As this edition of the paper prepares to go to print, news comes of an important community meeting planned for Friday, November 20 in Queenstown.  The meeting is being organized by the Orange Lodge to draw attention to a situation it feels will affect all residents in the local communities of Queenstown, Hampstead, Central Hampstead, Pleasant Villa, Elm Hill, Upper Hampstead and surrounding area.

The provincial government has informed the Orange Hall that beginning this winter it will no longer be plowing community halls and designated emergency gathering locations like churches. The Orange Hall in Queenstown caters to all community gatherings including being an emergency centre and rallying place in the event of a disaster. It’s also a polling station for elections, local service district elections, community information meetings, 4-H Club meetings, meetings of organizations, a location for holding receptions after funerals, community breakfasts, suppers and fund-raisers and many more community activities.  Along Route 102, it is the only community gathering place between the Village of Gagetown and Browns Flat.

Hall officials say their yard is too large to be plowed by any equipment available in the local area.  If the yard isn’t plowed, people will have to park along the highway.  This, they say, will create a very dangerous situation as the hall is located between a sharp turn and the top of a steep hill. Parking along the highway is courting disaster.  If the government is not willing to reconsider their decision, it will be necessary to winterize the hall and end all public functions and gatherings until the spring. Orange Hall officials are looking to the community to show support and share ideas and suggestions on ways to deal with this situation.

Further upriver, as the village of Gagetown prepares for Christmas in the Village festivities on November 28th and 29th, there was concern the ferry was going to be shut down on November 27th. Apparently one of the ferry workers received a lay-off notice to be effective on that day. Some local retailers have been lobbying the Department of Transportation to leave the ferry on until after the Chistmas in the Village weekend because this event brings people to Gagetown from all over the area. As this issue of the paper goes to print, we’ve been told that Eugene McGinley, MLA for Grand Lake-Gagetown has intervened and said the ferry will be staying on as long as it reasonably can be left there and definitely until after Christmas in the Village. He says the cold weather is the factor that will dictate when the ferry is taken off its run because DOT needs to be able to have a tug boat travel up the river and haul the ferry to its winter storage location. Local residents were hoping the ferry would keep operating until freeze-up.

photo by Bonnie Hamilton Bogart

About a hundred people spent the New Brunswick Day afternoon dancing and marching to fiddle music and a bagpiper on the Gagetown Ferry. Residents chose the holiday to celebrate their ferry and the history of cable ferries in the province. The story of the invention of the cable ferry by Captain William Pitt over a hundred years ago was told. Organizers handed leaflets to ferry passengers detailing their fight to save the service in Gagetown and Belleisle after the province wanted to shut them down to save money. It was a fun and festive day for all involved. Former liberal cabinet minister and Gagetown resident Vaughn Blaney said the old ferry was all decked out like a young bride.

LISTEN TO INTERVIEW WITH VAUGHN BLANEY

LISTEN TO INTERVIEW WITH REV. ROBERT MCDOWELL

As this issue of the newspaper hits the streets there are only a few days of life left for the Gagetown, Hampstead and Belleisle ferries. The provincial government extended the run for a month but unless something has changed in the last few days, the almost two hundred year old tradition of a river ferry in Gagetown is coming to an end.

The government announced in the budget it was cutting these services to save 1.5 million dollars. Despite protests and rallies, the minister and the premier say they are not changing their minds. Supporters of the ferries have made it clear they aren’t backing down either.

They received a boost at the last Village of Gagetown Council Meeting when Conservative Opposition Leader David Alward pledged to reverse the Liberal government’s decision to scrap the ferries, if he’s elected premier in 2010.

Former Liberal Cabinet Minister and Gagetown native, Vaughn Blaney says losing the ferry is like having a rug pulled out from under you. “It’s very difficult for me to believe that the ferry of the Shiretown would be gone,” says Blaney. “But I have a sense that this is the tip of the iceberg. If their reasons are economical because of the age of them, (ferries) well you better hang on to Westfield and Evandale and right on around.” Blaney sees this fight as a wake-up call for all of rural New Brunswick. “In the last depression it was rural New Brunswick who fed the fat cats in the urban area and if this whole country goes down the tube, it’ll be rural New Brunswick again that they’ll be coming to and saying please feed us, please get us out of this.” Blaney introduced himself at a recent Gagetown rally to save the ferries as a P.O.L. – Pissed Off Liberal.

At the same rally, Jean-Frances & Dick Mann drove all the way from Bathurst to voice their opposition to the government decision. They say the province should be promoting rural NB and the ferries are part of the whole fabric of the way people live, you just can’t rip it apart.

“This is just the first, watch out Westfield and Gondola Point,” warns Queenstown resident Anne Fawcett. She’s convinced this is just the beginning of the end for all river ferries. She fears this government decision may throw her into bankruptcy. “I’m partially disabled and can’t teach anymore,” she says. “Last summer I got a job as a deckhand on the Hampstead ferry and loved it. It was best job I ever had.”

The fight over ferry service has brought these river communities together like never before. Jemseg, Cambridge Narrows, Hampstead, Queenstown, Upper Gagetown are all working together along with other communities affected by the Belleisle ferry closure. They’ve already organized rallies at home and in Frederiction, collected names on petitions and launched letter writing campaigns. They’re determined to continue fighting to the end. “We’re just going to fight right to the last day,” says Gagetown farmer Wilf Hiscock. “We’re going to try and keep the ferry. It’s our road. It’s our bridge. We’re just not going to turn belly up. We’re going to keep fighting because we’re one big community here and this has brought everyone closer together than ever before.”

Gagetown councillor and United Church Minister, Rev. Robert McDowell is still hoping the Graham government will change its mind and maintain the service but if it doesn’t he says they’ll insist the infrastructure remain in place. If they try to remove it he says they will defend it and do what they need to do to preserve it, including civil disobedience. “We’ll plan on having all night vigils at the ferry,” says McDowell. ” We’ll have someone sit there all night because I suspect if they do come to take the ferry it’ll be in the dark because they know they wouldn’t be able to do it during the day.”

McDowell says they’re looking at all the options in this fight including taking legal against the province but he wasn’t able to give any details just yet. He says the government did this with the intent of sweeping the economy of these little communities away and that, he says, is immoral.

The Gagetown, Hampstead and Belleisle ferries are due to stop running for good at the end of April.