struggle, I'm a Quaker.
It's not in my nature.
There's a saying about Quakers,
we don't bend very easily.
And so standing up for what
we believe in is not a problem
and that was the attitude
I came to Gabarus with.
When you're laying in
bed and you hear that wind
coming from the southeast,
and blowing up the harbor,
you know there is a big storm
is gonna take a
pounding on the seawall.
There's gonna be damage.
Disavowal of responsibility
by the provincial
and federal governments,
they just say
it's not their problem,
it's our problem,
it's somebody else's problem
and the thing that
would make me most angry
is the government
showing up after that.
The prime minister or one of
his delegates landing here
in a helicopter,
driving down and saying
what a sin it is that Gabarus
is washing into the sea?
When they haven't done
anything about it.
Basically, I just
want to encourage people
to embrace the 300th since
we are twice Canada's age
in 2017, I would suggest that
we might want to consider
having this
celebration go from now
until the sesquicentennial
of Canada.
Couple ideas that I
have, one would be to...
Have some kind of a
four by four rally race
that would use the
old French road,
'cause we have to get to
a stage where we've got
traffic on that road, it's
the oldest road in Nova Scotia
and they closed it.
Sit, sit, Alfie, high
five, high five, come on.
Aw, that's the boy, good boy.
Went to the states and came
back, I was able to show them
a Canadian passport which
was really great fun,
such a relief in a
way to have it settled
and to know that we are people
of status in both countries,
so.
So you probably know
about the hookers,
do you know about the
hookers of Gabarus?
They're a group of women,
Diane Harris started
this group and they meet on
Tuesdays at the... now at the fire hall,
before it was at
the community center
where they do, they hook rugs.
Interesting.
- How many bows do you want?
- Five.
- Gumdrop cake.
- Gumdrop, yeah.
- I've got some gumdrop cake.
- Are you playing darts?
- Oh, here it is.
- After three weeks
- of not finding it.
- You got that, yes.
This here is flowers
here and it says here,
dare to be different, one
of the flowers is different
than all the rest.
I got a couple on my
wall, I did a lighthouse
for my home, I did that.
And a compass face, it's
called, and I have that
on the wall, that's
the only two.
There's only 78 people there,
why don't they move them
out, move them to Sydney
- or some place?
- Imagine.
Yeah.
I'd never leave here,
it's part of me, I couldn't.
I'm a third generation
fisherman, that's blood.
It's in you.
What I don't understand and
continue to not understand
is the reluctance on the
part of the government
to do any repairs, to see
the seriousness of it.
I gather that because there
are so many other communities
in a similar situation they're
afraid to open the floodgates
and if they fix the
sea wall in Gabarus
then there's very little
that stands in the way
of them fixing others.
You know, there's always
an argument that who owns
the property, the property
itself is owned in part
by the federal government
and part of it is
on provincial land.
The two levels of
government are saying
it's not our responsibility.
Meanwhile, the people
here in Gabarus,
every time the storm, you
hear about a sea storm,
you shiver because
you know the seawall's
gonna take a pounding.
Governments are lacking
wanting to communicate,
they made a decision
across the board
that people from across
the country, when you deal
with DFO, send in reports,
they're asked to look
at efficiencies, is
the word of the day,
efficiencies is a very
nice word for usually cuts.
About 22 of the 23
largest cities on earth
are coastal cities
and they harbor about
at least 60% of the
world population.
There's trading routes,
there's rich fishery
so it's no surprise that
everyone lives coastal in a way.
Losing access to coast
and coastal infrastructure
is gonna be something which
will matter to us in a big way.
We can't understand why
the heads of the government
are not interested in a
little place like Gabarus
with only 78 people.
Would they take responsibility
if those 78 people
got drowned tonight
with a ...with a storm?
And it could easily happen.
When you're born and
brought up in a community,
it's a part of you, nobody
can take that from you.
If anything majorly
happened to the seawall,
it busted, honestly I
don't know what I'd do.
I'm 50 years old, we're
not asking for money
for tourism reasons, we're
only asking the money for
to keep our way of
life, our fishing area,
the community itself,
for another 20 years,
Gabarus will still be here.
We don't want to be
shipped away some place.
It must be possible to
make it possible for them to
give the money to keep those
other communities alive
and not washed away to sea.
We live on a dynamic planet.
Whether you think climate change
is a result of human
activities or not,
in some ways it doesn't matter.
The vast majority of
many people in the world
settle on riverbanks and
deltas and oceanfront
because that's where
people earn their living.
People often live on coasts.
This country has
a lot of coasts.
Our job then was to
convince skeptical people
of the facts of the matter,
that it is a federal obligation
and that protecting coastal
communities under threat
from sea level rise and
climate change related issues
is a part of the
job of government.
I'm a businessman,
usually when we do things,
we set out a task and we
put out who's responsible.
We also put a time
and date in there.
I'm wondering if you can tell
us how long this is gonna take
before you get back to us
because we have a serious problem
that just isn't gonna go away.
I'll get back to you, Wayne,
as soon as the ministers
get back to me.
That's a nice
political answer, Alfie.
Wayne, I'm gonna make the
call tomorrow, I'm going
to Halifax tomorrow morning.
I'm gonna put a call
into both houses tomorrow
and hopefully they'll respond.
Has anybody approached DFO
through small craft harbors?
I don't know if it's the
seawall or it's what's
put up with armor stone for
a while until they come up
with some kind of
a major repair,
but I don't understand
why DFO's not in there
putting funds forward
for small craft harbors.
Gabarus is a divested
harbor and the divestitures,
somebody would know
that date better than me
but the divestiture took
place in the late '90s, 1997,
'95, I'm sorry, '95, so there's,
that would be the
difference there, so.
I'll take the mic.
Actually the harbor
was never divested.
What was divested was the wharf.
The harbor was deproclaimed.
In the 1990s when
the government decided
they had to balance the
budget, Canada was going broke,
Paul Martin was the
finance minister,
just put the brakes
on everything
and at that point the
government began abandoning
a lot of things that it had
traditional
responsibilities for.
Began getting rid of
airports, got rid of harbors,
we just, it was just a
flight from responsibility
in order to be able to meet
the financial requirements
of trying to balance the budget.
I think that that
momentum has continued.
That is the period when they
began to abandon harbors
here and seawalls, but the
point is you can't own something
for the better part of
3/4 of a century, build it
and maintain it all it and
then just wake up one morning
and decide, we don't
own it anymore.
We don't know who owns it,
but we don't own it anymore.
It's just not legally,
it's not sound.
It's astonishing to
me that the government
views this issue just
in terms of whether
it wants to protect its
shoreline as opposed
to being worried about
protecting its historical heritage.
You know, you're talking
a number of homes that if
that seawall breaks,
are gonna be washed out.
And...
And that for sure will ruin
the heritage of the area
because this is the heritage,
the fishing community,
the camaraderie that takes
place in the community.
It's not a question
of just 78 people,
it's a question of are we
going to abandon our shoreline.
Are we going to abandon
our local fisheries here?
Are we going to walk away from
1000 years of history here?
It's not about 78 people,
somebody's missing
the bigger question here.
So this is the thing
you were telling me about?
- Yeah.
- That's in the...
I never would have
dreamed when we started out
that we were ever gonna
show up on the front page
of the Globe & Mail.
I would've thought it'd
be a stretch to think
we'd ever show up in
the Globe & Mail period
and I think when
this article came out
then it became real for
people here in the village.
Our MP at the public meeting
we had back in January
identified a place I'd
never heard of before
like I'd never heard of
Gabarus before I came here,
Little Anse was having
problems with DFO
with a seawall or a breakwater...
Was that Rodger?
- Yes, it was Rodger.
- Rodger Cuzner.
Rodger Cuzner, yep, and
the idea that we weren't
the only town, the only
village that was having
a problem with DFO sort
of struck a chord with me
that maybe there's more
than just the two of us.
Well, that's, given my
experience in government,
There's always gonna be others
in situations like this.
I told you before
that my thoughts on that
are like it's like the choking
of the small communities
in not just Nova Scotia
but across the country,
we've decentralized everything,
removed everybody out.
The community of Little
Anse which is potentially
exposed to being cut off
from the rest of Isle Madame
because of just a barrier
that's been broken down
over the last while, I look at
other areas of the provinces
like Advocate Harbor, which
is receiving very substantive
federal investment
in their seawall.
I traveled to Advocate
Harbor, I went down to see
what was going on
in Advocate Harbor,
it's about a million
and a half dollars
they're putting in there
and it's about a kilometer
from a commercial harbor
and the DFO is preparing
this land for sale.
