The Pleasant Bay Fire of 1947

Written by Ann Hart, published in The Participaper, summer 2006

Pleasant Bay Fire of 1947

Pleasant Bay

"During the first week of August 1947 in Cape Breton, eggs were fried on the Sydney sidewalks as an experiment.  It was so hot that week that the eggs cooked.  That same week, in the Cape Breton Highlands, a fire started up the MacKenzie River valley between Cheticamp and Pleasant Bay.  It was 120 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind was strong. 

    August 6, 1947:  T.C, Fenton, the Superintendent of the Cape Breton Highlands Park, Ingonish Beach wrote, "My first knowledge of the Pleasant Bay fire came from Warden Roach, stating that smoke was visible up the MacKenzie River valley.  I arranged for him to gather up a few men and such equipment as they could carry and meet me at the river [bridge].  We walked from there to the fire.  The best going we could find was up the streambed and this was not good.  The fire was only a few miles up the river but it took several hours of hard walking to get to it.

     It was not a large fire when we first reached it and it was burning in a series of ledges and crevices high up on an almost vertical rock face.  There were many rumors of arson, careless travelers and such at that time but, from [its] situation, when I first saw it, I think it most likely to have been started by lightning, friction or some other natural cause."

     As the village watched the smoke above the MacKenzie, a young May Grant was arriving from Scotland to meet Alfred Timmons to begin her new life in Nova Scotia.  She flew in on a passenger plane with no soundproofing, and one can only imagine how tiring this journey had been.  When she landed in Sydney she was met by the ferocious heat and her fiancé, whom she had met while he was serving in the Cape Breton Highlands 5th Canadian Army Division in Europe.  They had waited until the Pacific war was over and May had saved enough coupons for her trousseau before being married.

In a borrowed wedding dress she married Alfred in Sydney, changed into her city suit and matching high heels, before boarding the bus to Cheticamp.  A station wagon shuttle from Cheticamp took them to Pleasant Bay, where they arrived just as the smoke from the fire was moving down the river. 

     The old Timmons homestead was up the Lower End Road, four miles in from the crossroads.  Alfred's parents still lived in the house and May and Alfred planned to live with them.  Alfred's sister, Viola, had made a cake for the wedding reception and everyone in Pleasant Bay had been invited to the party.  Just as the celebration was about to begin, the fire roared into Pleasant Bay. 

 August 11: Remembering the Fire, from the Cape Breton Magazine:

Mary Fraser, telephone operator, recalls that, "It was the RCMP that came that day.  He said, 'you had better get ready now, because it's [the fire] getting too close.'  That was about 1:00 in the afternoon.  So we got ready. We had two cabins down in the field there, so we took a lot of stuff down there...we were sure our house would burn, anyway, and we left.  It was on a Monday see --- on the Friday before, the fire flew up out of the river and we could see it right up there, going by...there was this pink light that the fire cast...and we thought we were safe.  But of course, it was still smoldering.  Saturday, everything was fine.  Sunday evening I saw a lot of cars from after church come up to the mountain to see the fire.  It seemed to be burning pretty bad then and they were all up to watch this fire.  In the morning everybody knew that it couldn't miss us.  There were people in all kinds of trucks and cars.  They were calling people to come to fight the fire, and there was a bunch out there that Monday morning, way up on top of the mountain there, fighting the fire.  And they pretty near got caught up there...young men...most of them were from up here.  They were carrying water on their backs...such a job."

Rod Fraser:  "It was burning on MacKenzie Mountain way out for a week and a half before it came down here.  I don't think it's ever been known how it started.  I know we had a lightning storm just a few days before that.  I was the first one that saw the fire.  I was coming over from Cheticamp...but of course they didn't pay much attention to it at first.  You saw the smoke, but there were no trails then, no way to get at it.  They couldn't fight it.  They were just praying for rain.  Instead of that, it was gradually getting worse. So we left here when everybody was ordered out.  Mostly everybody that could go went.  Of course, there were a few of the men stayed here, but all the women folk went out.  I think we were the second last of the cars to leave here.  And it was so hot going up MacKenzie Mountain that I had to keep the windows up to keep the heat out of the car."

The women and children were evacuated to the beach to wait for boats and trucks to take them to safety in Cheticamp, while the men took a pump, a truck and backpacks filled with water and squirters to protect the houses as best they could.  In those days the Cabot Trail was not paved.  Boats were brought in from Cheticamp to take people out and a tent village was set up there to house them.

