MARCO POLO MONTH IN SAINT JOHN - or Mr. Ogden loses a game of musical chairs

I have written before of the family owned shipyards which lined the mudbanks of Marsh Creek in the 19th Century. They are the stuff of legend. New Brunswick school children enjoy the tale of how the clipper MARCO POLO was damaged in the creek at launching, and how that accident warped the hull. Somehow it made the clipper faster. It was the sort of twist-ending our ancestors loved. O. Henry couldn't have done better with it. Stories are great, but they don't fill hotel rooms, and Saint John has plenty of those. That said, I feel a little bad for High School teacher Barry Ogden who says that all he wanted to do was to give the tourists something to point cameras at. Twenty five years ago he conceived of building a scale model of the MARCO POLO... a really BIG model. He planned an exhibit with dimensions to rival the motorized floats in the Toronto Santa Claus Parade. The project got enough media support to fill a scrapbook, volunteers began to assemble, and cash donations started to fill his kettle. Then something happened. Choke, stumble... fizzle. The big boat never did float. Even though Saint John's waterfront got a glitzy makeover, the clipper ship MARCO POLO just didn't fit anyone's idea of a harbour-side prop, and his unfinished model began to gather dust in a West Saint John warehouse.

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And then, (as Salieri gushed in Peter Shaffer's AMADEUS), "A miracle!" Local culture bugs in Saint John announced that MARCO POLO: The Musical had received generous government funding and would debut on October 23, 2010. The venue was to be Harbour Station, the giant ice hockey rink which now squats beside the throughway, where our lost Union Station once greeted transcontinental rail passengers. Mr. Ogden offered his giant scale model as a backdrop for the musical. A perfect fit, and what more appropriate way to get out from under the 25 year old elephant!!? Much relieved, Ogden announced that he had arranged for a free tractor trailer lift across the harbour bridge to the rink site in the Valley.

Saint John high school teacher Barry Ogden poses in front of the freshly painted model of the famous tall ship MARCO POLO. This photo accompanied an article in the TELEGRAPH JOURNAL on October 18. At the time, Mr. Ogden had reason to believe he would be relieved of his decades old burden of a project that had run out of steam.

Unfortunately the scale model MARCO POLO missed the tide, or at least its first casting call. The producers of the musical waved off the hull (I'm not sure if masts and sails exist) in the eleventh hour. Mr. Ogden, very desperate no doubt, offered to offload the behemoth in the parking lot of the hockey rink, for static display. The ref blew his whistle and no truck rolled. Not to be rebuffed, Mr. Ogden continues to insist that his scale replica will one day become a lucrative water front attraction. "It's going to be the most photographed site and probably the greatest icon we have." Once suspects the S.J.H.S. teacher will be taking his pension before very long, and the hulk will find a home in somebody's rose garden.

Where have all the shipwrights gone? Long time passing?.....In a single productive day in April, 1880 the NELLIE G. TROOP and the PAROLE were launched in Portland and the MELLO and HARVESTER were launched in Carlton. After 25 years a team of volunteers in Saint John has yet to finish a scale replica of the city's darling tall ship MARCO POLO.

STEALING ANVILS ON PARADISE ROW

I have a thick file of stories of the people who lived and worked on Paradise Row, one of my favorite streets in the LOST VALLEY. Recently I was sorting the file and one absurdity from 1880 caught my attention. I was reminded of an old German proverb, and I soon located it in a book published in 1857. My ancestors in Saint John would have known it, I think. "Every beginning is hard, said the thief, when he began by stealing an anvil."

In the case at hand the thief was Alexander Hamilton, age unknown but obviously very fit, who stole two anvils from the McDonald & Walsh stoneyard on Paradise Row. Taken into custody, he finally bolted when he reached the city jail. Though policeman McFadden got in a stunning blow with his baton, Hamilton escaped.

The mind conjures a startling picture. Alex. Hamilton had his pick of businesses in the Valley, so why a stonecutters yard? He would have to own, hire or borrow a horse and wagon or at minimum a hand cart, to escape with dead weight. One does wonder if the fellow had a future in crime.

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THE BLUENOSE II - Jobs for the Boatyard Boys in 2011

So what does happen when an Maritime government gets behind a nautical history project - be it a salvage, a reconstruction, a replica or a scale model? Money flows ! Have a look at a recent CBC News story which discusses a make work project underway on the "iconic" BLUENOSE II. The Nova Scotia government is paying out $14,800,000 for a rebuild of the tiny schooner. It's a reconstruction of the replica of the original using better materials. [Article]