It's a strange one to justify,
but nonetheless
they're going forward
and they feel that they'll
be able to sell the property
behind the seawall
once they move on it.
We have two factors
here, one is global warming
and sea level rise
because of ice melting
and there's just
more water around
and the other thing is
that in certain parts
the land is sinking.
As it happens, Gabarus and
Little Anse are right here
in that red part where we
look at about 20 centimeters
of sinking irrespective
of sea level rise, right,
so the land goes down, so this
is on top of global warming
and sea level rise, which
makes it particularly,
these two communities are
particularly vulnerable.
In Little Anse we have a
problem with our breakwater.
As you can see behind me I
believe over my right shoulder
that there's quite the
hole in the breakwater
and any times there's any
type of northeasterly winds
or whatnot, the
water just comes in
and it ends up affecting our
beach and affecting our road.
At times we have had...
Storms that...
Damaged the road going
across, blocked the road off
with quite a bit of water.
I don't understand how
the Canadian government
can justify doing a lot
of the things that they do
because they'll fund
food for someone in some
third world country, I
have nothing against that,
you know, but if
we're gonna go to war
and we're gonna go disrupt
the lives of people overseas,
we should look
after our own first.
Once upon a time I
did a coop term for DFO.
You have the numbers that
come across your desk.
You don't see the people
and you can't afford to
see the people sometimes
because that
complicates the picture.
Then they start making
the economic argument
that the village is too small,
any number of other excuses
they have, what they
don't realize is
if they don't fix it, the
village gets even smaller.
The water still comes
up, a foot and a half
or two feet of water
in the main road,
an ambulance might
not be able to get by.
Causes great concern because
we have a lot of elderly people
living here.
This is my home.
I've lived here for 56 years.
I'm not going to go somewhere
else unless they carry me out
that I can't take care
of myself anymore.
That breakwater was
built by the government.
The dike was built
by the government.
The wharves were built
by the government.
Now they say they don't own it?
We need to
complicate the picture.
We need to make
them see it's people
and when you take away
the infrastructure
and the livelihood of the
people, you kill the communities
and when you kill the
communities, you kill the culture.
I've been to Little Anse and
visited with the people there
and their sea wall
issue, but the community
never seemed to have
the drive behind it
that the village of Gabarus had.
I've always believed that
my job as a politician
is not to take on a project
and to make it happen.
My role is to help facilitate
what the community wants.
Once the community decides
that this is what they want,
then a politician should
be there to help them
to get the guidance to find
open the doors and do that
because if the
community hasn't decided
that that's what they
want for their community,
it's not gonna happen.
This is government's
responsibility and you've got
a line that was issued
by one of the ministers
of government
basically saying that,
the government of Canada
can't be expected to protect
every inch of the coastline.
Well, that's precisely
what their obligation is.
So I'm sorry that you're
receiving this negative response
but you know, this...
We're looking for someone
to get our hands on
and unfortunately you just
happened to show up here.
You happened to be here.
We've been red flagged,
as you say, 18 months ago.
You as the emergency
measures coordinated
for the municipality, up
until appearance here tonight,
what have you done?
Well, if something
was to happen out here
and someone called 911,
well, for example
the police department
has watch commanders on
duty, like they're on duty
all the time, if something
serious was to happen
that information would go
to the watch commander.
'Cause we're not
gonna be able to get up
and go knock on everybody's
door at three o'clock
in the morning, we might
not be able to get to them
but could we get some kind
of an alarm system, a tower?
This is not a situation
where there is a general risk
of something
unexpected happening.
There's an identifiable
structure that has an identifiable
function whose
efficacy is failing.
So you know, this is not
about if, this is about when.
We're always willing as
far as our administration
to work with the local
departments to assist them
to develop whatever
plans they might need.
And we don't want the
fire department to have
to make that plan because
there's liabilities
associated with that plan
not being made correctly.
Please, just a plan,
we just need ABCD,
this is what we do in the
event of an emergency.
We hear your frustration
and we're not saying
we disagree with you, but
a lot of the questions
you need answers,
we can't answer.
Some of the stuff that
you're talking about here
is your elected officials.
Nobody seems to want
to take responsibility
but at the end of the day
it's all our responsibilities,
mine as an elected person,
you as people that work
in the civil service.
I think it's disgraceful
of the federal and provincial
governments that they can't
split the cost of fixing
that damn wall 50/50 and then
work it out between them later
When the numbers come out,
they're gonna be so damning
in terms of the impact,
the financial impact,
not just on this
community but on CBRM
and on Nova Scotia, it will
make fixing the sea wall
seem very, very, very cheap.
And a plan should be
developed as a result
of the risk hazard
and I'm just not sure
whose responsibility that is.
I sorta get global
climate change,
I was a subject matter
expert in the US government.
I understand that the
people who don't believe it,
people who do believe it,
it sorta doesn't matter.
We live on a dynamic planet.
Change is happening,
change is happening
to all these small
communities on the coast
and all the small
communities on the coast
rely on first responders
and CBRM as a first line
of defense, the community
is living in real time.
It's happening to us now.
I suspect there is somebody
who's sitting there
who probably needs
to know in real time
that the bad thing that
we hoped wouldn't happen
is happening right now.
What is it we need to do now?
I want to know, what are
the environmental costs
that are gonna come
from that breach?
How many lives are gonna
be lost or at risk?
What property damage, what
is the insurance claims,
are we gonna, I mean, what did
it take to clean up in '83?
Probably, by the way, far
less than it's gonna take
to fix that wall.
He's got a point.
Trucks have been rolling
through town with large rocks,
large armor stone, the
work that everyone thought
was never going to
begin is underway
to reinforce the seawall.
I want to welcome you all.
It's certainly been
a journey for us,
back in March of 2011
when this all started,
trying to get a sea wall and
then some real eager hands
took over and some very
credible people jumped in
and said hey, let us help you.
In recognition of
this tremendous effort,
it reminds me of Churchill
saying, never has so many owed
so much to so few.
If the community had
not come together behind
the Friends of Gabarus
which was relentless
in making the case for
saving this village,
we know that the wall was
finished just in the nick of time,
given the winter weather
we had this year.
We would have absolutely lost
the bottom end of the village.
People until they actually
saw the trucks arrive
and the construction
equipment on the beach
prepared to do repairs
on the seawall.
Nobody really believed it.
People were generally surprised
that these guys were
able to pull this off.
Nobody ever thought
that FOG would succeed.
This just isn't a place,
it's a community and
it's people that care
and it's people that matter
and we couldn't have done
this without you guys
standing behind us
every step of the way
and we want to thank you.
Does anybody have 59,
does anybody have 59,
do we hear 59?
I'm sure nobody drinks wine.
- 94.
- 16 at the back,
looking for 20, 20, I
have, going once, 2020s,
sold to number 50 for 20.
They're small communities
that you know are featured in
little stories here
and there in the paper
but I don't think there's
been that real gel
of the people like we
have here and I attribute
a lot of that to the newcomers
that have come in here.
They had more experience
fighting government
and not accepting
no as an answer
and they did this in
conjunction with the people
that lived here.
Our project was the one that
sort of got things rolling,
it was hardly
anybody who believed
we were gonna have any success.
I think that's when we
became a formidable group
to deal with.
- Tim.
- How you doing, Tim?
- Good to see you.
- Heather.
- Hi, Heather.
- Hi, how are you?
Gene.
Is it completely,
like, silent on the DFO front
or has there been any
effort to try and get them
to do anything since?
Well, it was idle
for a little bit,
then I was fortunate enough
that my wife and I met
Minister Le Blanc who
basically said, you know what,
I wish I could help you
right now, it's just
your harbor's no
longer a core harbor.
DFO is not gonna be able
to give you any money
for that stuff.
It is still the policy
of the federal government
of Canada to encourage
people to remain living
in coastal communities
and fish, okay.
Then it is the obligation
of the federal government
to make sure that those
communities prosper.
I don't care who's elected,
I don't care who's not elected
Fix that and fix it today
and my and your home
and family are just as
important as anybody living
in downtown Montreal,
Halifax, Toronto.
I grew up here, I know, I
know what goes on as well.
As Friends of Gabarus,
offering our help
and our expertise in, like,
our sister communities
with our media outreach,
with things we've
already discovered.
We're all in the same
leaky boat together,
and I said to Rod, we have
to learn to bail in unison
and row in the same direction.
If we can do that, we might
have half a chance of surviving.
