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joe French’s Wharf

joe French’s Wharf

59

Joe French worked for ten years building a wharf. It is still called Joe French’s wharf by us locals, in spite of the fact that the govern- ment finished building it, and even installed a light at the end of the wharf. Joe French had started digging a well by the wharf, by hand,

with his shovel.

byiHea’rher Moore

muscled arms, atired face and a look of success in the eyes of a 60 year old man are the signs that in- dicate Joe French from Pan- mute Island had anything to do with building a wharf.

After fishing for 22 years off Panmure Island and'hav- ing- no wharf to dock his boat was enough reason to inspire Joe to start a pro- ject which would take him 10 years.

‘There’s no place for the fishermen todocktheir boats and I guess there would be about 12 fishing then,- so the need for the wharf was there and that’s howl got started,” Joe explains.

“After a big storm, a big piece of the old Gaspereaux wharf washed uponthe beach so I put barrels under it and towed it with a 5 hp motor on my boat up the

beach for about five miles.

and that was the start of the wharf.”

While only working on the

wharf during the summer after the fishing season, Joe hauled as much as a ton of solid rock in his boat at one time.

“I almost lost my life once,” he said rather calm- ly, f‘when I had the boat loaded with a ton of granite, she was up to the rising and sure enough, she sank.”

“I waited until low tide and then I had to unload the boat, put it back in the water and start all over again,” he continued.

After struggling with rocks, ballest and logs for 10 years Joe ~had built the wharf which was about 15 feet wide and approximat- ely 100 feet from the shore- line, then the government decided to take over the

job.

“Some men from the gov-

.ernment came down to look

at the place and decided we needed a wharf here so they save. .me,§890. ream trouble. That didn‘t pay for

the truck I wore out haul- ing the rocks and all the time I put into it but they got the job done,‘ he com- mented.

“Some of the stones I us— ed were from the first brick house in the Maritimes, it was just down the‘ road from where the wharf is now.”

When the government completed the wharf Joe felt there was aneed fora break- water, so in 1964 the work started all over again.

“It’s great to be able to work at it,” he said, “and even though I won’t be out fishing this _spring, be- cause of a heart attack I had last winter, I’ll still work at the breakwater some more.”

“The fishermen need a safe place to tie their boats, ” he concluded, “even though there’s mostly pleasure boats owned by tourists» comes in here now, we still need that breakwater.”

Worked for ID years building Panmure

Wharf

Joe French hauled tons and tons of rock for this wharf

Article from the Eastern Graphic newspaper