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00:00Here we are in Glacepay, Nova Scotia!
00:06On the eastern shore of Cape Breton, 30 minutes northeast of Sydney.
00:11How do you get here?
00:12Well, chances are you're west of here, so just drive east till your wheels get wet.
00:17It's about as east as east coast Canada gets.
00:20Mainland Canada, I mean.
00:22Although, I know Cape Breton is an island, but...
00:27I mean, like, you can drive, although I guess you can drive to PEI, and that's a real island.
00:33No! Let me start over, let me start over.
00:36Off the east coast of Canada is Cape Breton Island, and on the east coast of that,
00:41the nicest town you'll find, I dare say, is this, the beautiful town of Glacepay.
00:49Coal mining began here in the 1720s.
00:52They burned coal from this area when they were building Fort Lewisburg.
00:55And the neighbourhoods, even in the area, are named after the mines that they're built around.
01:01Caledonia, The Hub, New Aberdeen.
01:04If they named neighbourhoods in Toronto like that, like, after the most important thing in the area,
01:09I think my building would be in Jiggly's Junction.
01:14Who's been to Jiggly's Gentleman's Club?
01:20When you grow up in a small town in Newfoundland, you see the people have a sense of humour about
01:24hard times.
01:25I turned that into a career and hit the road.
01:28Mr. Johnny Harris!
01:30Now I'm on a mission to find the funny in the places you'd least expected.
01:34Canada's struggling small towns.
01:36Towns that are against the ropes, but hanging in there.
01:39Still laughing in the face of adversity.
01:41This is Glace Bay, Nova Scotia.
01:44Am I alive?
01:57I'm told Glace Bay means Bay of Ice.
02:01And indeed, for almost 300 years, this town was very cold.
02:08This was the biggest coal mining operation in Canada at the time.
02:12A population of over 28,000 people.
02:15There were 12 coal mines operating at the same time.
02:19And the mines themselves were massive, following the coal seams out under the cold North Atlantic around 10 kilometres.
02:33To learn about the history of Glace Bay, I found a fellow from a coal family who could tell me
02:38not only about the heyday, but also about the minor setbacks.
02:43Pat Brewster!
02:48Pat said back in the day there was coal dust everywhere.
02:51In the winter time, our snow wasn't snow white.
02:54There was so much coal being burnt in the town that sometimes the snow would be blacker than white.
03:01If you built a snowman in Glace Bay, that snowman not only represented diversity, but like the song, it actually
03:12had two eyes made out of coal.
03:16A lot of the kids who grew up around the train tracks would use their ingenuity to get coal and
03:22sell it to people.
03:23Pat told me when they were kids, they would sneak onto the rail cars in the Sterling rail yard.
03:29We'd have to climb the trains.
03:31Yeah.
03:32We'd take our bags up.
03:34We'd fill the bags, tie them up with a string and bring them down the road to the customers.
03:38And they sell these bags to neighbors for 25 cents a bag.
03:43And I don't think you could call that robbing.
03:44I mean, he's helping out local families.
03:46That's not Robin.
03:47That's more Robin Hood.
03:50And for Pat and his buddies, I mean, what's the worst could happen?
03:53If their parents caught them, you know, maybe for Christmas to get a stocking full of coal, they'd go sell
03:59that.
04:00They'd gather up and sell these bags of coal for a little bit of pocket money.
04:04Pat said they'd use that for, among other things, maybe buying some tickets, coming to see a movie here at
04:10the beautiful Savoy.
04:14This is gorgeous.
04:15This is not a small town theater.
04:17This was built back when the town was booming.
04:20Glace Bay was considered the largest town in Canada at one point.
04:24There were shops.
04:26There were grocery stores here.
04:27People would just cruise around these streets.
04:29He said commercial street.
04:31It was a huge hangout spot.
04:32It could be five to six hundred teenagers on this street, Friday and Saturday nights.
04:40And it would be rare if he'd seen a fight.
04:42Although he did say all the Protestant kids on one side of York Street and all the Catholics on the
04:48other.
04:52A lot of people from the Caribbean came up here in the early teens.
04:57They were recruited to come up to work in the mines and in the steel mills.
05:01His word got out that a good living could be made there.
05:05He said black workers got pushed out.
05:08Black miners got the shaft.
05:11When his dad was looking for work, they wouldn't hire him.
05:14The only work he could get would be a laborer down at the fish plant.
05:17Until my mother stepped up with one of her friends and they decided they're going to go up to the
05:22mine manager's office and gave him a little help.