And not spend half
our time arguing
who gets to be captain.
Certainly a great pleasure
for me to join you here
in Gabarus to participate
first in your 300th anniversary
celebrations, and to present
the Lieutenant Governor's
community spirit award.
A community is more than
roads, bricks and the mortar
that it contains, but
those physical aspects
are needed for a
community to function.
What brings a community to
life is certainly spirit.
We are not just recognizing
the service of individuals,
but the service of
a whole community.
Congratulations again
and thank you to all,
thank you, merci.
The history and the
heritage of this community,
when you go back to the first
recorded settlement here
of Gabarus in 1716 and you
look at all the history forward
from the Basque on, a
beautiful close knit community
is celebrating their
300th anniversary,
marking the 300 years
of fishing, friendship
and commitment to
community spirit.
Gabarus has received
the Nova Scotia
Lieutenant Governor's 2016
community spirit award
for their continued
dedication to the well being
and rich heritage and
history of this area.
♪ Here I stand a
100 years tall ♪
♪ Had memories behind my wall
♪ I remember every empty grave
♪ I remember every
face and every name ♪
Isn't it a great day
to be from Gabarus?
I'm sorry, I can't hear
you, isn't it a great day?
We have been fortunate with
the people that have been here
settling for a long time
and their families go back
a long way, but
at the same time,
we have new people moving
into our communities
that have embraced our community
and have made it a
part of their life
and to all of them, I want to
say a very special thank you
for what you are doing
with us and for us.
♪ So I won't give up
♪ I will not be moved
♪ I will find you
Every time I walk by the seawall
with our black Labrador, Lucy,
I look at the wall and
I feel a great pride
in not just our own
efforts but the fact
that we were joined in those
efforts by the community
as a whole.
I think the most important
thing for small communities
that have difficulties
similar to our own
or have their own
challenges is never give up
and never surrender.
You need to have the attitude
that you can do this,
that it is possible,
to fight City Hall.
If you believe in
democratic process,
then governments have to be
given the chance to respond
to the needs of the people
and if the people are silent
then government can get
away with doing as little
as government wishes.
Hello, whoever you are, we
believe that when God created
the earth, he
started with Gabarus.
The purpose of this is to
go in this time capsule.
It's to be put in the
ground under the lighthouse
and in 100 years time
it's going to be dug up
and it's rather exciting
at the age of 84
to be able to do this.
This particular one is
for the Gabarus lighthouse.
It'll have a story about the
lighthouse and why it was moved
and that sort of thing.
Other people around the
village have written stories,
added some historical
information and they have
their own individual
time capsule.
Seal it with a kiss.
I hope whoever gets it will
love Gabarus as much as I have.
The contest is called
This Lighthouse Matters.
It was sponsored
by the Nova Scotia
Lighthouse Preservation Society
and National Trust for Canada.
The reason why the lighthouse
hadn't been petitioned for
at the last moment
was in large part
because the community of
Gabarus was making sure
that the seawall
issue was dealt with
but when we started discussion
about the lighthouse
it was clear that oh yes,
we want to walk and chew gum
at the same time, we agree
this is absolutely important.
We were able to recruit
consultants who did
an excellent report who
said yes, there is a danger
and they recommended that
the lighthouse be moved
back a bit.
As a village of 78 people,
no one gave us much hope
of winning anything.
We were able to win $50,000
which proved to be enough
to move the lighthouse
and do some of the repairs
that are required.
I'm putting that dish
liquid on the beams
so the rails will slide on
top of it, make it easier,
'cause grease is not
environmentally friendly
but detergent is.
We started last
week getting prepared
for the building, level it
off because it was 10 inches
off level on the top
and we started to lift
and as we started
lifting the wind come up,
in a matter of 15 minutes
the building was rocking
back and forth eight inches.
A lighthouse 22 tons in weight
and extremely top heavy from
cast iron being inched along
steel rails to get it
away from the coastline.
♪ I'm almost home
♪ You'll never be alone
♪ I will find you
♪ I won't give up
♪ You might feel small
♪ But you're more than enough
♪ We've still got
♪ A lot left to do
Sea level rise is one of
the more difficult things
to estimate because we have
a very poor understanding
of the melting of
glaciers of ice.
Scientists are typically
very, very conservative
in their predictions.
Current predictions range
anywhere from 20 centimeters
by 2100 to two meters by 2100.
But it's quite possible that
we go beyond that scale.
Two meters is similar
to the storm surge
we had at the Hurricane
Sandy and that created
a huge devastation on the
eastern seaboard, right,
so two meters would be
really catastrophic.
If you think about it,
you have to resettle 60%
of the world population
in the next 80 years,
that's a major effort.
Could be us today and
somebody else tomorrow
but we're all on
the same planet.
We have to look after each
other, bring happiness
and respect and regard
for our community
and our country.
♪ I will find you
♪ I won't give up
♪ You might feel small
♪ But you're more than enough
♪ We've still got
♪ A lot left to do
♪ So I won't give up
♪ I will not be moved
♪ I will find you
♪ She goes down day after day
♪ She remembers
when you went away ♪
♪ Said I wish I
didn't have to go ♪
♪ But when you're looking
at the light you'll know ♪
♪ I'm almost home
♪ You'll never be alone
we're just gonna repeat 1983.
It's gonna give, the
harbor's gonna be flooded,
the lower half of the village
is gonna be wiped out.
They want to
focus on cities where there's
lots of people and lots
of income being generated
but we're contributing
members of the society as well
and we have rights
and we pay taxes.
Whether you think
climate change is a result
of human activities or
not, it doesn't matter.
This is a young changing planet.
I think it's
disgraceful of the federal
and provincial government,
that they can't split the cost
of fixing that damn wall
50/50 and then work it out
between them later.
It's our home and we
will do what we can to preserve
what is here and if the
worst happens, what is left.
We feel that there is a
community that should be saved.
Here's the
first one under the G, 52.
- I'll take 59.
- I'll take 59 too.
Under the I, 21.
Concentrate, people,
concentrate.
That's a lot of cream
cheese everywhere.
Having lived in a small
community, well Tim did too.
I didn't have a big
preconception, truly.
The only thing that we
didn't know was the politics
of this particular town and
that was gonna influence
any number of
things, not just...
Our being gay but
my being black.
Going back 12, 15 years
where newcomers basically
weren't welcomed with open
arms, I mean, it was kind of,
I suppose, a closed, almost
like a closed gate community.
- I'll put some aces down.
- Hey.
- Oh, he's got aces.
- They really didn't just
accept everybody.
And I can remember my mother
in law telling me one day
that this man, a businessman
was in the village
and somebody invited
in him to dinner
and it was in a Protestant
home, he was invited
and when he sat down the
table and he crossed himself,
he was asked to leave the house.
- 45, N45.
- N45.
The last few years, it's
a very dramatic change.
Two years ago, Gloria and
I just did a quick survey
and we were surprised in
that basically 2/3 of Gabarus
are now, would be
considered newcomers,
which surprised, I think
basically it surprised all of us.
- Whoo, bingo!
- Bingo!
- Solidarity, baby.
- We haven't talked about that
That's not that hard.
What was more interesting was,
not that either he was
black or we were gay,
it was that we were
from the states.
- We were Americans.
- We were Americans.
That was the big deal.
It's a big hurdle when you
come here because Americans
don't have a very
great rep in Canada.
You look at the weather
in the United States,
isn't it amazing that the
weather map ceases to have
information at the Canadian
border as if no weather
comes from the United
States from Canada.
It has the lower 48 in the
map and Alaska floating up here
and Hawaii floating
out in the Pacific
but there's no connection,
there's no land connection
between Alaska and the
lower 48 in the weather maps
in the United States.
- And sometimes...
- So Canada is
not there.
And sometimes there's
not even an indication.
90% of Canadians live within
100 miles of the
stupid US border.
One of the firemen had come
up with a nickname for us
which was salt and pepper, I
thought that was kind of cute.
Hmm.
But when we met Mildred,
the elder of the town,
and she had heard about
it through the grapevine,
she told the person who said
that, you won't be calling
those boys that, she
thought it was an insult.
When I was growing
up in the summer,
we spent a lot of time playing
around the beach, swimming
and in boats and catching
fish with a stick,
with a string on it
and a common pin.
They called them skull pins,
I don't know how to spell it,
even.
Mildred Gray was born in
Gabarus, she married my father,
who was also from Gabarus
and he was a fisherman.
My mother, she was
a telegraph operator
and a telephone operator and
then she was very involved
in the community.
So yes, please, help yourself.