Rod Fraser:  "When I [took] the wife and daughter through [to Cheticamp], I had started with the idea of getting back to Pleasant Bay again, but I couldn't get back.  I met people who said you couldn't get through, the fire was all over the road and everything was burnt.  So I went back to Cheticamp then and we hired a motorboat, myself and the mailman down there, John MacGregor, hired one of those big longliners. And when we got down there you couldn't see Pleasant Bay for the smoke.  The first thing I saw was the driftwood on the beach, burning.  I knew then that everything was gone. The smoke was so thick... we couldn't get near the wharf.  And it was rough, blowing just a terrible gale.  We managed to pick up just one boatload.  They were miserable, you know, and then we had to pull out of there. There were women and children down there, waiting to get out, people that didn't get away by land.  Picked up what we could, but we had to leave there, we couldn't take them all; we couldn't get ashore.  So there were a lot of people spent the night on the beach, all night.  We took what we could back to Cheticamp."

Local residents still remember:

Kenneth Hector Moore was one-year-old in 1947.  His father Hector Daniel had just finished moving his wife Christina and their children into a new house when the fire came.  They took their belongings to the shore in the hope that they could be saved.  The family drove through smoke and flames to Cheticamp.  The fire burned their house, belongings and land; they lost everything.  The family moved to Dingwall and was not able to return to Pleasant Bay until 1950.  Kenneth was too young to remember these experiences but he is active in the Pleasant Bay genealogical and historical societies and has compiled a large collection of photos, slides and articles about Pleasant Bay. 

Alfred Timmons:  "You couldn't do anything in this part of the settlement.  It was just wild.  It would explode when flames hit, and the wind was so strong. The houses just exploded and collapsed.  The noise was like thunder." 

Beatrice Timmons was 9-years-old and remembers the people in Red River carrying all her family's furniture to the beach.  The piano was taken but she can't remember whether it got back home after the fire had passed her house and died out.  She stayed in the tent city in Cheticamp during the evacuation. "I was so scared," she says, "the smoke and flames were roaring toward us as we drove up the mountain to leave town." 

The Timmons’ chickens ate May and Alfred's wedding cake while the villagers regrouped.  And the men worked in Red River to keep the fire from going further up that way.  "I was running the {pump] motor in Red River," remembers Alfred Timmons. "The wind was so strong it carried the cinders across Red River.  The smoke was almost to the top of the mountain ...and it was burning.  It didn't go far across the river."  [The "Lower End" escaped the fire and the Red River settlement homesteads were spared as well.]  

August 19:  From the Sydney Post-Record, ”Yesterday, 10 men who had been trapped between encircling flames and the sea, clambered down a sheer cliff-face and leaped into rescue boats as flames ate through foliage at their heels.  Finally, on the night of August 19/20, the first rain in four weeks poured down.” 

From The Pleasant Bay Community Directory:  “The fire was 5 miles wide and 8 miles long.  Nine thousand acres of land were destroyed.  Between 20 and 40 homes were lost, along with the church, school, a store, garages, fish storage sheds, etc.  Wild game and thousands of acres of forest land were also lost.  Meanwhile, in Cheticamp, the displaced residents of Pleasant Bay lived in tents and were fed and cared for by the Cheticamp people and by the Red Cross.  When the fire was out the town was flattened and black.”

May Timmons:  "When I came to Pleasant Bay I had 3 pairs of high-heeled shoes.  I had no flat shoes.  I went down to the beach with high heels on.  I arrived in Cheticamp wearing this nice suit with one perfectly good shoe and one with the heel torn off.  I was limping - the city girl hits the woods!  We stayed a few days in Cheticamp. When we got back here, Red River was okay but Pleasant Bay was all black and burned.  It was like a bad dream."  

Alfred Timmons:  "The government supplied lumber for the rebuilding process.  Everybody chipped in together and helped build the houses.  No money was exchanged in those days.  It didn't take long to set the houses up.  With 20 people working, in a couple of weeks work there would be a house."  

The trees around Pleasant Bay have grown back and there are no signs remaining of that terrible fire.  Today, the local men and one woman serve on the volunteer fire department.  There are now two fire trucks, an emergency rescue team, and better connections to summon help from the outside world. But the village is still isolated by forested mountains and sea. Evacuation plans are in place - just in case.  Thankfully, they have not been required since 1947.  Fire chief Murray Pattingale says that the challenges of protecting the small village and surrounding lands are varied and immense, but the experience of learning to serve the town in this essential way is rewarding.  "The worst thing about being on the volunteer fire crew is that we may have to fight a big forest fire some day.”  And what does he consider the best thing?  “It gives all of us a way to work together to help everyone here.”

And, after all, isn’t that the Cape Breton Island way?

References: The Pleasant Bay Community Directory:

Pleasant Bay Library HRDC Youth Service Canada Project, 2003

Cape Breton Magazine

T.C. Fenton memoirs

Sydney Post Record