05:25His mom with his older sister, when she was a baby, marched over to the office at the mine and
05:33demanded that they hire her husband.
05:38She said, you guys brought black workers here.
05:40They have families who need to be fed and they not only hired him, he worked his way up.
05:45He was union rep for years and years.
05:50I think Pat's mom would have been a great lawyer.
05:53You know what I mean?
05:54Are you the victim of employee discrimination?
05:57To ensure you an equitable workplace, I will march into your boss's office with a baby.
06:09Ironically, you know, the trains that ran on Glace Bay coal helped settle the West and from the West came
06:15oil and gas and that opened up an energy source that was more profitable.
06:25A few years later, there was a fire and shortly after that, the mines closed down for good.
06:33But it's incredible to hear that story and I'm glad I got to hear it from Pat because I almost
06:38didn't.
06:39My producer was worried that this episode was going to be too long.
06:42She said, can we lose the interview with Pat Brewster?
06:45I said, I don't know, I guess.
06:47Then, boom, the door opens up.
06:48There's Pat's mom holding the baby.
07:01I paid a visit to the Cape Breton Miners Museum. What a job they did with that place.
07:08They built the museum over the head of the Ocean Deep's mine.
07:13One of the tour guides, Sheldon, I don't know if he's here tonight.
07:16Hey, there he is. Sheldon took me down there.
07:18You go down there and it's a whole new understanding of what that kind of work must have been like.
07:23The damp, the dark.
07:26So they're only digging out the coal, which has seams in between the rock.
07:31Where we were, it was only four feet high.
07:33Now, neither Sheldon or I are about to go out for the raptors, but even we were, like, sort of
07:38hunched over.
07:40And he said it could get even smaller than that.
07:42I saw a picture.
07:43You see two guys lying on their side, covered in dust with pickaxes.
07:48It looks more like a jailbreak.
07:52Good, good, how are you?
07:57Since learning how coal is no longer king around here, I decided I needed to find out what keeps Glace
08:03Bay afloat these days.
08:05I met a woman who not only told me to shut my trap, she showed me how I went down
08:11the lobster boat with fisherman Tracy Murphy.
08:19She's third generation lobster fisherman.
08:22She said when she first went to work on the boat, her grandfather owned the boat.
08:26So out of respect, she went to ask him for permission.
08:29When you went to him, what did he have to say?
08:31If you're only going to be able to eat for the winter, you're never going to get rich at fishing.
08:34I find, you know, there's different riches, you know what I mean?
08:38You don't get to see a seal every day or all the things I get to see.
08:42So it depends on what your value is rich, I suppose.
08:45I mean, also, why do people bother getting rich?
08:49Why would somebody become a millionaire so they can own a boat and eat lobster all the time?
08:54She's already got that.
08:56My aunts, they would be embarrassed to take lobster for lunch or, you know, because it was like poor man's
09:03food.
09:03She said back in the day, lobster wasn't considered what it is now.
09:07The girls wouldn't take it. They would be embarrassed.
09:10Too embarrassed.
09:10Oh, yeah, yeah.
09:11To have lobster for lunch.
09:13For lunch. Oh, yeah.
09:13You were embarrassed to take out your lobster lunch while all the other, you know, hoity-toity kids had their
09:19bologna sandwiches and their fancy canned sausages from Vienna.
09:27Thinking someone's poor for having lobster, that's a bit like, it's like, oh, my God, look at that poor fella.
09:32Oh, the guy there with the tuxedo and the top hash, big white mustache, looks like he can only afford
09:37half a pair of glasses. Poor fella.
09:43The boys pulled some traps.
09:47We got at the lobsters.
09:49Oh, I can see one that's a big size.
09:51They're always the big one.
09:51We got some keepers.
09:53Tuck them in.
09:54The first thing you do with them is you band them. You put some rubber bands on their claws. They
10:00have two different size claws. One is a big crusher claw and then like a longer, thinner, sharper pincher claw.
10:10And I said to Tracy, I said, did one ever get you? And she said, yes. And she said, the
10:15pain you experience if you get bit by a lobster.
10:19I've made sounds I didn't know was possible.
10:22Is that right?
10:23Oh, yeah.
10:24The lobster bites you, not pinches, because it's a more accurate, the amount of pain, that's a more accurate description.
10:31No one runs into a hospital going, oh, my God, a Rottweiler pinched me.
10:37Sometimes they come out and they're all shooting across the floor and one will grab another one and just cut
10:43its claw right off.