So... so you be sure
to eat that.
Help yourself, yeah,
I put bowls there too
- for your fruit if you want.
- You went on ahead.
Oh, you did, Gloria,
you didn't, Gloria, look,
there's a thing over there
that'll take that better.
- Here.
- Oh, okay.
- Oh, that's hot.
- There's lots of food.
So we met Rhodena
the next day and John.
She knew that Gabarus
in order to survive
had to have new people
come in so she was glad
to have new people arriving
and it didn't matter to her
the category of new people
as long as they were people
who would love Gabarus.
Her collection of some 60
years worth of clippings
about the schools and
about the churches.
She was very protective
of all her material.
She wanted it done up
in a book and everything
and she talked to different
people but she would not trust
giving it to anybody for fear
that they were going to...
Plagiarize everything. Oh
really. So for her to come out
and hand it to you, is... is
really... really unique.
- Hi, Barry.
- Hey, Barry.
Come on in, bring a chair.
My wife and I moved here to
Gabarus about five years ago
and as you can see
it's breezy up here
and we call our little house
Which is Gaelic for
top of the wind.
We were here on the cruise
and we stopped here.
I fell in love with it
and I came out and
I bought this house
and then I told my wife
which itself was a
colorful experience.
Once she got here, the people
were so incredibly welcoming,
she fell in love
with the place too.
We moved here
about four years ago.
We had been looking for a
summer place and fell in love
with the village, I do international
project management here
We came here to
check out the place
and it was a sad little house.
My husband said that there's
no way we're buying it
but I bought it anyway and
when we looked out back
you can see in the bay
here, that's the reason
that we bought it.
I'm formerly from New
York and Philadelphia
and I have been in Gabarus
since I retired in 2006.
I was on a group tour in
Ireland and this gentleman
leans forward and says, you
can work on my boat anytime
and I thought that was the
best pickup line I ever heard
and I turned around and
met him and his wife.
They took me to Gabarus to
show me where they were going
to retire, and I
fell in love with it.
We're very happy
that we've moved here.
It was one of the best
decisions that we made.
Came here, our
grass was all cut.
We were welcomed
into their homes
and welcomed at their dinner
tables and into conversations,
it was a very exciting
thing coming from away
that we were welcomed
to that extent.
We thought, well, you know,
everybody here is like that,
we're gonna be in a
really good space.
♪ It's a little
piece of heaven ♪
♪ Nestled in the rocks
♪ Protected by the spirit
♪ Protected by the fog
♪ And the lighthouse
on the level ♪
♪ Will always lead us home
♪ Through stormy weather
♪ It's the calming of the
♪ Calming of the storm
♪ And when we'll be
♪ More than happy
There's four more
pieces of halibut
if anyone wants one.
♪ If we're
♪ Back on the bay
♪ I wanna be
♪ Back on the bay
♪ Where simple is the only way
In 1929, we had
a severe earthquake
and at that time it wasn't
a seawall as it was now.
It was, we always called
it the brush fence
and it was just
posts in the ground.
People were rowing boats
even up here where I lived
and then of course after that,
the government owned the...
the brush fence or the
seawall as it's called now,
it's the last section of
construction, I think was in 1946,
the federal government
owned, maintained it.
People in the village after
that storm got together
and bought planks and put
some more covering on it.
People often call
that the boardwalk
because hundreds of people
walked there in the summer,
tourists and people alike.
- Hey, Wayne.
- How you doing, Tim?
So I didn't time it
right, I didn't get here
when the work was all done.
No, that's what, you
gotta do that better.
I guess I shoulda waited
another half hour or so.
Well, yeah.
In 1983, the seawall
was breached during
a terrible storm and the
boats were upon the road
just over here.
There was just piles and
piles of wood, smashed buildings
and wharves and it
was a bad storm.
And after that people
talked about replacing
the boardwalk, but
that went nowhere.
2010, the storm we
had then was in January.
Seawall was breached and
the waves were coming
right over the top of it, this
back here where my wharf is
in the bay, we had the water
come over for the first time
and just threw it over
and it was just totally
just torn to pieces.
After 2010 a
terrible storm struck
and within 24 hours we
saw tremendous damage
and shifting of the seawall.
It became clear to us that
there was a history here,
that there was a terrible
chance for this community
to be damaged by another storm
of that strength or stronger.
I'm an engineer, human
structures don't last forever
and they have a
natural life cycle
and I could tell from looking
at it that it was beginning
to reach the end
of its useful age.
The problem I think
could be with others coming
'cause this community
is actually growing
so we're getting people here
from, really interesting people
from all over the world
and certainly the site
of the disaster when it
happens, the horrific pictures
of the boats overturned and
houses flooded and smashed
is going to have a terrible
impact on our capacity
to grow this community
and in fact on Cape Breton
and its reputation worldwide
as a tourist center
and... and Canada.
Coastal communities are
affected by climate change
in two ways, one is the
increasing severity of storms
and therefore the increase of
the... in the height of the storm surge
and secondly on by sea level
rise, in the case of Gabarus,
they are sitting actually
in one of the hot spots
for land sinking in Nova Scotia.
We expect about 30
centimeters of sinking
in the next 100 years
plus 70 centimeters
of sea level rise so
they're looking at probably
a forecast of one meter
of local sea level rise.
We're gathering here
today to help people get
a better understanding
of what this seawall
means to this community.
It's been breached
in several storms now
and it's at the point now where
really, it's done its job.
You can see where the
wall has been breached.
There's a separation here,
it's not gonna take much more
for this to be completely gone
and then once this
is opened, it's just,
the rest of it will go.
Have a look at this, the
wall is leaning down this way
and if you look further down
it's becoming impossible
for people to walk on it.
This used to be on the
upper part, a boardwalk
for people to walk,
it's a seawall.
Some folks here from
Gabarus have decided
to take matters into
their own hands.
The wall is leaning so
far that we thought maybe
we could hold it up if
nobody else wants to help us.
You'll notice some folks
have life jackets on.
They're future planners because
if the wall isn't repaired
we're gonna need life jackets.
I'd say that it's
not a matter of if,
it's a matter of when
the seawall breaks,
if there isn't some urgent
action and some attention to it.
And should that happen, it
could close off our harbor
and make it unavailable
as a fishing harbor
and it could do tremendous
damage to all the fishing
infrastructure, even if
the harbor remained open.
The fishing day starts at
2:30 when the alarm goes off.
Pack my lunch, board a
boat roughly by 3:30,
we spend roughly 12
hours out in the water
hauling pier, checking traps
and moving 'em, baiting 'em,
getting lobsters and back home
by 12, back to the wharf by 12
and then we get our baits and
all that ready for tomorrow
and I'm home by two o'clock,
shower and relax for the day.
It's been estimated there
are at least 30 local jobs
and maybe as many as 70
that are indirectly tied
to the fishery here in Gabarus.
Not all of the fishermen
who are here would continue
in fishing if the harbor
failed because they live here.
There's no other nearby
harbor that could accommodate
their boats and they
would then have to move
and many people are at
a stage in their life
where they're not
prepared to do that.
I got people calling
me up all the time
asking me what's going on and
stuff on Facebook all the time
and I send them pictures
and everyone's worried,
just not the 78 that live here.
I was always aware of the
seawall, I was concerned
about the seawall because
I'm fourth house up
which means if the
seawall breaks,
I'm gonna be swimming and all
we need is a good hurricane
and that seawall will go.
We feel like the history
here and the people
and the economy are all worth
investing in because the money
that's been derived from
taxation that goes out of here
each year from the landed
catch which might be
$3 to $5 million a year
worth of catch, lobster, crab,
scallops, halibut,
mackerel, about 52% of that,
52 cents of every dollar goes
to one or another
taxing authority
but very few of those dollars
and cents come back here.
We'd like to see the cents
come back into the government
and some of the dollars
to come back here.
And so we thought, well,
we'll fight for this.
This was a federal structure.
There shouldn't be a huge
problem getting the federal
government to live up
to it's obligations.
All we have to do is, you know,
make some noise,
show our concern
and the government
would respond.
So we thought.
♪ Back on the bay
♪ We can walk around
Roses Island ♪
♪ Carve our dreams in the sand
♪ Watch our daughter grow up
♪ Strong and free
♪ Ground into this land
♪ And if we hold on tight
♪ We'll make it through
♪ But this sea is killing me
♪ We gotta get out
♪ Of this place
♪ Please
I live here on Gull
Cove Road in Gabarus.
With my wife, Jacklyn
Holmes and our friend
Katherine Harris, we own
Rising Tide Expeditions.
