AUGUST 2018
later, started his own trucking company, High Roller Transport. Said Donna Crowell, one of the volunteers helping to prepare the meal that was part of the day honouring Comeau, “He was a legend. That is how they described him in New York and New Jersey. That’s not an easy run to do and he was a beast.”
Door remained open on maintaining Yarmouth
fire dispatch service
There remained hope that the Yarmouth fire dispatch service would be maintained after a late August meeting organized by the Yarmouth County Mutual Aid Association. Yarmouth Mayor Pam Mood, who attended the session, said the town might be prepared to look at the issue again. She asked the fire departments to have a letter written on their behalf and sent to the town for its consideration. Among other things, the departments were concerned about a Sept. 24 deadline that had been set by the town. By that date, the town wanted to know which fire departments intended to stay with the Yarmouth service and which would seek service elsewhere.
The departments said this timeline was too tight. The town had indicated in the spring it was looking into outsourcing the dispatch service, saying the existing model had the town paying a disproportionately high percentage of the cost. But the fire departments wanted the town to consider the value of the mutual aid service it received from them.
Weymouth fire levelled two buildings, damaged two others; New
France artifacts destroyed
Two buildings were destroyed and two others were damaged in a major fire in Weymouth. Firefighters from 11 departments responded to the blaze. There were no reports of injuries. Among those interviewed the morning of the Aug. 29 fire was Pat Comeau, owner of the Goodwin Hotel, across the street from the fire, who woke up at 4:30 a.m. and thought she heard construction work outside. A look out the window revealed what was really happening. Comeau, her family and hotel guests had to evacuate the building, which suffered some damage. “I didn’t think about anything else, just getting out safely,” she said.
Another structure, the Mazel Musical Arts Society building (a former bank), was severely damaged. The fire also destroyed artifacts pertaining to New France’s famed Electric City. These items were to have been the heart of an interpretive centre celebrating New France, which had been founded by the Stehelin family and was dubbed Electric City. “It’s a major setback,” Hal Theriault, one of those involved in the project, would say later when interviewed about the fire, “but it’s not going to defeat us.”
Oh deer, be careful
If you’re travelling through Cape Forchu in the wee hours of a foggy morning, you’d best be sporting a protective grill on the front of your vehicle. Just ask Paul Brittain. The Yarmouth County resident hit five deer in the past year while delivering papers in his ’03 Toyota Corolla.
The car, which has more than 500,000 km on it, has fenders so crumpled and dented from hitting deer, the ride could now be referred to as the battered buckmobile.
Brittain says he’s talking to the deer with his windows down as he drives the route at 3 and 4 a.m.: “Get out of the road you stupid deer!” Even while battling stage four terminal cancer, Yarmouth town councillor and community volunteer Sandy Dennis was thinking of others. “If you ask me what the hardest part of the cancer is, it’s that I can’t be out in the community,” she said in an August interview. She also saw the disease as a blessing, given that it had enabled her to help others by better understanding the struggles they had endured.