10:44No.
10:45So you put the rubber bands on the claws because all the power in the claws for closing, not for
10:50opening. So you get two bands. Then it's like a bass player. It's in two bands, but powerless.
10:57The ones that we pulled were not very feisty. Tracy said it depends on the time of year.
11:02They're kind of more docile in May. Come July, when the water warms up, they're just click, click, click, click,
11:07click, click.
11:08If the temperature of the water rises at all, the females will get fierce.
11:12I thought, my God, I'd hate to be a male lobster who flushes the toilet while his missus is in
11:17the shower.
11:19You can tell the difference between the males and the females. The males have bigger claws, but the females have
11:26a bigger, wider tail, which, you know.
11:31Like a bigger tail, but hard. Yum.
11:43To catch the lobster, they bake them. There's a spike in the trap and they'll put mackerel or redfish on
11:50there.
11:50Although, Tracy said she's got friends who are fishermen. They'll stick a peck of McNugget sweetened sour sauce.
11:58That seems more dangerous. If the females can get fishes over a little bit of warm water,
12:04now you're going to trap one with McNugget sauce with no nuggets?
12:10Measure them up. Too little. Too little.
12:16You measure them from basically the eyes to the start of the tail.
12:18And if that length is too short...
12:20Maggie goes.
12:22I sort of realize now why I never got any action on dating sites.
12:26Do you know what I mean?
12:27Just like, no, too short. Too short. Too short. Too short. Too short.
12:52I'm talking about McFadgen's. I had a chat with Darren McFadgen.
13:01They make wonderful gingerbreads, beautiful buns, but they are best known for their fabulous fruitcake.
13:12And funny enough, that was my nickname in high school. Beautiful buns.
13:20Fruitcake is such an enigma. It's a mystery. It has such a curious taste. I feel like whenever I eat
13:25fruitcake, my brain is trying to figure out if I like it or not.
13:29Fruitcake sometimes hit and miss with people. Did you like it when you first tried it?
13:33No kids ever like fruitcake. Eventually, when you start eating it, it gets really good. If you want to get
13:37your kids to try fruitcake, just tell them there's rum in it. The alcohol burns off anyway, so it just
13:42leaves the flavor.
13:45McFadgen's Bakery has been making fruitcakes in Glace Bay since 1948. Darren said he started working there when he was
13:5211 years old.
13:53When I was a kid, you're holding the door open on windy days. You're helping customers out with the bags.
13:57If it's a busy day, you're shoveling the parking lot on snowstorms.
14:01That sounds to me a little bit like the fate of one of the bad kids in the Willy Wonka
14:06story.
14:07You get to spend every day in a place surrounded by cake. Oh, my God. Fruitcake.
14:17Now, McFadgen's wasn't always called McFadgen's. It used to be McFadgen's.
14:23In the 40s, Glace Bay was probably about 60% Catholic, maybe 25 or 30% Protestant.
14:29We went to separate schools. We had separate stores. There were separate hospitals.
14:32Back in the day, the Catholic-Protestant divide, that was a real thing.
14:37We were struggling to get a footing with the Catholic store owners and the Catholic churches and the Catholic dance
14:42halls and the Catholic schools.
14:43So my grandfather, he dropped the A out of the Mac and he turned us into Mc's.
14:51From the English-Scottish Protestant, M-A-C, to Mc, the Irish MC.
14:59But they not only changed the name of the company, they also changed the name of their kids as they
15:06were having them.
15:09Mom and Dad, they had six boys and three of us are MC's and three of us are M-A
15:13-C's.
15:14And I said, okay, so the eldest three siblings are Mac and the youngest three are Mick.
15:20And he said, you think so, right?
15:23My brother Kevin was MC, Donald was M-A-C, Byron was MC, Craig and Scott were M-A-C,
15:27I'm MC.
15:29Although, maybe that's the best strategy.
15:31I mean, when we get to the pearly gates, if St. Peter asks you a Catholic or Protestant, he can
15:35claim dual citizenship.
15:40So we have our dark deluxe with pecans, our light deluxe with pecans, our light deluxe with marzipan, our dark
15:46deluxe with marzipan.
15:4833% fruit, our dark with a 33% fruit and our light with a 45% fruit.
15:53This is the fruit cakiest of all the fruit cakes.
15:56It is, yeah.
15:56His fruit cake, I think I loved it.
15:59I taste spices and nuts and rum.
16:02I'm like, oh, this is great.
16:02Then it's like, green cherry.