A sea kayaking tourism
and instruction company.
We've always enjoyed
rural living.
We enjoy being outside in
the woods and on the ocean,
kind of making and doing
on our own for ourselves
and Gabarus is just a
beautiful quiet place.
My husband at the
time was not my husband
and he had planned
a six day trip.
During that trip, he
proposed, which I didn't,
I wasn't expecting and so
that was pretty exciting,
and so our first time
in Gabarus was camping
on the very kind of outer
ridge of Gabarus Harbor
at a place called
Gul Cove Village.
The next day when we
woke up we paddled in
and took a look at
Gabarus and went wow,
what a cool, beautiful place.
- I feel bad for that lobster.
- Why?
There's more lobsters in there.
Do you want to pick one up?
Reach in.
There we go.
- Good job.
- Oh, what is she doing?
- Whoa!
- What's your sister doing?
- Helping.
- Yes, she is helping.
Keep going.
Oh goodness, I wouldn't
have thought, because when
I first looked at it I
thought it was Albert.
- No, it's mine.
- Yeah.
Would've been...
That's their three children.
Auntie Waynes, when
they were little.
Y'all know who this is?
- I don't.
- No.
Have you got a magnifying glass?
I do.
1983 was when the
seawall came apart.
Yes, yes.
Mildred and Duncan
and what is it? A Wedding?
- 40th anniversary.
- We were so sick and tired
- of washing dishes up there.
- A dishwasher.
For their 40th anniversary.
I should become a
traditional Gabarus.
- We all three of us gave that
- That's Maureen there.
- Is that our Sandra?
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- Oh my goodness.
We had another huge storm
and it did a lot of damage
to the village and to the
boats and the wharves.
And how we started
out of course was with
a general consensus of
talking to one another
and said we have to do something
or you know, our
village is in jeopardy.
The people decided
they would have a meeting
to see what could be done.
Our seawall has protected
not only the fishermen
but the homes located
around the harbor too.
I think of the situation
now with the seawall
on shaky ground.
I was there in 1983, the
last time the seawall broke
and I saw the destruction
that can happen.
I saw the seawall then and now,
and it's in far worse shape now
and much easier to break
through with higher tides
that experts and our
fisherman are telling us.
Out of that meeting,
they formed a committee
called Friends of Gabarus.
Who actively got involved
and we went to Province House
first up in Halifax
and from there,
it just kept on snowballing
because we kept on
getting one referral
after another
and one party after another
saying, it's not our problem,
it's not our problem.
Since everybody's
here, for the question,
who owns the structure?
I've been at this for years
and I have yet to come up
with an answer.
This is an information
session, but we can assure you
we know who owns the
wall, who owns the harbor.
We also know that
ownership is not equated
to responsibility.
Who cares who owns it?
We need to have responsible
people step forward and say
that this isn't right.
We need to have it fixed.
We're one wave away and we,
in the past, before yesterday,
we're speaking about, wow,
if we get a big storm,
it's gonna be gone, well,
no, the study comes back
and says, if we get a
high moon and a high tide,
that wall could
collapse at any time
so time is of the essence.
The Atlantic Ocean doesn't
give two hoots about us,
but our elected representatives
really should care
because that's why
we put them there.
The mounds of
emails and papers and so on
that they've sent back and
forth would surely fill
half a room of a
normal bedroom size
and they just would not stop.
Well, the seawall issue
has been an ongoing item
for a number of years
in community of Gabarus.
I had a number of meetings
with local fishermen
who were concerned about
some of the aspects
of what might happen if the
sea wall were ever to give up
and then we moved along
and talked to try to get
some activity, but as
you can understand,
there's many, many files
that we are working on.
When the seawall really became
a work in motion, I guess,
is what I'd like to
call it is really when
the community got involved.
So this is how I start,
I start with a little bit
of water and a little bit of...
Sky.
So that would be my
light for the lighthouse
and then I'd glue all this
on, wing of the seagull there.
It's tedious work
but I love doing it.
This is how I would finish
this, I put it in a shadow box.
Oh, I put some sand down
here and some seashells to
depict a beach.
This was the original
road to Gul Cove
and this is where the
forefathers of Gabarus lived,
was out in Gul Cove and
it's about four miles
from the cemetery, so
that's what we're doing
is trying to make sure
for our 300th anniversary,
that we have a good
path going out there
so that people can go
out and visit the sites
of where their
forefathers lived.
That far point out there?
We call that North
Shore over there.
Around that point, the town
of Louisburg, the fortress.
The pivotal part of
the French Indian wars
and the battle for our continent
also played itself out
right here in this bay.
Louisburg which was next to
Quebec the mightiest fortress
in North America was built at
such great expense that... that...
Louis often said he expected
to look out his window
at Versailles and see
this thing rising up out
of the Atlantic.
The history of Canada in
terms of European settlement
began here, largely and Gabarus
played an important role
and particularly Gabarus
Bay in the battles between
the British and the
French over domination
of North America.
This area was first
settled by Basque fisherman
and whalers that came
here in the 1500s,
that Gabarus Bay and the village
of Gabarus are named after
a Basque fishing
captain from that time.
Following that were
the French that settled
the French fortress of
Louisburg, settled this area.
But the fall of Louisburg
meant the doom of New France
because the following
year, the English fleet
were able to get up to St.
Lawrence, bypass the fort
which was guarding the river
and lay siege to Quebec.
And when that was settled,
at least in this area
and eventually across Canada
and the United States,
it changed the
future of this area.
We've got all these
little things up the treads
on the stairs, the old
part of the fireplace
was down the basement,
half buried in mud
when we moved in
and so we put that back in
but I never knew what to do
with the mantelpiece,
so I decided a picture,
a little sketch of
the village would work
so that's the harbor and
that's the way it was
when we first moved down.
This little piece of
driftwood from the beach,
it spoke to me.
My husband Peter and
I are from Toronto.
We came to the east coast
and thought this is the place
that we'd like to
build a retirement home
somewhere in Cape Breton,
went to a real estate agent
who sent us off with
directions to find a half built
log cabin that she thought we
might be interested in buying.
We followed the directions
and never found the log cabin
and when we came
back out to the road,
we thought Sydney was to the
left instead of the right.
Turned left and got
to the end of the road
which happened to be in Gabarus.
And then she went to
do a presentation in Paris
about the letters,
so I wrote to her.
- Was she alone?
- There's actually three
separate ones.
In 2012, the Federal
Department of Fisheries and Oceans
decided that most of the
lighthouses in Canada
would be declared surplus,
which means they are not
gonna be maintained and
if the government is able
to get rid of them,
they will pass them off
to local communities,
if no one's interested
in taking them over, the
lighthouses will be torn down
and replaced by a metal
pole with a red light
and a little solar
box on the top.
Find someone who can actually
pick it up and move it.
And they are gonna
have to get underneath.
Well, that's why I
wondered how rotten it was.
I don't think
it's really rotten.
Some of the corner pieces
are a little bit rotten
but underneath seems
to be fairly solid.
If you go inside, it's like
the inside of an old ship.
The effects of sea level
rise on local communities
are obviously that
we need to strengthen
existing infrastructure
like seawalls or,
if the sea level rise
is drastic enough
we may actually have to
relocate existing infrastructure
like lighthouses,
that's the actual impact
that it's gonna
have on a community.
The connection with Gabarus
is through our undergraduate
students who have been
involved over a few years
in different capacities
with helping to get the
Gabarus Lighthouse
Project off the ground.
Maritime markers like
lighthouses and navigational aids
are something that people
identify with their own culture
and to eradicate
that I think would be
a really sad thing for all of us
and we lose out on an
opportunity to educate
and celebrate the cultural
aspects of maritime life.
When we shared that with
the Department of
Fisheries and Oceans,
the response came back
no, we've studied this,
there's no danger.
As a community, we
have applied to take over
ownership of the lighthouse.
We are going to work
incredibly hard.
We're gonna do everything we
can to save that lighthouse
and we is the village.
As a... you know young
mother in my nursing career,
I didn't have much
time until our daughter
grew up and went
away to university.
I sold my first
painting in 1972.
And it was probably one of
the happiest times in my life
to think that somebody
liked my art well enough
that they bought a painting.
I mixed up a nice dark
color so I used blue.
Burnt sienna.
It's my favorite
way of doing a rock
and all of a sudden
it looks like a rock
and then I have rocks
in through here,
big wave coming over.
We've seen repeatedly
over the past few years
some terribly punishing storms
and with that we're at risk
of losing part of the wall
or as the province said in
their coastal hazard assessment,
and engineers later
confirmed, it can fail
in several places, not just one.
Little doubt about the fact
that the federal government
in particular and the Department
of Fisheries and Oceans
specifically has been
absolutely resistant
even though there's ample
evidence, the seawall is owned
by them and in fact is in
documents showing them owning it.
There have been a couple
of levels of government
that have been responsive
and that would be first
the municipal government
committed some resources,
$100,000 from
sustainability funds derived
from federal funding to
help repair the seawall
but it was contingent on
provincial participation
as well as federal.
This is a letter
that was written
on behalf of the community
by our member of
Parliament, Rodger Cuzner
which pointed out quite clearly,
Department of
Fisheries and Oceans
had a continuing obligation
to maintain the seawall
and that in fact they
were not doing so.
There's been material
sent to us that have sender,
recipient, date, signature.
That's it, everything
else has been redacted.
Oh, come on, come on.
What's interesting is,
you know where the seawall is?
This was built 1955, '56
and it is a creosoted timber
cribwork just like the seawall
and it was 90 meters long.
And it's almost gone.
It's almost gone away.
Now to
another part of Nova Scotia
that's experiencing the
effects of storm surge,
the community of Gabarus
is concerned about
its protective seawall.
As the storm rages on
today in Cape Breton,
people in Gabarus are
calling it a near miss
that further proves
the decades old wall
needs to be replaced.
This video taken
just before yesterday's
high tide shows huge
storm waves threatening
dangerously close to
Gabarus's decrepit seawall.
Tim White says the surge
nearly broke through.
The waves were breaking
up to 12 to 14 feet tall,
a couple hundred
meters offshore.
The waves are still fierce today
as the seawall,
leaning and buckling
after decades of
service, fends them off.
But Tim Menk of the community
group Friends of Gabarus
says this storm shows just
how close the village is
to experiencing
serious flooding.
It would take just the right
or say just the wrong wave
and combination of high
tide, full moon, storm surge.
In January of last year,
the Cape Breton regional
municipality promised
$100,000 to fix the seawall
if the provincial and
federal governments
would put up the rest.
Fast forward more
than a year later
and the rest of that funding
still hasn't been secured.
This fall Fisheries and
Oceans told Friends of Gabarus
it would not pay to replace
the wall because although
Ottawa built it,
the structure sits on
provincially owned land.
Now Menk says his group plans
to file negligence complaints
against DFO.
I believe that the government
needs to pay attention
to this because we live here
and they want to focus on cities
where there's lots of
people and lots of income
being generated, but
we're contributing members
of the society as well
and we have rights
and we pay taxes.
An engineer came out and
did a study and he presented
his results including the
fact that if the seawall
really were breached in a
bad storm, the water could
come all the way up to my house.
I'm still glad I came here.
The cost to
rehabilitate the village
after it's been
destroyed by a wave
is gonna be tenfold what it
would cost to fix that wall.
I am very optimistic,
that first of all that
nothing will happen
and secondly that
it will get fixed.
However, if it did come up
and damage or destroy my house
then I probably
would not stay here.
I think we would want to stay.
I don't think there's
anything that would impel me
to leave this community
at this point.
I think Gene feels the same way.
It's our home and we will
do what we can to preserve
what is here and if the
worst happens, what is left.
Probably at 1/3 of
the lower of part
of our historic
village will be gone.
I'm not afraid of
struggle, I'm a Quaker.
It's not in my nature.
There's a saying about Quakers,
we don't bend very easily.
And so standing up for what
we believe in is not a problem
and that was the attitude
I came to Gabarus with.
When you're laying in
bed and you hear that wind
coming from the southeast,
and blowing up the harbor,
you know there is a big storm
is gonna take a
pounding on the seawall.
There's gonna be damage.
Disavowal of responsibility
by the provincial
and federal governments,
they just say
it's not their problem,
it's our problem,
it's somebody else's problem
and the thing that
would make me most angry
is the government
showing up after that.
The prime minister or one of
his delegates landing here
in a helicopter,
driving down and saying
what a sin it is that Gabarus
is washing into the sea?
When they haven't done
anything about it.
Basically, I just
want to encourage people
to embrace the 300th since
we are twice Canada's age
in 2017, I would suggest that
we might want to consider
having this
celebration go from now
until the sesquicentennial
of Canada.
Couple ideas that I
have, one would be to...
Have some kind of a
four by four rally race
that would use the
old French road,
'cause we have to get to
a stage where we've got
traffic on that road, it's
the oldest road in Nova Scotia
and they closed it.
Sit, sit, Alfie, high
five, high five, come on.
Aw, that's the boy, good boy.
Went to the states and came
back, I was able to show them
a Canadian passport which
was really great fun,
such a relief in a
way to have it settled
and to know that we are people
of status in both countries,
so.
So you probably know
about the hookers,
do you know about the
hookers of Gabarus?
They're a group of women,
Diane Harris started
this group and they meet on
Tuesdays at the... now at the fire hall,
before it was at
the community center
where they do, they hook rugs.
Interesting.
- How many bows do you want?
- Five.
- Gumdrop cake.
- Gumdrop, yeah.
- I've got some gumdrop cake.
- Are you playing darts?
- Oh, here it is.
- After three weeks
- of not finding it.
- You got that, yes.
This here is flowers
here and it says here,
dare to be different, one
of the flowers is different
than all the rest.
I got a couple on my
wall, I did a lighthouse
for my home, I did that.
And a compass face, it's
called, and I have that
on the wall, that's
the only two.
There's only 78 people there,
why don't they move them
out, move them to Sydney
- or some place?
- Imagine.
Yeah.
I'd never leave here,
it's part of me, I couldn't.
I'm a third generation
fisherman, that's blood.
It's in you.
What I don't understand and
continue to not understand
is the reluctance on the
part of the government
to do any repairs, to see
the seriousness of it.
I gather that because there
are so many other communities
in a similar situation they're
afraid to open the floodgates
and if they fix the
sea wall in Gabarus
then there's very little
that stands in the way
of them fixing others.
You know, there's always
an argument that who owns
the property, the property
itself is owned in part
by the federal government
and part of it is
on provincial land.
The two levels of
government are saying
it's not our responsibility.
Meanwhile, the people
here in Gabarus,
every time the storm, you
hear about a sea storm,
you shiver because
you know the seawall's
gonna take a pounding.
Governments are lacking
wanting to communicate,
they made a decision
across the board
that people from across
the country, when you deal
with DFO, send in reports,
they're asked to look
at efficiencies, is
the word of the day,
efficiencies is a very
nice word for usually cuts.
About 22 of the 23
largest cities on earth
are coastal cities
and they harbor about
at least 60% of the
world population.
There's trading routes,
there's rich fishery
so it's no surprise that
everyone lives coastal in a way.
Losing access to coast
and coastal infrastructure
is gonna be something which
will matter to us in a big way.
We can't understand why
the heads of the government
are not interested in a
little place like Gabarus
with only 78 people.
Would they take responsibility
if those 78 people
got drowned tonight
with a ...with a storm?
And it could easily happen.
When you're born and
brought up in a community,
it's a part of you, nobody
can take that from you.
If anything majorly
happened to the seawall,
it busted, honestly I
don't know what I'd do.
I'm 50 years old, we're
not asking for money
for tourism reasons, we're
only asking the money for
to keep our way of
life, our fishing area,
the community itself,
for another 20 years,
Gabarus will still be here.
We don't want to be
shipped away some place.
It must be possible to
make it possible for them to
give the money to keep those
other communities alive
and not washed away to sea.
We live on a dynamic planet.
Whether you think climate change
is a result of human
activities or not,
in some ways it doesn't matter.
The vast majority of
many people in the world
settle on riverbanks and
deltas and oceanfront
because that's where
people earn their living.
People often live on coasts.
This country has
a lot of coasts.
Our job then was to
convince skeptical people
of the facts of the matter,
that it is a federal obligation
and that protecting coastal
communities under threat
from sea level rise and
climate change related issues
is a part of the
job of government.
I'm a businessman,
usually when we do things,
we set out a task and we
put out who's responsible.
We also put a time
and date in there.
I'm wondering if you can tell
us how long this is gonna take
before you get back to us
because we have a serious problem
that just isn't gonna go away.
I'll get back to you, Wayne,
as soon as the ministers
get back to me.
That's a nice
political answer, Alfie.
Wayne, I'm gonna make the
call tomorrow, I'm going
to Halifax tomorrow morning.