16:04What the hell is...
16:05How did that even...
16:06What is a green...
16:07How did it get green?
16:08Do I like this?
16:09I'm not sure.
16:10My brain needs more evidence.
16:12I gotta keep eating more fruit cake.
16:14Try to figure it out.
16:15Not bad.
16:16Yeah.
16:17That's very good.
16:19I think you've won me over.
16:21I think I like fruit cake.
16:23Never would have thought it.
16:24When he was showing me the fruit cake, Darren, he pronounced marzipan.
16:28He pronounced it marzipan.
16:30And I can prove it because I got it on film.
16:35I love film.
16:36You hear film in parts of Newfoundland.
16:38I cracked up our first day here.
16:40Someone pulled up in the car.
16:41Saw all the cameras and they're like, what are you filming?
16:57You know folks, not all queens wear crowns.
16:59In fact, around here they often wear full face modular helmets.
17:03We met on the beautiful beach by Schooner Pond.
17:06They were standing side by side by side by side.
17:09Throttle queens Kelly Harding and Lindsay Reynolds.
17:16They told me about the Marconi Throttle Queens.
17:20This is a women's group of ATV riders who get together and ride the trails around Glace Bay and beyond.
17:26I moved here three years ago and I never really knew women that drove.
17:30So I drove with men.
17:32We were at a trailblazers meeting.
17:34They said they'd like to get the women involved.
17:37So I started it.
17:41And we cleared a bunch of trails.
17:43We did a lot of work.
17:44The first ride that she organized, she was worried.
17:48She was like, oh my God, is anybody going to show up?
17:50I said, like, I'm going to be so embarrassed if nobody shows up.
17:53She figured if they had five bikes it would be successful.
17:5728 bikes and 36 women showed up and I had no clue what I was doing.
18:01You're next, brother.
18:07Of course women want to do that kind of thing with each other.
18:13I call it my wind therapy.
18:15Like, you know, when I'm feeling down.
18:16You get out there and the wind's blowing in your face.
18:18It's just so therapeutic.
18:22You can talk about stuff at the end of the day with other women
18:25that you're not maybe going to talk about.
18:27You could complain about your husbands or your wives
18:30or your complaining about anything from your partner to your pap smear, you know?
18:40Even little things like, like pee breaks.
18:43On the runs, we stop more often and a little longer.
18:46Not only that, we feel like we have to go three kilometers into the woods.
18:51We don't want our bare asses hanging out, you know, the backside.
18:54For men, it's easy.
18:55I mean, being on the trail, it's like being in the bedroom.
18:58And we just whip it out.
18:59A minute later, you're done.
19:00No fuss.
19:02But for women, it's not comfortable popping a squat in the woods.
19:06Especially around a bunch of hairy arse fellas.
19:10I don't care how easy going you are.
19:12You're never going to see a woman who's like,
19:14Oh, Dougie, I saw you that time.
19:16You almost flipped that bike.
19:17Oh, no, I saw that.
19:19You headed up on two wheels like that?
19:21I thought you were going over.
19:29Oh, I saw it.
19:30I got it on GoPro, I think.
19:33Yes, I got a GoPro on the front of my bike.
19:35I'm not absolutely sure if it was actually filming.
19:43You look good, girl.
19:44You look good.
19:46Fruitcake!
19:48Here in Glace Bay, where lobster fishermen carry on the tradition.
19:53Not as dangerous as coal mining, true.
19:55But stay clear of those claws till you get them in the pot
19:58or it's the lobster taking bites out of you.
20:05St. Peter, don't you call me,
20:06because I don't know which last name to give you.
20:09Should I use Mac or Mick?
20:12Miles into the deep, dark mine,
20:14they'd meet the coal face and jackhammer it
20:17at least a mile beneath the seabed
20:20of the deep, dark North Atlantic.
20:23On the east coast of Canada,
20:25their legacy lives in Glace Bay's sons and daughters,
20:29where miners went down and came up from the ground
20:32and the sun rises up from the water.
20:34Thanks for coming out, everybody.
20:36You've been amazing.
20:38Thanks so much.
20:48It brought out everything about coal mining.
20:51I thought it was beautiful.
20:56When I was in high school,
20:57there were still three and four hundred kids
20:59on commercial streets on a Friday night.
21:04Food game!
21:08It was pretty surprising to see Johnny Papa Squad on stage.
21:20Two Cape Breton thumbs up there, baby.
21:22Let's take it away.
21:25Two Cape Breton.
21:26You
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