I'm gonna put a call
into both houses tomorrow
and hopefully they'll respond.
Has anybody approached DFO
through small craft harbors?
I don't know if it's the
seawall or it's what's
put up with armor stone for
a while until they come up
with some kind of
a major repair,
but I don't understand
why DFO's not in there
putting funds forward
for small craft harbors.
Gabarus is a divested
harbor and the divestitures,
somebody would know
that date better than me
but the divestiture took
place in the late '90s, 1997,
'95, I'm sorry, '95, so there's,
that would be the
difference there, so.
I'll take the mic.
Actually the harbor
was never divested.
What was divested was the wharf.
The harbor was deproclaimed.
In the 1990s when
the government decided
they had to balance the
budget, Canada was going broke,
Paul Martin was the
finance minister,
just put the brakes
on everything
and at that point the
government began abandoning
a lot of things that it had
traditional
responsibilities for.
Began getting rid of
airports, got rid of harbors,
we just, it was just a
flight from responsibility
in order to be able to meet
the financial requirements
of trying to balance the budget.
I think that that
momentum has continued.
That is the period when they
began to abandon harbors
here and seawalls, but the
point is you can't own something
for the better part of
3/4 of a century, build it
and maintain it all it and
then just wake up one morning
and decide, we don't
own it anymore.
We don't know who owns it,
but we don't own it anymore.
It's just not legally,
it's not sound.
It's astonishing to
me that the government
views this issue just
in terms of whether
it wants to protect its
shoreline as opposed
to being worried about
protecting its historical heritage.
You know, you're talking
a number of homes that if
that seawall breaks,
are gonna be washed out.
And...
And that for sure will ruin
the heritage of the area
because this is the heritage,
the fishing community,
the camaraderie that takes
place in the community.
It's not a question
of just 78 people,
it's a question of are we
going to abandon our shoreline.
Are we going to abandon
our local fisheries here?
Are we going to walk away from
1000 years of history here?
It's not about 78 people,
somebody's missing
the bigger question here.
So this is the thing
you were telling me about?
- Yeah.
- That's in the...
I never would have
dreamed when we started out
that we were ever gonna
show up on the front page
of the Globe & Mail.
I would've thought it'd
be a stretch to think
we'd ever show up in
the Globe & Mail period
and I think when
this article came out
then it became real for
people here in the village.
Our MP at the public meeting
we had back in January
identified a place I'd
never heard of before
like I'd never heard of
Gabarus before I came here,
Little Anse was having
problems with DFO
with a seawall or a breakwater...
Was that Rodger?
- Yes, it was Rodger.
- Rodger Cuzner.
Rodger Cuzner, yep, and
the idea that we weren't
the only town, the only
village that was having
a problem with DFO sort
of struck a chord with me
that maybe there's more
than just the two of us.
Well, that's, given my
experience in government,
There's always gonna be others
in situations like this.
I told you before
that my thoughts on that
are like it's like the choking
of the small communities
in not just Nova Scotia
but across the country,
we've decentralized everything,
removed everybody out.
The community of Little
Anse which is potentially
exposed to being cut off
from the rest of Isle Madame
because of just a barrier
that's been broken down
over the last while, I look at
other areas of the provinces
like Advocate Harbor, which
is receiving very substantive
federal investment
in their seawall.
I traveled to Advocate
Harbor, I went down to see
what was going on
in Advocate Harbor,
it's about a million
and a half dollars
they're putting in there
and it's about a kilometer
from a commercial harbor
and the DFO is preparing
this land for sale.
It's a strange one to justify,
but nonetheless
they're going forward
and they feel that they'll
be able to sell the property
behind the seawall
once they move on it.
We have two factors
here, one is global warming
and sea level rise
because of ice melting
and there's just
more water around
and the other thing is
that in certain parts
the land is sinking.
As it happens, Gabarus and
Little Anse are right here
in that red part where we
look at about 20 centimeters
of sinking irrespective
of sea level rise, right,
so the land goes down, so this
is on top of global warming
and sea level rise, which
makes it particularly,
these two communities are
particularly vulnerable.
In Little Anse we have a
problem with our breakwater.
As you can see behind me I
believe over my right shoulder
that there's quite the
hole in the breakwater
and any times there's any
type of northeasterly winds
or whatnot, the
water just comes in
and it ends up affecting our
beach and affecting our road.
At times we have had...
Storms that...
Damaged the road going
across, blocked the road off
with quite a bit of water.
I don't understand how
the Canadian government
can justify doing a lot
of the things that they do
because they'll fund
food for someone in some
third world country, I
have nothing against that,
you know, but if
we're gonna go to war
and we're gonna go disrupt
the lives of people overseas,
we should look
after our own first.
Once upon a time I
did a coop term for DFO.
You have the numbers that
come across your desk.
You don't see the people
and you can't afford to
see the people sometimes
because that
complicates the picture.
Then they start making
the economic argument
that the village is too small,
any number of other excuses
they have, what they
don't realize is
if they don't fix it, the
village gets even smaller.
The water still comes
up, a foot and a half
or two feet of water
in the main road,
an ambulance might
not be able to get by.
Causes great concern because
we have a lot of elderly people
living here.
This is my home.
I've lived here for 56 years.
I'm not going to go somewhere
else unless they carry me out
that I can't take care
of myself anymore.
That breakwater was
built by the government.
The dike was built
by the government.
The wharves were built
by the government.
Now they say they don't own it?
We need to
complicate the picture.
We need to make
them see it's people
and when you take away
the infrastructure
and the livelihood of the
people, you kill the communities
and when you kill the
communities, you kill the culture.
I've been to Little Anse and
visited with the people there
and their sea wall
issue, but the community
never seemed to have
the drive behind it
that the village of Gabarus had.
I've always believed that
my job as a politician
is not to take on a project
and to make it happen.
My role is to help facilitate
what the community wants.
Once the community decides
that this is what they want,
then a politician should
be there to help them
to get the guidance to find
open the doors and do that
because if the
community hasn't decided
that that's what they
want for their community,
it's not gonna happen.
This is government's
responsibility and you've got
a line that was issued
by one of the ministers
of government
basically saying that,
the government of Canada
can't be expected to protect
every inch of the coastline.
Well, that's precisely
what their obligation is.
So I'm sorry that you're
receiving this negative response
but you know, this...
We're looking for someone
to get our hands on
and unfortunately you just
happened to show up here.
You happened to be here.
We've been red flagged,
as you say, 18 months ago.
You as the emergency
measures coordinated
for the municipality, up
until appearance here tonight,
what have you done?
Well, if something
was to happen out here
and someone called 911,
well, for example
the police department
has watch commanders on
duty, like they're on duty
all the time, if something
serious was to happen
that information would go
to the watch commander.
'Cause we're not
gonna be able to get up
and go knock on everybody's
door at three o'clock
in the morning, we might
not be able to get to them
but could we get some kind
of an alarm system, a tower?
This is not a situation
where there is a general risk
of something
unexpected happening.
There's an identifiable
structure that has an identifiable
function whose
efficacy is failing.
So you know, this is not
about if, this is about when.
We're always willing as
far as our administration
to work with the local
departments to assist them
to develop whatever
plans they might need.
And we don't want the
fire department to have
to make that plan because
there's liabilities
associated with that plan
not being made correctly.
Please, just a plan,
we just need ABCD,
this is what we do in the
event of an emergency.
We hear your frustration
and we're not saying
we disagree with you, but
a lot of the questions
you need answers,
we can't answer.
Some of the stuff that
you're talking about here
is your elected officials.
Nobody seems to want
to take responsibility
but at the end of the day
it's all our responsibilities,
mine as an elected person,
you as people that work
in the civil service.
I think it's disgraceful
of the federal and provincial
governments that they can't
split the cost of fixing
that damn wall 50/50 and then
work it out between them later
When the numbers come out,
they're gonna be so damning
in terms of the impact,
the financial impact,
not just on this
community but on CBRM
and on Nova Scotia, it will
make fixing the sea wall
seem very, very, very cheap.
And a plan should be
developed as a result
of the risk hazard
and I'm just not sure
whose responsibility that is.
I sorta get global
climate change,
I was a subject matter
expert in the US government.
I understand that the
people who don't believe it,
people who do believe it,
it sorta doesn't matter.
We live on a dynamic planet.
Change is happening,
change is happening
to all these small
communities on the coast
and all the small
communities on the coast
rely on first responders
and CBRM as a first line
of defense, the community
is living in real time.
It's happening to us now.
I suspect there is somebody
who's sitting there
who probably needs
to know in real time
that the bad thing that
we hoped wouldn't happen
is happening right now.
What is it we need to do now?
I want to know, what are
the environmental costs
that are gonna come
from that breach?
How many lives are gonna
be lost or at risk?
What property damage, what
is the insurance claims,
are we gonna, I mean, what did
it take to clean up in '83?
Probably, by the way, far
less than it's gonna take
to fix that wall.
He's got a point.
Trucks have been rolling
through town with large rocks,
large armor stone, the
work that everyone thought
was never going to
begin is underway
to reinforce the seawall.
I want to welcome you all.
It's certainly been
a journey for us,
back in March of 2011
when this all started,
trying to get a sea wall and
then some real eager hands
took over and some very
credible people jumped in
and said hey, let us help you.
In recognition of
this tremendous effort,
it reminds me of Churchill
saying, never has so many owed
so much to so few.
If the community had
not come together behind
the Friends of Gabarus
which was relentless
in making the case for
saving this village,
we know that the wall was
finished just in the nick of time,
given the winter weather
we had this year.
We would have absolutely lost
the bottom end of the village.
People until they actually
saw the trucks arrive
and the construction
equipment on the beach
prepared to do repairs
on the seawall.
Nobody really believed it.
People were generally surprised
that these guys were
able to pull this off.
Nobody ever thought
that FOG would succeed.
This just isn't a place,
it's a community and
it's people that care
and it's people that matter
and we couldn't have done
this without you guys
standing behind us
every step of the way
and we want to thank you.
Does anybody have 59,
does anybody have 59,
do we hear 59?
I'm sure nobody drinks wine.
- 94.
- 16 at the back,
looking for 20, 20, I
have, going once, 2020s,
sold to number 50 for 20.
They're small communities
that you know are featured in
little stories here
and there in the paper
but I don't think there's
been that real gel
of the people like we
have here and I attribute
a lot of that to the newcomers
that have come in here.
They had more experience
fighting government
and not accepting
no as an answer
and they did this in
conjunction with the people
that lived here.
Our project was the one that
sort of got things rolling,
it was hardly
anybody who believed
we were gonna have any success.
I think that's when we
became a formidable group
to deal with.
- Tim.
- How you doing, Tim?
- Good to see you.
- Heather.
- Hi, Heather.
- Hi, how are you?
Gene.
Is it completely,
like, silent on the DFO front
or has there been any
effort to try and get them
to do anything since?
Well, it was idle
for a little bit,
then I was fortunate enough
that my wife and I met
Minister Le Blanc who
basically said, you know what,
I wish I could help you
right now, it's just
your harbor's no
longer a core harbor.
DFO is not gonna be able
to give you any money
for that stuff.
It is still the policy
of the federal government
of Canada to encourage
people to remain living
in coastal communities
and fish, okay.
Then it is the obligation
of the federal government
to make sure that those
communities prosper.
I don't care who's elected,
I don't care who's not elected
Fix that and fix it today
and my and your home
and family are just as
important as anybody living
in downtown Montreal,
Halifax, Toronto.
I grew up here, I know, I
know what goes on as well.
As Friends of Gabarus,
offering our help
and our expertise in, like,
our sister communities
with our media outreach,
with things we've
already discovered.
We're all in the same
leaky boat together,
and I said to Rod, we have
to learn to bail in unison
and row in the same direction.
If we can do that, we might
have half a chance of surviving.
And not spend half
our time arguing
who gets to be captain.
Certainly a great pleasure
for me to join you here
in Gabarus to participate
first in your 300th anniversary
celebrations, and to present
the Lieutenant Governor's
community spirit award.
A community is more than
roads, bricks and the mortar
that it contains, but
those physical aspects
are needed for a
community to function.
What brings a community to
life is certainly spirit.
We are not just recognizing
the service of individuals,
but the service of
a whole community.
Congratulations again
and thank you to all,
thank you, merci.
The history and the
heritage of this community,
when you go back to the first
recorded settlement here
of Gabarus in 1716 and you
look at all the history forward
from the Basque on, a
beautiful close knit community
is celebrating their
300th anniversary,
marking the 300 years
of fishing, friendship
and commitment to
community spirit.
Gabarus has received
the Nova Scotia
Lieutenant Governor's 2016
community spirit award
for their continued
dedication to the well being
and rich heritage and
history of this area.
♪ Here I stand a
100 years tall ♪
♪ Had memories behind my wall
♪ I remember every empty grave
♪ I remember every
face and every name ♪
Isn't it a great day
to be from Gabarus?
I'm sorry, I can't hear
you, isn't it a great day?
We have been fortunate with
the people that have been here
settling for a long time
and their families go back
a long way, but
at the same time,
we have new people moving
into our communities
that have embraced our community
and have made it a
part of their life
and to all of them, I want to
say a very special thank you
for what you are doing
with us and for us.
♪ So I won't give up
♪ I will not be moved
♪ I will find you
Every time I walk by the seawall
with our black Labrador, Lucy,
I look at the wall and
I feel a great pride
in not just our own
efforts but the fact
that we were joined in those
efforts by the community
as a whole.
I think the most important
thing for small communities
that have difficulties
similar to our own
or have their own
challenges is never give up
and never surrender.
You need to have the attitude
that you can do this,
that it is possible,
to fight City Hall.
If you believe in
democratic process,
then governments have to be
given the chance to respond
to the needs of the people
and if the people are silent
then government can get
away with doing as little
as government wishes.
Hello, whoever you are, we
believe that when God created
the earth, he
started with Gabarus.
The purpose of this is to
go in this time capsule.
It's to be put in the
ground under the lighthouse
and in 100 years time
it's going to be dug up
and it's rather exciting
at the age of 84
to be able to do this.
This particular one is
for the Gabarus lighthouse.
It'll have a story about the
lighthouse and why it was moved
and that sort of thing.
Other people around the
village have written stories,
added some historical
information and they have
their own individual
time capsule.
Seal it with a kiss.
I hope whoever gets it will
love Gabarus as much as I have.
The contest is called
This Lighthouse Matters.
It was sponsored
by the Nova Scotia
Lighthouse Preservation Society
and National Trust for Canada.
The reason why the lighthouse
hadn't been petitioned for
at the last moment
was in large part
because the community of
Gabarus was making sure
that the seawall
issue was dealt with
but when we started discussion
about the lighthouse
it was clear that oh yes,
we want to walk and chew gum
at the same time, we agree
this is absolutely important.
We were able to recruit
consultants who did
an excellent report who
said yes, there is a danger
and they recommended that
the lighthouse be moved
back a bit.
As a village of 78 people,
no one gave us much hope
of winning anything.
We were able to win $50,000
which proved to be enough
to move the lighthouse
and do some of the repairs
that are required.
I'm putting that dish
liquid on the beams
so the rails will slide on
top of it, make it easier,
'cause grease is not
environmentally friendly
but detergent is.
We started last
week getting prepared
for the building, level it
off because it was 10 inches
off level on the top
and we started to lift
and as we started
lifting the wind come up,
in a matter of 15 minutes
the building was rocking
back and forth eight inches.
A lighthouse 22 tons in weight
and extremely top heavy from
cast iron being inched along
steel rails to get it
away from the coastline.
♪ I'm almost home
♪ You'll never be alone
♪ I will find you
♪ I won't give up
♪ You might feel small
♪ But you're more than enough
♪ We've still got
♪ A lot left to do
Sea level rise is one of
the more difficult things
to estimate because we have
a very poor understanding
of the melting of
glaciers of ice.
Scientists are typically
very, very conservative
in their predictions.
Current predictions range
anywhere from 20 centimeters
by 2100 to two meters by 2100.
But it's quite possible that
we go beyond that scale.
Two meters is similar
to the storm surge
we had at the Hurricane
Sandy and that created
a huge devastation on the
eastern seaboard, right,
so two meters would be
really catastrophic.
If you think about it,
you have to resettle 60%
of the world population
in the next 80 years,
that's a major effort.
Could be us today and
somebody else tomorrow
but we're all on
the same planet.
We have to look after each
other, bring happiness
and respect and regard
for our community
and our country.
♪ I will find you
♪ I won't give up
♪ You might feel small
♪ But you're more than enough
♪ We've still got
♪ A lot left to do
♪ So I won't give up
♪ I will not be moved
♪ I will find you
♪ She goes down day after day
♪ She remembers
when you went away ♪
♪ Said I wish I
didn't have to go ♪
♪ But when you're looking
at the light you'll know ♪
♪ I'm almost home
♪ You'll never be alone